The complete guide to securing Microsoft 365: Why one platform beats seven tools

Microsoft 365 has become the backbone of modern business productivity, with more than 450 million paid seats and over 300 million monthly Teams users. But this widespread adoption comes with a sobering reality: Microsoft 365 is now a prime target for cybercriminals worldwide.

Here's what many businesses don't realize, but managed service providers (MSPs) should know: Microsoft protects its infrastructure, but you must protect your data. IDC found that 60% of business data is stored in email, with much of it not found anywhere else. Protecting your data also involves maintaining identity security, access controls and configuration management.

Microsoft handles infrastructure-level security, data center protection and service availability. Everything else falls squarely on your shoulders, including managing your data, access controls, backup and retention, as well as staying in compliance and protecting against malicious activity, accidental deletion, ransomware and phishing.

But if you’re trying to protect Microsoft 365 with multiple tools, each of which handles a different task, you’ll drive yourself crazy working in multiple interfaces with applications that don’t necessarily communicate well or at all. A unified approach to Microsoft 365 protection with one tool that does everything you need in one interface is an absolute necessity.

Understanding how attacks unfold reveals why piecemeal security fails. Modern cyberattacks follow a predictable chain and each phase demands different protective measures:

The attack begins with reconnaissance. Threat actors research their target, craft convincing spear-phishing emails impersonating trusted vendors and deliver malicious links. An unsuspecting employee clicks and enters credentials.

This phase highlights a critical gap: Security professionals understand the need for layered protection for Microsoft 365, but many organizations still lack effective security awareness programs. Before any technical protection kicks in, users must recognize threats.

The human element remains one of the most important defenses against phishing. Security awareness training equips employees to recognize and report suspicious activity before credentials are compromised. Encouraging prompt reporting of suspicious emails further strengthens this layer of defense.

There is, of course, also a technological element to blocking phishing attacks. To effectively defend against phishing attacks at the initial access stage, organizations should employ multiple, complementary security measures. Advanced email security solutions can proactively block phishing emails before they reach employees, analyzing both links and attachments for malicious content, and in some cases, redirecting suspicious mail to alternate recipients for further inspection. Additionally, application security tools should be in place to scan malicious files that may be delivered via email and subsequently downloaded or saved to OneDrive.

Once attackers obtain initial access, they begin exploring the organization’s digital environment, targeting areas such as Teams chats and file shares, SharePoint sites containing sensitive documents and OneDrive-synced folders. If weak or misconfigured permissions exist, attackers can escalate their privileges, access confidential data and move laterally within the environment often without detection.

Security posture management and collaboration application security are critical at this stage because they help harden Microsoft 365 tenants, block the spread of malicious content and reinforce permissions. Extended detection and response (XDR) also plays a vital role by identifying unusual behavior patterns such as atypical logins or data access patterns across email, endpoints and applications. XDR correlates security activities to identify and contain lateral movement and privilege escalation attempts.

Now the real damage begins. Attackers exfiltrate data from OneDrive and encrypt files across Microsoft 365 using ransomware. The ransom note appears, demanding payment for the decryption key and threatening to release stolen information publicly.

At this stage, security posture management becomes critical. You need to ensure that proper configurations and access controls are in place. This is also when organizations realize whether their backup strategy is actually viable for recovery.

The attack is contained, files are recovered from backup, but the nightmare isn't over. Regulatory bodies demand evidence of compliance and breach details. Legal teams require emails and communications to investigate how the breach occurred.

Point-in-time backups alone are not sufficient. Organizations need real-time email capture through archiving solutions with e-discovery capabilities and comprehensive search functions to meet regulatory and legal requirements.

This attack scenario reveals that comprehensive Microsoft 365 protection requires seven distinct capabilities:

• Security awareness training — Transform employees from vulnerability to defense.
• Email security — Stop phishing, spoofing and advanced evasion techniques.
• Collaboration security — Protect OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams against ransomware, malware and malicious URLs.
• Extended detection and response (XDR) — Track lateral movement and correlate threats across your environment.
• Security posture management — Monitor configurations, detect deviations from best practices and automatically remediate risks.
• Email and file backup — Ensure reliable recovery with unlimited storage options.
• Email archiving — Facilitate regulatory compliance and simplify e-discovery.

You could deploy seven different tools from seven vendors to address these needs. That means seven partner account managers, seven portals, seven contracts, seven billing streams and seven training programs for your team.

Or you could consolidate into a single platform.

The business case is about profitability, not just convenience. While organizations focus heavily on software costs, the real expense lies elsewhere. A typical breakdown shows 40% profit margin, 20% on tools and 40% on people. Your operational expense is twice your software cost.

Every additional tool means more training, more context-switching and more time spent managing complexity instead of serving clients. This operational burden directly erodes profitability even as revenue grows.

One MSP that consolidated their Microsoft 365 protection onto a single platform reduced client onboarding from days to hours with zero disruption. Support time dropped dramatically when technicians could work from one interface instead of switching between multiple systems. The result: a sevenfold reduction in operational effort.

Not every client needs every protection layer immediately. A tiered approach lets you match protection to client needs and risk profiles:

Essential protection: Start with reliable backup, email security and basic security posture monitoring. This safeguards critical business data and stops the most common threats.

Enhanced defense: Add security awareness training, automatic vulnerability remediation and faster recovery capabilities. This level prevents threats before they happen and accelerates incident response.

Tailored solutions: Layer in email archiving for compliance-heavy industries, collaboration app security for knowledge workers and XDR for security-sensitive organizations with complex threat landscapes.

This framework serves multiple purposes: a client adoption roadmap, a foundation for silver, gold and platinum service tiers or a segmentation strategy for different client sizes and verticals.

Platform consolidation only works if the solution integrates seamlessly with the Microsoft ecosystem and your existing business systems. Essential integrations include:

• Microsoft services: Entra ID, CSP portal, Intune, Defender, Sentinel and Azure
• Business systems: PSA platforms for documentation, ticketing, contract management and billing
• Provisioning tools: Automated account creation and user management
• Monitoring: Full visibility across client environments and services

·         The goal is to ensure that your core Microsoft 365 protection platform connects intelligently with your broader technology stack and business workflows.

Microsoft 365 protection isn't optional and piecemeal approaches leave dangerous gaps that attackers eagerly exploit. With attacks increasing and the threat landscape evolving constantly, organizations need comprehensive protection that addresses every phase of the attack chain.

But comprehensive protection does not have to mean complexity. By consolidating seven essential security and backup capabilities into a single platform with native Microsoft integration, you can deliver superior protection while dramatically improving operational efficiency.