Cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated and frequent, targeting organiSations of all sizes and industries. To defend against these threats, you need a comprehensive and integrated security solution that can detect, prevent, investigate, and respond to attacks across your digital estate. That’s where Microsoft 365 Defender comes in.
Microsoft 365 Defender is a unified pre-and post-breach enterprise defense suite that natively coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, and applications to provide integrated protection against sophisticated attacks. It leverages the Microsoft 365 security portfolio to automatically analyse threat data across domains, building a complete picture of each attack in a single dashboard.
In this blog post, I will show you how Microsoft 365 Defender can help you protect your organisation from cyberattacks, and how you can get started with it.
What are the benefits of Microsoft 365 Defender?
Microsoft 365 Defender offers several benefits for your organisation, such as:
- Reducing the complexity and cost of security operations by consolidating multiple security products and services into one platform.
- Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of security teams by providing a unified portal, automated workflows, and actionable insights.
- Enhancing the security posture and resilience of your organisation by applying advanced protection, detection, and response capabilities across your environment.
- Enabling faster and more confident decision making by providing a holistic and correlated view of the threat landscape and the impact of attacks.
What are the components of Microsoft 365 Defender?
Microsoft 365 Defender consists of the following components:
- Microsoft Defender for Endpoint: A unified endpoint platform for preventative protection, post-breach detection, automated investigation, and response.
- Microsoft Defender for Office 365: A cloud-based service that safeguards your organisation against malicious threats posed by email messages, links (URLs) and collaboration tools.
- Microsoft Defender for Identity: A cloud-based security solution that leverages your on-premises Active Directory signals to identify, detect, and investigate advanced threats, compromised identities, and malicious insider actions directed at your organisation.
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps: A comprehensive cloud access security broker (CASB) solution that provides visibility, control, and protection for your cloud applications.
- Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management: A service that delivers continuous asset visibility, intelligent risk-based assessments, and built-in remediation tools to help your security and IT teams prioritise and address critical vulnerabilities and misconfigurations across your organisation.
- Microsoft Entra ID Protection: A service that helps you protect your organisation from compromised identities by detecting and investigating identity-based risks and automating remediation actions.
- Microsoft Data Loss Prevention: A service that helps you identify, monitor, and protect sensitive information across your environment.
- App Governance: A service that helps you monitor and remediate risky app behaviors and data exposure in Microsoft Cloud App Security.
How to get started with Microsoft 365 Defender?
To get started with Microsoft 365 Defender, you need to have the following prerequisites:
- A Microsoft 365 E5 or Microsoft 365 E5 Security license for each user or device that you want to protect.
- A Microsoft Entra ID tenant that is associated with your Microsoft 365 subscription.
- A Microsoft Entra ID global administrator account that has access to the Microsoft Entra admin center and the Microsoft 365 Defender portal.
The configuration steps are as follows:
- Enable Microsoft 365 Defender in the Microsoft Entra admin center: Go to the Microsoft Entra admin center, browse to Billing > Products & services, and select Microsoft 365 Defender. Click on Manage, and then turn on the toggle for Microsoft 365 Defender.
- Enable the individual components of Microsoft 365 Defender: Go to the Microsoft 365 Defender portal, and click on the Settings icon on the left navigation pane. Under General, click on Features, and then turn on the toggles for the components that you want to enable, such as Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, Defender for Identity, Defender for Cloud Apps, etc.
- Configure the individual components of Microsoft 365 Defender: Go to the Microsoft 365 Defender portal, and click on the Settings icon on the left navigation pane. Under each component, click on the corresponding settings, such as Endpoint settings, Email & collaboration settings, Identity settings, Cloud app settings, etc. Follow the instructions to configure the settings according to your preferences and requirements.
- Monitor and respond to alerts and incidents in Microsoft 365 Defender: Go to the Microsoft 365 Defender portal, and click on the Incidents or Alerts icon on the left navigation pane. You can view the details of the incidents or alerts, such as the severity, status, affected entities, evidence, and timeline. You can also take actions to investigate, remediate, or dismiss the incidents or alerts.
Conclusion
Microsoft 365 Defender is a powerful and convenient solution that can help you protect your organisation from cyberattacks. It integrates multiple security products and services into one platform, and provides a unified and correlated view of the threat landscape and the impact of attacks. To use Microsoft 365 Defender, you need to have the appropriate licenses and roles, and follow the steps to enable and configure the components.