Advantage Secure365™

Advantage Secure365™ is Advantage's fully managed Microsoft 365 security service — designed, deployed, and operated by Microsoft-certified security specialists. It is not a software product or a set of policy templates; it is an ongoing managed service that implements and maintains a comprehensive security framework across your Microsoft 365 environment based on Zero Trust principles.

Secure365™ covers six interconnected security pillars: identity and access management, device and endpoint security, email and collaboration protection, information protection, compliance and governance, and visibility and reporting — all configured, monitored, and continuously improved by Advantage on your behalf.

Zero Trust is a security model built on the principle of 'never trust, always verify' — in contrast to the traditional model where anything inside the network perimeter was assumed to be safe. In a Zero Trust architecture, every access request is authenticated and authorised regardless of where it comes from: inside the office, working from home, or on a mobile device.

Secure365™ uses Zero Trust because it reflects how modern SMEs actually work. When staff access company data from home offices, client sites, personal devices, and cloud applications, there is no meaningful network perimeter to protect. The verification happens at the identity layer (who is this user?), the device layer (is this device compliant?), and the data layer (does this user have access to this resource?) — with Microsoft Entra ID, Intune, and Microsoft Purview providing each layer respectively.

Microsoft Secure Score is Microsoft's built-in measurement of an organisation's security posture — a numerical score that reflects how many of Microsoft's recommended security controls are in place across your Microsoft 365 and Azure environment. A higher score means more recommended controls are active; a lower score indicates gaps that increase your exposure to attack.

Most SMEs start with a low Secure Score because Microsoft 365 ships with permissive default settings rather than optimal security settings — prioritising ease of use over security out of the box. Secure365™ systematically works through Microsoft's recommended actions — enabling MFA, configuring Conditional Access, activating Defender policies, implementing data loss prevention, and more — measurably improving the Secure Score and providing documented evidence of security improvement that is useful for compliance, insurance, and board reporting.

Secure365™ addresses several GDPR and regulatory compliance requirements directly through its six security pillars:

• Identity and access control — demonstrating that personal data is only accessible to authorised individuals with verified identities (Article 25 and 32)
• Data Loss Prevention — Microsoft Purview DLP policies preventing personal or sensitive data from being transmitted or shared inappropriately (Article 32)
• Audit logging and governance — Purview Compliance Portal audit trails providing evidence of data access, administrative actions, and policy enforcement for regulatory inspection
• Insider Risk Management — detecting and investigating unusual data access or exfiltration patterns from within the organisation
• Cyber Essentials readiness — all Secure365™ components contribute toward the five Cyber Essentials controls, supporting certification that is increasingly required by public sector and regulated industry contracts

For organisations in financial services (FCA), healthcare (CQC), or professional services with ISO 27001 requirements, Advantage designs the compliance configuration to reflect the specific regulatory framework.

Microsoft Purview is Microsoft's information protection and compliance platform — the set of tools within Microsoft 365 that classifies, labels, and protects sensitive data, and that provides the compliance management, audit, and governance capabilities required by regulated organisations.

Within Secure365™, Purview is used for:

• Sensitivity labels — classifying documents and emails (Confidential, Internal, Public, etc.) so protection policies apply automatically based on the content's classification
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP) — policies that detect and prevent sensitive data (personal information, financial data, health records) from being emailed externally, uploaded to unsanctioned cloud storage, or shared inappropriately
• Compliance Portal — centralised management of compliance obligations, eDiscovery, legal holds, and retention policies
• Audit and Insider Risk — logging of user and administrative activity, and detection of unusual data access patterns that may indicate insider threat or compromised accounts

Email remains the primary attack vector for UK SMEs — phishing, business email compromise, malware attachments, and impersonation attacks predominantly arrive by email. Secure365™ implements Microsoft Defender for Office 365 as the email security layer:

• Safe Links — URLs in emails and Teams messages are scanned in real time when clicked, not just at delivery, protecting against delayed-activation malicious links
• Safe Attachments — attachments are detonated in a sandbox environment before delivery, detecting zero-day malware that signature-based scanners miss
• Anti-phishing — impersonation protection, spoof intelligence, and mailbox intelligence that identifies and blocks phishing attempts targeting your organisation and executives specifically
• Anti-spam and anti-malware — baseline filtering preventing known malicious content from reaching inboxes

For organisations requiring additional email security beyond Defender's capabilities, Advantage also integrates Mimecast as a complementary email security layer within the Secure365™ framework.

Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes the security tools that Secure365™ uses — Entra ID P1, Intune, Defender for Business, Defender for Office 365, and Purview. But having the tools is not the same as having them properly configured, monitored, and managed.

The difference is between owning a security system and having a security operation. Business Premium gives you the technology. Secure365™ provides the Microsoft-certified expertise to configure that technology correctly for your organisation, the ongoing management to keep it current as threats evolve and Microsoft releases new capabilities, the monitoring to detect and respond to security events, and the reporting to give you and your board visibility of your security posture. Most SMEs with Business Premium have most of the tools switched on at default settings — which leaves significant security gaps that Secure365™ closes.

Secure365™ is specifically designed to operate as the Microsoft 365 layer within a broader security stack — not to replace everything else. Advantage provides a complementary set of security services that work alongside Secure365™:

• Network protection — WatchGuard or SonicWall firewalls with 24/7 monitoring at the network perimeter
• Endpoint security — Bitdefender, Sophos, or Microsoft Defender for centralised antivirus and patch management
• Email security — Mimecast as an additional email security layer where Defender alone is not sufficient
• User awareness training — simulated phishing and security awareness training addressing the human element of security

Advantage designs the integration between these layers so they work as a coherent security posture rather than overlapping or conflicting. The five-stage delivery process includes mapping Secure365™ to your existing security tools from the outset.

The Microsoft 365 Security Audit is Advantage's structured assessment of your current Microsoft 365 configuration and security posture — identifying the gaps between your current state and Microsoft's recommended security controls, and producing a clear prioritised action plan.

The audit covers all six Secure365™ pillars: identity and access configuration, device management status, email security settings, data protection policies, compliance posture, and Secure Score analysis. The output is a practical report that shows where the most significant risks sit, what Secure365™ would address, and what your Microsoft 365 environment would look like with a proper security baseline in place.

There is no obligation to proceed — the audit is useful in its own right as an independent assessment. Contact the team, call 020 3004 4600, or email hello@advantage.co.uk to arrange yours.

A typical Secure365™ deployment follows Advantage's three-stage Analyse, Activate, Aftercare methodology — over a period of four to eight weeks depending on the size and complexity of the organisation, the current state of the Microsoft 365 environment, and the scope of compliance requirements.

The Analyse stage (discovery and planning) typically takes one to two weeks. The Activate stage (deployment, testing, and training and handover for your IT team and users) runs over two to four weeks, with parallel running periods for critical security changes and a structured communication plan to ensure staff understand what is changing and why. Aftercare — continuous monitoring, monthly reporting, and proactive improvement — begins immediately after go-live and runs as an ongoing managed service.