Leveraging Microsoft's 365 Security Suite

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Misconfigurations are one of the leading causes of cloud breaches. They’re often small and easy to overlook,  a legacy mailbox rule, an old app registration, or a permissive sharing setting that no one realised was public. These details rarely seem urgent until they’re exploited.

Regular audits bring these issues to light early. They also create documented proof that controls such as MFA, device compliance, and threat protection are enforced something insurers, regulators, and customers increasingly expect to see.

Most importantly, an audit gives IT and security teams a clear view of their tenant’s current state so they can prioritise fixes based on risk, not assumptions.

There’s no single way to audit Microsoft 365. At Enso, we use two complementary approaches.

Manual expert review

Security engineers perform a detailed, hands-on review of key areas including Entra ID, Intune, Exchange, SharePoint, and Teams. They check how Conditional Access, Defender, and data protection settings align with Microsoft’s latest best practices. This approach is contextual and human led, it’s about understanding intent, not just what a scanner flags.

Pulsestate Cloud audit

For a deeper, automated view, PulseState (powered by Pentera) Cloud performs a safe, real-world test of your Microsoft 365 configuration. It emulates attacker behaviour to identify exploitable misconfigurations and validate which weaknesses are reachable. The result is a verified picture of your exposure that goes beyond policy compliance.

Many organisations choose to combine both methods. The manual review provides clarity and recommendations, while PulseState Cloud shows how those weaknesses could be exploited in practice.

A M365 audit usually focuses on several key areas:

• Identity and access controls: MFA enforcement, Conditional Access, admin roles, and privileged accounts.
• Device management: Intune compliance, encryption, and patching.
• Data protection: Sensitivity labels, DLP rules, and sharing policies.
• Threat protection: Defender for Office 365 settings, malware filters, and alert tuning.
• Collaboration tools: SharePoint and Teams permissions, third-party app access, and data governance.

Together, these provide a comprehensive view of how secure your tenant really is and where to prioritise improvements.

 A good audit doesn’t just produce a long list of findings. It provides insight you can act on:

• A prioritised action plan that separates high-impact fixes from low-risk noise.
• A clear comparison of your Secure Score before and after remediation.
• Documentation that supports Cyber Essentials Plus or internal compliance reviews.
• A follow-up session to validate progress and confirm improvements.

The aim is to make improvement measurable and clearly documented not just “more secure,” but demonstrably more secure.

Even well-managed tenants evolve quickly. New applications are added, accounts remain active longer than intended, and security settings change to accommodate day-to-day needs. Running a Microsoft 365 audit annually, or after major changes, helps maintain alignment with Microsoft’s evolving ecosystem and prevents small misconfigurations from becoming larger vulnerabilities.

A Microsoft 365 audit isn’t a checkbox exercise. It’s a practical way to understand how well your environment is secured and to maintain confidence that your defences are working as intended