In this guide, we are exploring inherent risks within Office 365 and the best practices to safeguard against them.

1. The Best Practices for Full Protection
Account Takeover

2. Microsoft Office 365 is transforming
the way organisations work.
As cloud adoption accelerates, many businesses are now facing the
ultimatum: adopt, migrate or risk irrelevancy. Within the past year, 70% of
Fortune 500 companies have purchased Office 365.
The biggest draw? Cost efficiency, remote access and cloud back up,
allowing employees to work effectively and collaborate in real-time with
guaranteed security – or is it?

3. Alongside the advantages of Office 365 come
a range of challenges and the shortfalls.
Recently, Barracuda Networks reported hackers were successful in
targeting Microsoft Office 365 accounts. 29% of organisations had their
Office 365 accounts compromised by hackers in March 2019 alone.
In light of this, and many other incidents, the US Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is pleading with organisations to
implement better practices when using Office 365 across their enterprises.
UK government officials are following suit, making a similar plea to help
reduce the frequency of account takeover attacks.

4. In this guide, we are exploring inherent risks
within Office 365 and the best practices
to safeguard against them.
It is clear that whilst many businesses are ready to implement software
such as Office 365, they do not fully comprehend the breadth of potential
attacks or their organisation’s susceptibility to them.
Ultimately, organisations are failing to deploy the right safety measures to
protect their cloud-based data. In fact, what’s concerning is that 40% of
IT leaders believe Microsoft provides the capabilities to fully protect their
Office 365 environments.

5. Common Types of Attacks

6. There are threeThere are three
common hackingcommon hacking
techniques usedtechniques used
to gain accessto gain access
to Office 365to Office 365
accountsaccounts
Brute Force Attacks
01
Spear Phishing
02
Dark Web
03

7. Brute Force Attacks
01
Brute force attacks are a trial and error method used by hackers, involving an exercise
of what you could call password guessing, and executed using automation.
In attacks on Office 365 accounts, brute force techniques use an automated
software to generate consecutive guesses to unlock encrypted data.
Attackers often target specific individuals in organisations rather than the whole
organisation or multiple employees. This method is effective and successful as it
primarily reduces the chances of attack detection by the cloud service provider.

8. Spear Phishing
02
Spear phishing is a personalised attack, targeting organisations or individuals. Hackers
usually impersonate a well-known brand – 32% of brand impersonation attacks
impersonate Office 365 – and ask users to urgently take action.
Hackers use this technique to entice victims to click on a link which then
redirects them to a spoofed login page.
Here they are asked to provide log in credentials or other sensitive data. This login
page then allows the actor to harvest victim Office 365 credentials usually for
financial gain.

9. Dark Web
03
The dark web is a wild west when it comes to security.
An unimaginable amount of log-in details are available on the dark web, all of
which have been collected from years of data breaches.
Hackers purchase these details and use them to log in to accounts and take them over.
Users open themselves up to this kind of attack by using the same password across
personal and business accounts. It’s only a matter of time until a hacker purchases
your users’ passwords and attempts to take over your business accounts.

10. What are the best practices for
protecting your Office 365?

11. Being that Office 365Being that Office 365
account-takeoveraccount-takeover
attacks have become soattacks have become so
prevalent, and lucrative,prevalent, and lucrative,
it is worth talking aboutit is worth talking about
how these attackshow these attacks
happen and what can behappen and what can be
done to prevent them.done to prevent them.
The overall governance
of your Office 365
environment has less to
do with the technology
and more to do with the
practices and procedures
put in place by your
organisation.

12. Training and Education
Best Practice 1

13. Ultimately, you need to promote a culture of email security within your
company to fully combat fraud and cyber-crime.
Make email security and data protection everyone’s responsibility. Educate
your workforce and ensure they take a proactive approach to email
security.
If your workforce stays vigilant, your organisation can head off most email
threats.
To limit the impact and frequency of account takeover attacks,
you need to educate your employees.

14. Teach your employees about what account takeover attacks are, how
they occur, and what steps they can take to limit chances of falling victim.
For instance, your training sessions should address how often employees
should change their passwords (and that they shouldn’t reuse passwords,
ever).
It should also hammer home that you should never click on a link that asks
you to enter your Office 365 login details – it is far better to launch your
browser and head to your account that way.
Finally, encourage your employees to stay vigilant: ask them to look out
for suspicious requests from colleagues or partners, and to report any odd
behaviour immediately.

15. Where organisations go wrong is regarding
employee training as a one-off box ticking exercise.
What’s needed are frequent training sessions, ensuring
the organisation is up to date with the ever-changing and
sophisticated techniques that hackers adopt.

16. Multi-Factor Authentication
Best Practice 2

17. Office 365 is designed for remote access.
In addition, targeting one employee, rather than the whole organisation
reduces the chances of detection once cybercriminals gain access, making it
easy to infiltrate from the inside.
When hackers adopt automation to make these password guesses, it’s known
as a brute force attack. As stated earlier, employees often use the same
password across multiple platforms, increasing hackers’ chances in guessing
passwords and gaining access to a plethora of information.
Unauthorised access to accounts is not often monitored
or instantly detected, making it easy for hackers
to attempt multiple logins to gain access.

18. After employees sign into the platform with their usual password, it allows
a second factor to further authenticate the sign in and ensure it is genuine.
This could be in the form of another password, a number-sequenced code
from an authenticator app or text message, or by using biometrics such as
a fingerprint.
Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) provides a much-needed
layer for protection to Office 365 platforms.

19. Leverage Artificial Intelligence
Best Practice 3

20. By leveraging advance technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI),
organisations can easily identify when accounts have been compromised,
not only alerting users but removing malicious emails sent from
compromised accounts.
By 2021, Gartner predicts that AI will create $2.9 trillion of business value
and 6.2 billion hours of worker productivity globally. Securing organisations
whilst driving transformation is an increasing challenge. The amount of
data organisations deal with is expanding at an unprecedented rate and
becoming more valuable at each turn.

21. Whilst threats and methods attackers use become more sophisticated,
so do flexible work cultures. Increasing security risks and warranting
organisations to do more. With AI, organisations can automate and
leverage AI capabilities, uncovering hidden insights and actively monitoring
undetectable threats.
AI can help to secure organisations against increasing threats
and the risks caused by pervasive attacks that capitalise
on increasing workplace flexibility.

22. Use Dedicated Administration Accounts
Best Practice 4

23. A quick win and sure-fire way to mitigate the risk of potential attacks is
using dedicated administration accounts. These must be role specific,
granting access to only those that need it.
What access do each of your employees need, or specifically what access
does their role require?
Ensuring when an account is breached, the malicious actor doesn’t gain
access to unnecessary resources.
Limiting access inherently protects your organisation
when a breach occurs.

24. Enhancing Security with
Artificial Intelligence
Best Practice 5

25. With account takeover attacks occurring at such a frequent rate – one in
every three Office 365 customers suffer from an account takeover attack
every month – there is only one way to enhance your security protocols
reliably: Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Products like Barracuda’s Sentinel seamlessly integrate with Office 365
APIs to detect attacks and malicious intent coming from both internal and
external sources, without IT administration. These AI solutions analyse
historical and inbound data to identify anomalies and flag fraudulent
emails. This reduces the chance of employees clicking on malicious URLs
and attachments.

26. Taking advantage of the ability to plug into third-party applications
to improve the security of a Microsoft Office 365 platform will
enhance the protection of critical data being stored across the
cloud service, all while allowing employees to go about their
day-to-day business without disruption.

27. Does your current
email security
capabilities meet
your requirements?
If not, why not
consider a third
party solution like
Barracuda Sentinel
to enhance your
Office 365 security?

28. Learn more about fully protecting your
network and our other solutions at
Intelligent Inbox
Visit