Microsoft 365 E5 Security is now available as an add-on to Microsoft 365 Business Premium
The threat landscape continues to evolve creating ongoing challenges for small and medium businesses (SMBs) that are faced with increased regulations and cyberinsurance requirements. Today, Microsoft 365 Business Premium delivers core security solutions to SMBs that help safeguard data, defend against cyberthreats, and manage access and devices. With the growing volume of attacks and increased sophistication of threats, there are SMBs that want enhanced cybersecurity protection for their business. We are pleased to announce that Business Premium customers are now able to purchase Microsoft 365 E5 Security as an add-on to further enhance their security. E5 Security brings new security value on top of Business Premium with Microsoft Entra ID Plan 2, Microsoft Defender for Identity, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 2, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps. (ENHANCED) Identity and access controls Business Premium includes Microsoft Entra ID P1, which provides single sign-on, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and conditional access to help SMBs manage user identities and enable access to applications and resources from trusted users, devices, and locations. Microsoft Entra ID P2 offers advanced security and governance features including Microsoft Entra ID Protection and Microsoft Entra ID Governance. Microsoft Entra ID protection offers risk-based conditional access that helps block identity attacks in real time using behavioral analytics and signals from both user risk and sign-in risk. It also enables SMBs to detect, investigate, and remediate potential identity-based risks using sophisticated machine learning and anomaly detection capabilities. With detailed reports and alerts, your business is notified of suspicious user activities and sign-in attempts, including scenarios like a password-spray where attackers try to gain unauthorized access to company employee accounts by trying a small number of commonly used passwords across many different accounts. ID Governance capabilities are also included to help automate workflows and processes that give users access to resources. For example, IT admins historically manage the onboarding process manually and generate repetitive user access requests for Managers to review which is time consuming and inefficient. With ID Governance capabilities, pre-configured workflows facilitate the automation of employee onboarding, user access, and lifecycle management throughout their employment, streamlining the process and reducing onboarding time. (NEW) Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Microsoft Defender XDR delivers a unified and efficient approach to incident-level visibility across the attack lifecycle. Together XDR and exposure management (XSPM) consolidate multiple siloed security solutions to provide best-of-breed capabilities across identities, endpoints, apps, and email. (NEW) Identity threat detection and response (ITDR) Identities are one of the most common attack vectors making identity-specific threat detection and response a critical element to secure your business. Microsoft Defender for Identity includes dedicated sensors and connectors for common identity elements that offer visibility into your unique identity landscape and provide detailed posture recommendations, robust detections and response actions. These powerful detections are then automatically enriched and correlated with data from other domains across Defender XDR for true incident-level visibility. (ENHANCED) Device security Microsoft Defender for Business (MDB) already brings enterprise-grade device protection capabilities to Business Premium customers across Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android devices. It includes vulnerability management, next-generation antivirus protection, AI-powered endpoint detection and response with automatic attack disruption, and automated investigation and remediation. With streaming APIs, customers and partners can build Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services with Defender for Business. For customers who need advanced hunting, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P2 adds advanced hunting, and 6 months of data retention on the device, along with endpoint security for IoT devices. (ENHANCED) Email and Collaboration security Microsoft Defender for Office 365 P1 in Business Premium includes SafeLinks with time of click URL filtering, safe attachments with real-time attachment scanning in sandbox, and phishing and malware defense across email, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint. It also has AI-powered LLM-based threat protection with 99.995% attacker intent detection accuracy. With Defender for Office 365 P2, you gain access to cyber-attack simulation training, which provides SMBs with a safe and controlled environment to simulate real-world cyber-attacks, helping to train employees in recognizing phishing attempts. Additionally automated response capabilities and post-breach investigations help reduce the time and resources required to identify and remediate potential security breaches. Detailed reports are also available that capture information on employees’ URL clicks, internal and external email distribution, and more. (NEW) Software-as-a-service (SaaS) security Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a comprehensive, AI-powered software-as-a-service (SaaS) security solution that enables IT teams to identify and manage shadow IT and ensure that only approved applications are used. It protects against sophisticated SaaS-based attacks, OAuth attacks, and risky interactions with GenAI apps by combing SaaS app discovery, security posture management, app-to-app protection, and integrated threat protection. IT teams can gain full visibility into their SaaS app landscape, understand the risks and set up controls to manage the apps. SaaS security posture management quickly identifies app misconfigurations and provides remediation actions to reduce the attack surface. E5 Security delivers added protection to meet the growing needs of SMBs in a package that is cost-effective. Purchasing E5 Security has 57% savings when compared to the cost of separately purchasing the individual products that are included. FAQ When will E5 Security be available for purchase? E5 Security is available for purchase as an add-on to Business Premium starting today, 3/6. How can I purchase E5 Security? You can purchase E5 Security as an add-on to Business Premium through Microsoft Security for SMBs website or through your Partner. Does Microsoft 365 Business Premium plus Microsoft 365 E5 Security allow mixed licensing for endpoint security solutions? Microsoft Defender for Business does not support mixed licensing so a tenant with Defender for Business (included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium) along with Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 (included in Microsoft 365 Security) will default to Defender for Business. For example, if you have 80 users licensed for Microsoft 365 Business Premium and you’ve added Microsoft 365 E5 Security for 30 of those users, the experience for all users will default to Defender for Business. If you would like to change that to the Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 experience, you should license all users for Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 (either through standalone or Microsoft 365 E5 Security) and then contact Microsoft Support to request the switch for your tenant. You can learn more here. What are the differences between Microsoft Defender for Business and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P2? MDB includes many of the same features as MDE P2, including enterprise-grade device protection for Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android devices, vulnerability management, next-generation antivirus protection, AI-powered endpoint detection and response with automatic attack disruption, and automated investigation and remediation. MDE P2 adds endpoint security for IoT devices, threat hunting, and 6 months of data retention on the device. A detailed comparison is available here. As a Partner, how do I build Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services with MDB? For partners or customers looking to build their own security operations center (SOC) with MDR, Defender for Business supports the streaming of device events (device file, registry, network, logon events and more) to Azure Event Hub, Azure Storage, and Microsoft Sentinel to support advanced hunting and attack detection. If you are using the streaming API for the first time, you can find step-by-step instructions in the Microsoft 365 Streaming API Guide on configuring the Microsoft 365 Streaming API to stream events to your Azure Event Hubs or to your Azure Storage Account. To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions for SMBs you can visit our website. Partners can access training resources, customer decks and deployment checklists from our Business Premium Partner Playbook and find additional resources for Microsoft Security for Partners.Announcing mandatory multifactor authentication for the Microsoft 365 admin center
Reposting from the Microsoft 365 Blog what was originally published on November 11, 2024. Microsoft is committed to continuously enhancing security for all our users and customer organizations. One of the pillars of the Microsoft Secure Future Initiative is to protect identities and secrets, and multifactor authentication (MFA) is a proven approach to substantially reduce the risk of unauthorized access to user accounts. Starting February 3rd, 2025, Microsoft will begin requiring MFA for all user accounts accessing the Microsoft 365 admin center. This requirement will be rolled out in phases at the tenant level. You will receive a message through the Microsoft 365 admin center Message center approximately 30 days before your tenant is eligible for enforcement. Recommended actions Global admins: To set up MFA in your organization now, visit the MFA setup guide at aka.ms/MFAWizard or refer to Set up multifactor authentication for Microsoft 365 Users accessing the Microsoft 365 admin center: Check your verification methods and add one if needed by going to aka.ms/mfasetup. What is multifactor authentication and why is it important? Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a security feature that requires you to provide two or more pieces of evidence to prove your identity when you sign in to an online service. These pieces of evidence can be something you know (such as a password or a PIN), something you have (such as a phone or a security key), or something you are (such as a fingerprint or a face scan). MFA adds an extra layer of protection to your account and your data, reducing the risk of unauthorized access even if your password is compromised. MFA is especially important for the Microsoft 365 admin center, where you can manage your organization's settings, users, licenses, subscriptions and more. Research by Microsoft shows that MFA leads to a 99.22% reduction in risk of account compromise. MFA will help you: Prevent unauthorized access to your Microsoft 365 admin accounts and the sensitive accounts, data, and resources that you manage Enhance your reputation and trust among your customers, partners, and stakeholders, who expect you to safeguard their data and privacy Help you reduce the risk of data breaches, identity theft, phishing, ransomware, and other cyberattacks that can compromise your business and your data Thank you for your cooperation and commitment to creating a more secure future We appreciate your understanding and your support as we implement this important security measure. We know that using MFA may require some adjustments, and we believe that the benefits greatly outweigh the efforts. We are confident that MFA will help you enhance your data security and your peace of mind, and we are here to help you with any issues or feedback that you may have along the way. FAQ - Microsoft 365 admin center - Mandatory MFA MFA Readiness and Verification What if I need more time to prepare for this requirement? We understand that some customers may need additional time to prepare for this MFA requirement. Therefore, Microsoft will allow extensions for customers with complex environments or technical barriers. Global Administrators can go to the Azure portal to postpone the start date of enforcement. A few important notes on requesting postponement: Global Administrators must have elevated access before postponing the start date of MFA enforcement on this page. For multi-tenant organizations, Global Administrators must perform this action for every tenant for which they would like to postpone the start date of enforcement. Extension requests will extend the enforcement for the Microsoft 365 admin center as well as the Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, and the Microsoft Intune admin center. If you have already submitted a request for an extension in the Azure portal, the extension will apply to the Microsoft 365 admin center. If you need assistance with postponing your MFA enforcement date, contact support. How do I know if I am ready for MFA as an admin user accessing the Microsoft 365 admin center? If you have enrolled in MFA and have added a verification method, you will be able to satisfy the requirement. Go to aka.ms/mfasetup, review your verification methods and add one if needed. How do I know if this requirement impacts my organization? Microsoft will be rolling out this requirement to all users accessing the Microsoft 365 admin center. You will receive a message center post approximately 30 days before your tenant is eligible for enforcement. If your organization has already set up a qualifying MFA policy for your admin users or for all users in your organization, and users accessing the Microsoft 365 admin center have registered for MFA and added a verification method, then no further action is required at this time. As a Microsoft 365 administrator, how do I know if my organization has an MFA policy applied to Microsoft 365 admin center sign-in? If your Microsoft 365 tenant was created on or after October 22, 2019, Security defaults may already be enabled in your organization. To check if security defaults are enabled, sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Security Administrator. Navigate to Identity > Overview > Properties and view Security defaults. If security defaults are enabled, you will see "Your organization is currently using security defaults." next to a green check mark, and you are already meeting the requirement. If your organization is using Conditional Access policies in Microsoft Entra and you already have a conditional access policy through which users sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center with MFA, then you are already meeting the requirement. While Security defaults and Conditional Access are recommended approaches for setting up your MFA policies, some organizations set MFA policies on a per-user basis. You can also check per-user MFA settings to review and enable each user account with MFA. What if I don't add an MFA verification method before this mandatory MFA requirement is applied for my tenant? Will I be locked out of my account? Will I still be able to access the Microsoft 365 admin center? No, you will not be locked out of your account. Yes, you will still be able to access the Microsoft 365 admin center. If you have not added an MFA verification method by the time the MFA requirement was enforced for your tenant, you will be prompted to register MFA for your account and add a verification method when you attempt to access the Microsoft 365 admin center. If a user is locked out, there may be another reason. Follow the guidance on Account has been locked - Microsoft Support. For further assistance with account lock-out, contact support. MFA Policies and Requirements Can I opt out of this requirement? No. This security measure is important to the safety and security of Microsoft 365 customer organizations and users. Increasingly, MFA is an industry standard baseline security requirement. Does this requirement impact all Microsoft 365 users? No. The mandatory MFA requirement for the Microsoft 365 admin center only impacts users accessing the Microsoft 365 admin center at this time. While MFA is not currently required for general Microsoft 365 services, Microsoft recommends that all Microsoft 365 users use MFA to safeguard user accounts and your organization. Does this requirement impact Microsoft Graph PowerShell or API? No. This requirement does not impact the use of Microsoft Graph PowerShell or API at this time. Does this requirement apply to emergency access accounts? Emergency access accounts (also known as break glass accounts) are privileged accounts not assigned to a specific user and intended to mitigate the risk of accidental account lockout. If your organization has set up emergency access accounts, note that these accounts are also required to sign in with MFA once enforcement begins. We recommend updating emergency access accounts to use passkey (FIDO2) or configure certificate-based authentication for MFA. Both of these methods satisfy the MFA requirement. Third-party Identity Providers Our organization uses a third-party identity provider (IdP) for MFA. Will this satisfy the requirement? Yes. Use of external MFA solutions will meet the requirement through external authentication methods in Microsoft Entra ID. If your MFA provider is integrated directly with this federated IdP, the federated IdP must be configured to send an MFA claim. Will third-party IdPs through the legacy Conditional Access custom controls preview satisfy the requirement? No. As you may know, in 2020, Microsoft provided a preview of Conditional Access custom controls to enable the use of third-party MFA providers with Azure Active Directory. This approach to third-party MFA was found to be too limited and has been replaced by external authentication methods in Microsoft Entra ID. Implementation and Support I'm part of a small organization with only a few admin users that need to access the Microsoft 365 admin center. What's the easiest way for me to satisfy this requirement with minimal disruption to our users? Admin users should simply go to aka.ms/mfasetup and add a verification method such as Microsoft Authenticator. Once the Microsoft 365 admin center MFA requirement is rolled out to your tenant, admin users will be prompted to sign in with MFA using the method your admins have added. How do I turn on security defaults? You may use the steps outlined in the documentation to turn on security defaults here: Security defaults in Microsoft Entra ID - Microsoft Entra | Microsoft Learn How do I require MFA through Conditional Access in Microsoft Entra? You may use the steps outlined in the documentation to create a Conditional Access policy which requires MFA here: Require MFA for all users with Conditional Access - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn. I am part of an organization with multiple Microsoft 365 tenants. Will Microsoft 365 admin center MFA enforcement roll out to all our tenants at the same time? Not necessarily. The MFA requirement will roll out in phases at the tenant level starting February 3rd, 2025. For organizations with multiple Microsoft 365 tenants, MFA for Microsoft 365 admin center sign-in may be enforced for your tenants at different times. We recommend you apply MFA across all your Microsoft 365 tenants as soon as possible. I need help. Who can I contact? We are committed to helping you through this important security measure now and into the future. If you need assistance, contact support.Elevating security for SMBs with AI-powered email protection and new partner initiatives
Cybersecurity is increasingly top of mind for small and medium businesses (SMBs) with a recent survey indicating that 94% consider cybersecurity critical to their business 1 . This is understandable, as 1 in 3 SMBs say they have experienced a cyberattack 2 , underscoring a need to bring sophisticated security to SMBs, but in an affordable and easy to use package. Continuing on our mission to bring enterprise-grade security to customers of all sizes, we are excited to announce that we’re bringing AI-powered email and collaboration protection to Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Business Premium to better protect SMBs. Since partners play a critical role in helping secure SMB customers, we’re also announcing new integrations and programs to help them better serve their customers. Enhanced email and collaboration security with intent-based detections backed by LLM for SMBs Phishing emails are no longer clumsy, error-ridden messages with apparent mistakes. Our research teams have found that bad actors have begun using Gen AI to craft phishing emails, enhancing the language and customization, making them increasingly difficult to spot. Moreover, they use AI to engage in prolonged conversations with targets to extract money via payroll fraud, invoicing scams, or simply to gather PII (Personally Identifiable Information). Thus, we are excited to announce that Microsoft Defender for Office 365 now provides AI-powered email and collaboration security, using purpose-built Large Language Models (LLM) at scale. These models have been trained on one of the largest datasets in the industry and enable more accurate identification of text-only attacks like Business Email Compromise (BEC). Our solution interprets email language to understand and identify attacker intent and classify threats at machine speed. With an initial rollout to select customers over the past few months, we have seen impressive results of a 99.995% attacker intent detection accuracy and filtering, and 140K BEC emails blocked daily based on the LLM alone. Defender for Office 365 can effectively predict and neutralize attacks by recognizing malicious intent and safeguard your inbox against sophisticated social engineering tactics. We are now rolling out the new LLM-powered email analysis and filtering to Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 customers, which is also included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium. New SMB initiatives to help easily deliver security services at scale Managed Service Provider (MSP) partners play a critical role in helping secure SMB customers’ IT environments. We are introducing integrations and strategic programs to help MSPs better serve their customers. Huntress Managed Detection and Response integration with Microsoft Defender for Business and Microsoft Entra: With the global shortage in cybersecurity professionals many partners also face a lack of in-house security specialists. For those partners who want to resell security services but do not have the resources to invest in an in-house SOC, we are pleased to announce Microsoft Defender for Business and Microsoft Entra integrations with Huntress’ Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solution, designed for MSPs serving SMBs. Huntress’ 24/7 Security Operations Center (SOC) will triage, manage and remediate incidents and alerts for Defender for Business, helping expand the MSPs defenses and extending protection for joint customers without requiring any additional partner investment for in-house SOC. The integration is available to standalone Defender for Business and Microsoft 365 Business Premium customers starting today. Huntress is also integrating with Microsoft Entra ID to help ensure that joint customers use multifactor authentication (MFA) and Huntress to provide risk-based conditional access policies to protect their users and accounts. The Entra ID integration will be available by end of 2024. Training and readiness with Arrow and TDSYNNEX: Additionally, we are thrilled to announce strategic initiatives with Arrow and TDSYNNEX to enable their MSPs with training and readiness on Microsoft Defender for Business. This year-long collaboration provides resources and support for MSPs primarily in North America and Europe as they look to expand their security service offerings through Microsoft solutions. Microsoft SMB verified solution with MISA SMBs have unique requirements different from traditional Enterprise-centric security solutions. The Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA) is thrilled to welcome SMB verified solution status to its portfolio. This status highlights technology solutions that are purpose built to meet the needs of SMBs, and the MSPs who manage IT and Security on their behalf. MISA members who meet the qualifying criteria and have gone through engineering review, will receive a specialized MISA member badge showcasing the verification and will be featured in the MISA partner catalog. We are excited to launch this status with our first two SMB verified partners: Blackpoint Cyber and Huntress. Learn more at Ignite 2024: Attend the sessions below to learn more about what’s happening in the SMB space: Date Time (CST) Location Session 11/19 1:30pm - 1:45pm Theater (THR553) Detect and respond to next gen email threats with Defender for Office 365 (add to your schedule) 11/20 2:30 - 4:30pm MSFT Expert Meetup Hub Huntress 11/21 12:30 - 2:30pm MSFT Expert Meetup Hub Blackpoint Cyber Additional Information: To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions for SMBs, including Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Microsoft Defender for Business, please visit our website. To learn more about MISA, visit the website. To learn more about Microsoft SMB verified solution, view the eligibility criteria. To get started on your SMB managed services journey, our partner playbooks – Microsoft 365 Business Premium Partner Playbook and Microsoft Defender for Business Partner kit – provide you with sales and technical trainings as well as customer ready assets. References 1,2 SMB Cybersecurity Report 2024
