Achieved a 98% Microsoft Secure Score
Saved valuable time with automated monthly reporting
Ensured continuous alignment with security best practices
Thanks to Auxility, our Microsoft Secure Score climbed to 98% this past year. For comparison, the average company's score is around 45%. We've made a huge leap forward.
As a Flemish public agency and knowledge center, the client handles a significant amount of sensitive data about citizens and businesses.
With a team of fifty employees relying entirely on their IT infrastructure, they could not afford any security issues.
After moving to the cloud, they needed a way to guarantee the security of their digital office environment without having to research and implement every new best practice themselves.
Flemish government agencies are responsible for a significant amount of sensitive data. Consequently, they cannot afford any security issues. That is why one of these agencies not only made the move to the cloud but also invested in the governance of its digital office environment. "That has brought the security score for our Microsoft 365 services and applications to 98%," says ICT Manager, Christophe.
The agency in question prefers to remain anonymous, to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to its IT security. Specifically, it is a service with about fifty employees. As a knowledge centre, the agency provides information and advice to consumers, companies, and other government services.
"To further digitise and automate our IT infrastructure," is how Christophe summarises his most important task as ICT Manager. In this, he can count on the experience and expertise of specialised external IT partners like Auxility and Hestia, which are part of the Cronos Group. "Cronos is a major player in the Flemish IT landscape, with different entities that each possess their own expertise. Additionally, we can easily procure services from Cronos because they fall under a framework agreement with the group."
"These days, IT evolves so quickly that it's impossible to do everything yourself," says Christophe. "That's why we rely on external specialists when we lack the necessary knowledge or resources internally." For instance, Auxility had previously guided the agency during its migration to Microsoft Azure. In addition, Auxility provides support in the form of an IT service desk employee. "Initially, this person was only responsible for first and second-line support, but they are now also responsible for managing our Azure environment."
In this context, the service desk employee also manages the brand-new M365 Governance service from Auxility. "For us, everything truly stands or falls with IT," Christophe clarifies. "That is precisely why we made the move to the cloud. If a server suddenly fails, we have a new one up and running in no time."
The same goes for the office applications and cloud services in Microsoft 365, which are essential for the agency's operations. "With Auxility's M365 Governance service, we can more easily guarantee the security of that digital office environment. This is also necessary because our employees often make very intensive use of all kinds of sensitive data about citizens and businesses, whether anonymised or not, while working in this critical environment."
The decision to use Auxility's governance service came after a technical assessment of the agency's IT foundations. Based on that, several improvements were implemented. "We first wanted to be sure our foundations were solid before we continued with our digitisation and automation trajectory."
Just at that moment, Auxility proposed a new service that provided an answer to the agency's needs. "The cloud has gradually become the backbone of our IT organisation," Christophe realises. "But what are the basic requirements for a stable M365 environment? There are different approaches for that. The only question is: which one is right for us? The Microsoft 365 Governance service from Auxility helps us formulate the answer."
Through the service, the agency receives a monthly report from Auxility with recommendations based on the Microsoft standard. For this, Auxility relies on the information it receives via Microsoft. "Based on that report, I can easily adjust our own Azure environment and perform the necessary updates. I can now see at a glance what the differences are with the recommended security or policy baseline. In consultation with Auxility, I try to keep those differences as small as possible. Of course, you have to find a certain balance between striving for maximum security and optimal ease of use. Simply put: the environment must be secure, but you also still need to be able to do your work smoothly."
"The alternative is that you have to figure all of that out yourself each time: not only where potential areas for improvement are, but also how best to address them. But I don't have the time or the expertise for that," Christophe admits. "Auxility delivers that information to me on a silver platter, and it's perfectly documented as well. With that, I've already saved a great deal of valuable time. The investment in the service was thus earned back very quickly."
Thanks to the service, the agency saw its security score climb to 98% over the past year. This is the score with which Microsoft maps the risks related to the identity, applications, and devices of the users. "Those are traditionally the weakest links in the security chain. For comparison: at an average company, the score hovers around 45%," concludes Christophe. "With 98%, we score very high, although we will never achieve the perfect score of 100%. A security baseline like that simply evolves every day. But thanks to the service from our trusted IT partner Auxility, we have made a giant leap."
