I cannot stress enough the necessity for multifactor authentication with Microsoft 365 and Azure for that matter. Countless times, I have worked with customers who did not implement or incorrectly implemented a form of multifactor authentication to end up costing them a compromised system and financial loss, thus allowing a bad actor to login and download a senior level executive’s mailbox and order instructions costing themselves and the company thousands of dollars.
When moving to Microsoft 365 having a strong password is a good start but it is not enough to protect you from scammers who will brute force your password or even phish it from you in an attempt to gain access to your account. A second from of authentication verification is imperative in stopping the attackers from gaining access to your mailbox and account.
Utilizing the Microsoft Authenticator app downloaded to a mobile device along with Microsoft Conditional Access is a simple first step to utilize and get you up and running in no time.
Utilizing Multifactor Authentication also requires the support of the applications that you plan to protect, most Office installs 2016+ and the Office 365 installs support modern authentication thus allowing you to utilize Multifactor Authentication with Conditional access. However, what about applications or protocols that do not support modern authentication? Protocols that do not support modern authentication that are not in use should be disabled, such as IMAP, POP, and Basic Authentication, shutting down legacy protocols reduces the attack surface that these bad actors typically utilize to gain access to an account hosted in Microsoft 365.
Moral of the story is just don’t rely upon passwords to keep your account safe! Take a wider look at all the access points into your Microsoft 365 environment and secure them with multifactor authentication. If you need help securing your Microsoft 365 environment, reach out to Komodo Cloud, we will be happy to help you!
Joseph Noga
CTO – Komodo Cloud
