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This is an essential guide to Microsoft Secure Score help for beginners and small business owners or in house IT staff looking to get started with Secure Score.
If you are wondering what is Microsoft Secure Score and how you can use it to improve your cybersecurity posture, this guide is for you.
In a nutshell, business owners and IT administrators can use the Microsoft Secure Score self guided assessment to understand how strong or vulnerable current IT security systems are.
Each section or “control” in the Microsoft Secure Score tool gives you a number, and at the end, you will have a total score.
A higher score is good but the highest score may not be best. You will want to balance security with usability and cost. Let’s get in to it.
If you are already familiar with the platform and want to go deeper with it, check out 5 Quick Ways To Improve Microsoft Secure Score.
What is Microsoft Secure Score?
Microsoft Secure Score is a convenient and effective tool for you to assess your Microsoft 365 and overall security status. It is a part of Microsoft’s threat and vulnerability management suite and was previously found inside Microsoft Defender For Cloud. Microsoft Secure Score is now accessed through the Microsoft Defender portal at https://security.microsoft.com/securescore.
The Secure Score tool gives you insight into your score. By reviewing your score, you can identify weak areas and plan improvements.
The calculation is partly automatic, partly based on the information you provide and is best assessed with an IT professional because you don’t want or need to aim for a perfect score. In fact, this can impede you. In any event, when you run the tool, you will get not just a number, but explanations of security control available, see where you are doing well, and where you could improve the score. You then decide which controls to implement.
Microsoft Secure Score Dashboard Features
The Microsoft Secure Score dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of your security posture with several valuable features:
- Score history tracking: View how your score has changed over time with weekly graphs.
- Benchmark comparisons: Compare your score against industry averages.
- Categorized recommendations: Find security improvements organized by category.
- Prioritized actions: Focus on high-impact security controls first.
- Implementation guidance: Get step-by-step instructions for each recommendation.
These visualization tools make it easier to understand your current security status, track improvements, and communicate progress to stakeholders.
Who can benefit from Microsoft Secure Score?
Any organization using Microsoft cloud services can benefit from from Microsoft Secure Score.
A good cloud service provides many benefits, including predictable costs, reduced IT requirements, and a high level of security. Reputable cloud services such as Microsoft have physically controlled facilities as well as full-time experts to protect customer data. Even so, security depends on a partnership between the service provider (Microsoft) and the customer (you).
An organization that uses cloud services has to stay on top of its responsibilities to ensure that its data stays safe. Your IT managers need to understand and apply the best practices to protect your cloud accounts.
Microsoft Secure Score is a convenient and effective tool for Microsoft 365 administrators to assess their security status. By reviewing their score and its associated information, they can identify the areas where there’s room for improvement.
Why Secure Score Matters
Measurable Security Posture
Microsoft Secure Score provides a numerical summary of your organization’s security posture, making it easier to understand your current status, track improvements, and set concrete security goals.
This objective measurement helps IT managers demonstrate security progress to stakeholders and justify security investments.
Prioritized Improvements
Not all security controls are equally important, and implementing everything at once is rarely practical. Secure Score helps identify which improvements will have the greatest impact on your security posture, allowing you to focus your efforts where they matter most.
Our experts interpret these recommendations within the context of your specific business needs.
Compliance Alignment
Many cyber insurance providers now use Microsoft Secure Score to assess risk and determine premium rates for small and medium-sized businesses.
A strong Secure Score demonstrates your commitment to security best practices and can help simplify compliance with various regulatory requirements while potentially lowering insurance costs.
Assess Your Own Cybersecurity With Secure Score
Huge data breaches at major enterprises make the headlines, but no organization is too small to be targeted.
Cyberattacks are largely automated now. The vulnerability hunting tools can scan every IP address and domain across the world, looking for weaknesses to exploit. Small and medium businesses are often targeted because they generally have inadequate cybersecurity.
You can use the Secure Score tool to build a quantified picture of how well protected your accounts and IT systems are. It’s a part of Microsoft’s Threat and Vulnerability Management. It shows your score, based on the protections which you have implemented. This score is presented against a maximum based on all the available services. It gives specific recommendations for improving your score, explaining the risks, effects, and costs.
The calculation is partly automatic and partly based on the information you provide. What you get isn’t just a number, but an explanation of each security control which is available to you. You see not just how well you’re doing, but exactly where you could improve the score.
Frequently Asked Questions About Microsoft Secure Score
What are Controls In Secure Score?
You may be looking for a “button” or an “on/off switch” to control a security setting in Microsoft Secure Score, but the word “control” has a specialized meaning in IT security. It applies to a set of policies and practices to mitigate a risk category. Secure Score identifies controls, or policies and practices, you can implement to improve your security. Each Microsoft Secure Score control is worth a certain number of points if you implement it.
Like all controls, each provides a benefit and carries a cost.
In this case, the benefit of two factor authentication is that criminals won’t be able to break into accounts just by stealing or guessing a password.
The cost is that employees will sometimes have trouble legitimately getting into their accounts. They’ll need more assistance, and they might be unproductive till they get it.
How is my Secure Score calculated?
Each control that you implement gives you points. There are two ways to get them.
If you turn on the corresponding feature in Microsoft 365, you get them automatically.
You can also implement some controls through third-party services, and you can designate these manually. You’re asked for a description of the service you’re using.
This is strictly for your business’s internal reference; no one at Microsoft will look at it or judge it.
What is a good Secure Score?
While a perfect score of 100 is the theoretical maximum, it’s rarely achievable or necessary for most businesses. For small and medium businesses, a score between 65-80 represents a strong security posture that balances protection with usability. The ideal target depends on your industry, regulatory requirements, and risk tolerance.
How high should my Microsoft Secure Score be?
There is no right or wrong answer for how high your Microsoft Score needs to be. The highest possible score isn’t always the best. Your score should be a realistic assessment of your business IT Security practices an needs.
The control panel gives you a slider to select the level of security you need, from “Basic” to “Aggressive.” The setting you choose affects the recommendations which you get and the controls which are shown.
An aggressive setting gives you the most locked-down environment. It’s very secure, but it will cost you in inconvenience and time. It could encourage your end users to skirt security rules (shadow IT), in which case your security might be worse than before.
The goal is a realistic assessment of your business’s security situation.
Your score should strike the right balance between protection and ease of use, and will vary depending on what kinds of data you handle and what the consequences of compromising it might be.
Why is my Microsoft Secure Score not updating?
Most changes to your Microsoft Secure Score are updated in real-time to reflect the information presented in the visualizations and recommended action pages. For Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Entra related recommendations, updates may take longer, with refreshes occurring weekly or monthly depending on the specific control.
How do I use my Secure Score in context?
Microsoft provides enhanced tools for putting your Secure Score into context.
The dashboard allows you to view your score against an overall average or the average for your industry. You can also create custom comparisons to better understand how your security posture stacks up against similar organizations.
These comparisons help set realistic security goals based on your business type and size.
How do I improve my Secure Score?
A better score is generally good, but it’s not an end in itself. Don’t implement controls just for the sake of the points. As an IT manager, you’re the ultimate judge of your security needs, regardless of what a Microsoft algorithm says. If some controls don’t apply to your environment, you can remove them from the calculation.
Sometimes a control offers only a small advantage for a large amount of restriction or loss of productivity for your team. If you’ve evaluated the risk, it’s fine to ignore or postpone a particular control recommendation.
Deciding which actions to take and assigning them priorities takes experience and understanding of security issues. If like most small and medium businesses, you do not have an in house IT department, it may be wise to hire a Microsoft Secure Score IT consultant to help you assess your IT security.
How does Microsoft Secure Score relate to cyber insurance?
Many cyber insurance providers now use Microsoft Secure Score to assess risk and determine premium rates for small and medium-sized businesses. A strong Secure Score demonstrates your commitment to security best practices and can help simplify compliance with various regulatory requirements while potentially lowering insurance costs.
If you’re applying for cyber insurance, having documentation of your Secure Score improvements may help support your application.
Hire Microsoft Secure Score Help
TUCU Managed IT Services Inc has helped organizations like yours use Microsoft Secure Score to improve security, win new clients, pass client security screenings and grow.
We’ll help you:
- Review your current score.
- Identify quick wins.
- Plan smooth implementation.
- Support your team.
Learn more about our Microsoft Secure Score Consulting Services. →
