Many compliance standards require storing audit logs for far longer than that. For example, HIPAA requires logs to be retained for six years. Microsoft 365 stores audit logs for a short time, from just 90 days to a maximum of one year. Understand that the audit log shows only events that occurred after auditing was enabled. Similarly, to audit email mailboxes, an administrator must turn on mailbox auditing. Disabled Audit LogsĪudit recording is not enabled by default in Microsoft 365 an administrator must manually turn auditing on. Keep in mind that MFA is not enabled by default for global administrators. To reduce the risk of these powerful accounts being compromised, you can set up multi-factor authentication (MFA) in the Security and Compliance Center. If hackers manage to take over a global admin account, they can change critical settings, steal valuable data and leave backdoors to enter again. The centralized administration model in Microsoft 365 allows all administrators to have global credentials, which grant access to every user’s account and content. Hackers and cybercriminals often target administrative accounts in their attacks in order to gain access to elevated privileges.

Privilege Escalation Auditing in MS Teams and SharePoint Online.

It’s also tricky to granularly grant admins rights to perform only specific functions, like resetting user passwords.

Microsoft 365 doesn’t make it easy to restrict permissions based on business unit or country, or for remote or satellite offices. Similarly, malicious software or hackers who take over a user’s account are enabled to access more data and systems than necessary. Excessive rights increase your risk of a data breach because users can accidentally or deliberately expose or steal more data than they should. Users often wind up with more permissions than they need to do their jobs. With Microsoft 365, a user can share a single file, or they can share an entire folder, which grants access to all the files currently in that folder and all its subfolders, as well as any new ones created there. External Users and Guest Access in Microsoft Teams: A Complete GuideĪny time files are shared outside of an organization, they become vulnerable.Microsoft 365 Guest Users and External Access: The Complete Guide.

How to reset office 365 to default