Microsoft Defender for Business – Everything You Need to Know

Published on 31 January 2022

As we all know cyber-attacks have been continuing to rise with a 151% increase in ransomware attacks in the first quarter of 2021 when comparing it to the first quarter of 2020. In particular small to medium businesses have seen a significate rise in cyberattacks, so naturally, it remains a top priority among businesses. The attacks themselves have become more chaotic and unskilled, but this has resulted in a greater success rate for cybercriminals. A positive outcome to this is that Microsoft has taken notice. Microsoft wanted to tackle the rise in cyber attacks on SMBs by creating security solutions designed to protect them. Microsoft Defender for Business is a device focused security solution created to bring enterprise-sized business security to SMBs whilst being cost-effective.

This is an exciting step for any business with under 300 employees to gain better cyber security for their company. It is compatible across all devices including Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.

What’s Included:

Threat and Vulnerability Management

• Helps find and prioritise weaknesses that cybercriminals could take advantage of, which allows you to secure the foundations of your business’s network environment.

Attack Surface Reduction

• Using things like ransomware mitigation, firewalls, application control and more. Attack Surface Reduction decreases the areas where your business is most vulnerable on all devices.

Next-Generation Protection

• Using antimalware and antivirus to protect and stop any threats to the front door of your business’s network.

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)

• Behaviour-based detection and responses will find ongoing threats and remove them. You will also have access to manual and live response data, so you can take action and have direct control over devices to ensure they are secure.

Automated Investigation and Remediation

• You can scale your security and take immediate action to find and resolve (common) attacks with automated suggestions. This allows you to focus on more challenging and sophisticated threats without getting inundated with alerts and notifications.

APIs and Integration

• Automate your workflows and add Microsoft Defender for Business’s security data into one of your existing security platforms.

As you can see this is an exciting addition for many SMBs. If you are already on a Microsoft 365 Business Plan then this addition is free, however, it can be purchased as a standalone item too. Microsoft Defender for Business is designed to protect SMBs against cybersecurity threats like malware and ransomware. It will elevate your cybersecurity from traditional antivirus to next-generation protection against the growing threat of cybercrime. If you would like more information on how Microsoft Defender for Business can benefit your business, please book a meeting below or call us on 01908 044202.