Microsoft 365 licensing and how it relates to your business
Welcome back to the next blog in our Managed Services series. In this blog, I want to talk about Microsoft licencing, the different features and more importantly, how it can integrate within your business.
At present, if you are a small business, you are more than likely already subscribing to some of the Microsoft products. In most cases, people already have the basics whether it be an email service or exchange online along with some of the Microsoft desktop applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Publisher.
These applications provide for the basic licensing; however, unfortunately, they do not include the high-level security features that are now essential to keep you and your employees safe online.
Microsoft 365 (previously Office 365) now has two primary levels known as business standard and business premium.
Business premium provides the best value for money in terms of features including access to all the premium Microsoft software, online storage but most importantly of all advanced security.
Defending against cyber threats is the main priority for us as an IT provider; it is our job to reduce the risk and limit the threat for our customers.
With advanced configuration and the right set up, we can help reduce phishing attempts. Phishing attempts is a cyber threat that can easily trick anyone, as they generally look like official emails from legitimate sources, for example, the Australian Taxation Office, Telstra, SA Power Networks, AGL etc. I think I can safely say that we have all experienced a phishing email in our inbox. Ultimately, what the hacker is trying to do is trick you into providing your email address and password or username and password. With this information, the hacker can gain access to your email and then attempt to access other online accounts you may have linked to that email address.
This is the exact reason why you should never have the same password for everything on your computer or online subscriptions, if cyber attackers get that one password, then they have complete access to everything, even your Internet banking.
We cannot control what you or your team open or click on, but we can minimise the initial threat and ultimately reduce the risk.
Ransomware, spam malware viruses and malicious links and other threats all operate similarly to phishing emails. The benefit of Microsoft 365 Premium is that all of these threats can be radically reduced as it allows you to implement the right security policies along with conditional access to your data especially when working from home or outside the organisation.
Speaking of accessing your data outside the organisation, including securing your devices or specifically mobile phones, tablets and laptops, Microsoft 365 is compatible with all current mobile devices.
It is our job to plan and implement a migration strategy, and this includes planning and implementing the best security policy customised to your organisation. We also configure the information rights management, compliance and reporting requirements based not only on industry best practises but also in conjunction with your company’s specific needs.
Thank you for reading today and stay tuned for my next blog about keeping a backup copy of your most valuable asset your DATA.
If you missed our first blog in the Managed Services series, you can read it here now.
