Microsoft Office 365 is an attractive target for cybercriminals due to its massive user base. Phishing is one of the major concerns for Office 365 users, with 53% of attacks on Office 365 coming from phishing emails. Additionally, greater investment in the cloud means storing and processing important data off-site continues to rise. Yet the stakes of data breaches are growing as companies increasingly rely on connected technology. In fact, 58% of SMBs have experienced data loss from a breach.
Things are further complicated by the fact that today’s attacks are more sophisticated and have higher impact compared to the spam messages from the past. Cybercriminals are developing highly targeted attacks using techniques like social engineering or impersonation that can easily trick end users into clicking on links or downloading malicious malware from seemingly harmless messages. Additionally, criminals are constantly changing their tactics, with 80% of malware used only once. This means a lot of malware attacks are unique to businesses, which makes them hard to defend against. Relying on one form of defense is becoming increasingly less viable for organizations.
Relying on Office 365 alone brings risks
- Email remains vulnerable to a single line of defense that can fail
- Cloud services are prime targets for spear-phishing attacks
- Customers may not realize they’re vulnerable until it’s too late
- Productivity can dip due to Microsoft Office 365 outages and downtime events
- Users can accidentally delete critical email data, and you may lack a backup
A strong security foundation can help reduce the chances of falling victim to cybercrime and ultimately helps provide stronger cloud security.
Four steps you can take to help protect your customers on Office 365
- Secure your own MSP environment by practicing the fundamentals (i.e. patch, putting up firewalls, running backup, and deploying professional email security in-house)
- Add a professional email security solution for your customers that uses multiple technologies to catch and block emerging threats fast.
- Assess your customers’ risks and implement the right layers of security to mitigate that risk (i.e. mail protection, web protection, patch management, network protection, firewall management, threat monitoring, endpoint detection, backup, vulnerability scanning, password management, etc.)
- Establish and maintain a culture of security for your customers with regular training and awareness
SolarWinds® Mail Assure can help you safeguard your Office 365 customers, providing close to 100% filtering, with 2B+ spam messages blocked per month. Plus real-time pattern threat recognition that leverages a variety of filtering technologies and statistical systems, combined, help capture known and emerging threats to protect your users against spam, viruses, phishing, impersonation, spoofing, business email compromise, and other email-borne threats. You’ll also get increased control and visibility over email flows via an Office 365 add-in. Finally, adding Backup for Office 365 also helps protect Office 365 users from Exchange, OneDrive, and SharePoint data loss.
Increase email protection and continuity for Office 365 users—Try SolarWinds Mail Assure Free for 30 days.
Mia Thompson is product marketing manager, Mail Assure at SolarWinds MSP.
