How to Improve Your Microsoft 365 Secure Score
Your Microsoft 365 Secure Score is a numerical representation of your security posture. If yours is sitting below 50%, your tenant is vulnerable to credential stuffing, unauthorized logins, and data leaks.
7 min read · M365 Hardening
What is M365 Secure Score?
Microsoft compares your tenant configuration against their recommended baselines. As you implement security features (like MFA, session timeouts, and conditional access), your score increases. Improving this score directly reduces your business risk.
1. Require Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
This is the single highest-impact action you can take. Enabling MFA for all users will instantly protect against 99.9% of identity-based attacks and boost your Secure Score significantly.
- Require MFA for administrative roles immediately.
- Enforce MFA for standard users using Microsoft Authenticator (avoid SMS authentication if possible).
- Implement Conditional Access policies to regulate when and how users are prompted.
2. Disable Legacy Authentication Protocols
Older protocols like IMAP, POP3, and SMTP Auth do not support MFA. Hackers actively target these protocols to bypass modern security filters and gain unauthorized access to mailboxes.
Ensure legacy protocols are blocked using Azure AD (Microsoft Entra ID) Conditional Access or Tenant-Wide security defaults.
3. Configure Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR)
SSPR allows users to reset their own passwords securely without IT intervention, reducing administrative overhead. Enabling SSPR requires users to register contact authentication options and increases your posture score.
4. Turn On Audit Logging
Audit logging tracks user and administrator activities across Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, and Azure. By default, audit logging might not be enabled on older tenants. Turning it on ensures you have forensic evidence in the event of a breach or compliance audit.
The Pitfall: Scoring points vs. Actual Security
It's easy to treat Secure Score as a checklist game. However, blindly enabling every security suggestion can disrupt company workflows (e.g. blocking legitimate external guest access or forcing users to input MFA codes multiple times per day). Secure configuration must find the right balance between operational convenience and compliance standards.
Verify your tenant's external domain status
Securing internal M365 identity is only half the battle. Run a free domain scan to ensure your email deliverability configuration is fully hardened.
Or book a free security audit for a complete manual tenant assessment.