This family-run property development business sought a reliable partner to accompany it on its journey and offer continuous support as it grows. They partnered with Forge Technologies to evaluate their current Microsoft 365 environment and create an IT roadmap for years to come.
The company’s IT setup, which started as a simple configuration, had grown more complex over time, and the internal team lacked the capacity and resources to manage its current state.
Seeing the worldwide increase in hacking, cybercrime, and phishing attacks, the company had cybersecurity concerns. Although they knew they needed to act, they were unsure about the specific problems or if any existed. Set up in-house, the customer didn’t have clear visibility or control over its Microsoft Tenant. Looking to the future, the customer wanted to implement the right practices to help them achieve Cyber Essentials and, eventually, ISO certifications.
The Activity
Forge Technologies performed a remote Microsoft 365 audit, investigating over 30 areas. In less than two days, the customer received a report ranking the issues by severity (red, amber, green). We identified critical security holes that needed immediate attention and areas that required remediation but were not urgent. Some of the findings were commercial, such as moving certain users to different licenses to access more features for less cost.
Following the audit, we took two actions. First, we put together a proposal, which progressed through different stages. The first stage involved moving Microsoft licensing from the company credit card to managed CSP with Forget Technologies. This allows us to optimise the licensing, ensure the right feature sets are in place, negotiate the right commercials, and implement necessary security settings, which are quick wins and eliminate immediate vulnerabilities.
Stag two will focus on endpoint management and device management. To date, updating
security policies, patching, and enrolling new users has been a manual process done device by device. We will implement Microsoft Intune and Autopilot to manage all devices centrally, resulting in increased efficiency and better security.
The Result
One of the most critical issues we flagged was around user access management. Every employee had access to everything, including HR files and accounts. This possessed several risks. Someone could delete important data, or employees could be nosy and access sensitive information such as National Insurance numbers. If an account gets compromised, hackers could steal valuable information. We enabled Conditional Access and reconfigured user settings to prevent unauthorised access and reset any compromised applications.
The audit revealed that users had full admin privileges, which allowed them to create and
register any application and download anything they wanted. We fixed this issue by setting up specific admin roles and revoking access from other users. This included creating the right user profiles, implementing access restrictions, and designing policies to resolve the problem.
Default security settings were not configured in the Azure environment, meaning that multi-factor authentication, user identity verification, blocking unauthenticated protocols, and privileged access were not enabled. We upgraded the customer’s licenses and implemented basic security settings. Additionally, the customer had no password policies in place, so we helped them define those.
For ongoing support, Forge Technologies provides a flexible and scalable managed service agreement to help both us and them understand the customer’s IT support requirements. The remote service offers support and coverage when they need it, enabling us to gather information to optimise the network further.
