SharePoint Security Best Practices For SMEs & Enterprises

Following the best practices of Microsoft SharePoint security is essential for protecting your organisation's sensitive information and ensuring your SharePoint environment remains secure.

SharePoint Online helps teams collaborate, share documents, and manage projects efficiently. However, without proper security measures, sensitive information stored in SharePoint Online can be vulnerable to unauthorised access, data breaches, and other cyber threats.

This is where SharePoint security best practices come into play. By following these guidelines, you can protect your organisation's valuable data, ensure compliance with regulations, and keep your team's collaboration safe and secure.

In this blog post, we'll explore essential strategies and steps to help you protect your own SharePoint server environment, ensuring that only the right people have access to the right information at the right time.

Whether you're a SharePoint administrator, IT professional, or business user, understanding and implementing these best practices is key to maintaining a secure and productive workspace.

What is SharePoint Online Security?

SharePoint Online security is the measures and practices placed to protect data, document libraries, and workflows within Microsoft's SharePoint Online platform (a cloud-based service for collaboration and document management).

It involves managing user permissions, enforcing access controls, securing data transmission, and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards to prevent unauthorised access requests, data breaches, and other cyber threats.

SharePoint site security is essential for several reasons:

• Data Protection: It ensures that sensitive and confidential information is protected from unauthorised access.
• Compliance: Many industries have strict compliance requirements, and SharePoint's security features help meet these regulations.
• Collaboration: With secure access controls, teams can collaborate effectively without compromising data security.
• Business Continuity: Robust security measures help to maintain business continuity by protecting data integrity and availability.

How does SharePoint Security Work?

SharePoint security works by implementing a combination of permissions, encryption, and compliance controls to protect data and manage access within a SharePoint environment.

Here’s how it operates:

1. User Authentication

SharePoint integrates with identity and access management systems like Active Directory to verify the identity of users before granting access. This ensures that only authorised personnel can enter the system.

In addition, user authentication ensures that only authorised users can access SharePoint. This is achieved through mechanisms like multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) requires verifying identity through additional means, such as a text message or authentication app, in addition to a password. This adds an extra layer of security.

2. Permissions and Access Control

SharePoint site security uses a granular permissions model, where administrators or only site owners can assign specific rights to a set of SharePoint groups.

Permissions Management controls who can view, edit, or delete documents, share files and information within SharePoint.

In addition, the permissions can be set at various levels, such as site, library, folder, or document, allowing for precise control over who can view, edit, or share content.

3. Data Encryption

SharePoint employs encryption at rest (stored data) and in transit (data being transferred). It means the data is protected from unauthorised access, even if someone intercepts it.

Encryption ensures the data cannot be read by unauthorised parties even if it is intercepted.

Additionally, Microsoft uses robust encryption standards to protect customer data, providing peace of mind that your information is secure.

4. Auditing and Compliance Settings

SharePoint provides auditing capabilities to track user activity, such as who accessed or modified certain files and folders. This helps organisations meet industry or government mandates, and compliance requirements and quickly respond to security incidents.

Compliance Settings help organisations comply with regulatory requirements. SharePoint includes features such as data retention policies, audit logs, and information governance tools.

These features ensure that data is managed and disposed of correctly, reducing the risk of non-compliance fines and penalties.

Audit logs also provide a record of user activity, which can be invaluable in detecting and responding to security incidents.

5. Security Groups

SharePoint allows administrators to create and manage security groups that can be assigned specific permissions. This makes it easier for large teams to manage access by simply adding or removing users from these groups.

6. Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

SharePoint includes DLP features to detect and protect sensitive information, such as credit card numbers or social security numbers, preventing them from being accidentally shared or leaked.

10 Proven SharePoint Security Best Practices

Here are the best practices for SharePoint Online Security:

1. Implementing Strong Permission Controls

Careful assignment of SharePoint permissions is crucial for security as it determines users' actions on sites, documents, and resources.

Mismanaging these advanced permissions settings can result in unauthorised access and data breaches.

Best Practices for Assigning Permissions

1. Use SharePoint Groups: Instead of assigning permissions to individual SharePoint users, you should create groups that represent different roles or departments. This simplifies management and reduces the likelihood of errors.
2. Least Privilege Principle: Site owners should assign users the minimum level of access they need to perform their jobs. You should avoid giving users more access than necessary, which can expose sensitive content.
3. Regular Security Audits: You should regularly review permissions to ensure they are up-to-date and aligned with current user roles and responsibilities.

2. Using SharePoint Admin Centre Effectively

The SharePoint Admin Centre is the central tool for managing SharePoint settings and configurations.

It provides a comprehensive interface for overseeing the security and functionality of your SharePoint environment.

Key Functions in the Admin Centre

1. Internal Security Policies: SharePoint site owners should set and enforce policies that govern how data is accessed and shared within your organisation. This includes configuring password policies, session timeouts, and multi-factor authentication.
2. Sharing Externally: You should manage who can share content outside your organisation. This includes setting up rules for sharing and monitoring external users.
3. Conditional Access Policies: These policies help protect resources by only granting access under specific conditions, such as requiring a secure network connection or multi-factor authentication.

3. Managing External Sharing

External sharing settings in SharePoint enable collaboration with partners, clients, and other external users.

However, it also introduces potential data security risks.

Strategies for Secure External Sharing

1. Limit Sharing Capabilities: You should restrict external sharing sites, and avoid enabling anonymous sharing. This helps control who can access your data.

2. Monitor External Access: You should use audit logs and other monitoring tools to track who is accessing shared sites and content and ensure compliance with security policies.

3. Guest Expiration Policies: You should set expiration dates for guest access to ensure that temporary users cannot access data indefinitely.

4. Protecting Sensitive Data

Protecting sensitive and confidential content is crucial to maintaining the integrity and confidentiality of your organisation's information.

SharePoint provides several tools to help secure and identify sensitive data and confidential content.

Data Loss Prevention and Protection

1. Data Loss Prevention (DLP): DLP policies help identify and secure sensitive content, such as financial or personal information, from being shared inappropriately.

2. Labelling and Classification: You should utilise SharePoint's labelling and classification features to tag sensitive documents, which assists in automatically applying protection measures based on the classification.

3. Encryption and Rights Management: You should ensure sensitive content is encrypted and use rights management to control how data is accessed and shared.

5. Regularly Reviewing Access Rights

You should regularly review access rights, which is essential for maintaining security in the SharePoint platform. This involves checking who has access to what data and adjusting permissions as necessary.

Conducting Access Reviews

1. Quarterly Reviews: You should conduct access reviews at least quarterly to identify any permissions that need to be revoked or adjusted.

2. Access Reports: You should utilise SharePoint’s reporting tools to generate access reports, which provide a detailed overview of user permissions and activity.

3. Automated Alerts: You should set up alerts for unusual access patterns, such as multiple failed login attempts, which may indicate a security threat.

6. Utilising SharePoint Security Features

SharePoint comes with various security features to safeguard your data and manage access. Understanding and effectively utilising these features can significantly improve your security posture.

Key Security Features

1. Permission Inheritance: By default, permissions in SharePoint are inherited from parent sites. However, in cases where specific permissions are needed, you can break this inheritance to set unique permissions.

2. Security Groups: You should use security groups to manage permissions for larger sets of users, simplifying administration and ensuring consistent access controls.

3. Audit Logs: Audit logs track user actions and changes within the SharePoint group, providing a critical tool for monitoring and investigating security incidents.

7. Configuring Security Settings

Proper configuration of SharePoint security settings is crucial for protecting your company's data.

This includes setting up and managing policies, groups, and permission levels for SharePoint permissions.

Best Practices for Security Settings

1. Security and Permission Levels: You should create security groups that align with organisational roles and assign appropriate permission levels. This helps in enforcing consistent security policies.

2. Policy Enforcement: You should ensure security policies such as password policies and data retention rules are enforced across all SharePoint sites.

3. Site Security: You should regularly review and update security settings for all sites to protect against new threats and vulnerabilities.

8. Educating Users on Security Best Practices

User education is a fundamental aspect of SharePoint security management.

You should ensure all users understand the importance of security and know how to handle data responsibly can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches.

Key Areas of User Education

1. Data Protection: You should educate users on the importance of protecting sensitive content and the potential risks of sharing data inappropriately.

2. Recognising Phishing and Malicious Software: You should train users on how to recognise phishing attempts and the signs of malicious software to prevent security breaches.

3. Proper Use of Sharing Features: You should ensure users know how to use SharePoint’s sharing features securely, including when and how to use external sharing and what information can be shared.

9. Monitoring and Auditing

Continuous monitoring and auditing are vital for maintaining the security of your SharePoint environment.

This involves tracking user activity and access patterns to detect and respond to potential security incidents.

Effective Monitoring and Auditing Practices

1. Real-Time Monitoring: You should use real-time monitoring tools to track user activity and access to sensitive data. This can help quickly identify and respond to potential security threats.

2. Audit Logs: You should regularly review audit logs to monitor changes in permissions, access to sensitive information, and other critical activities.

3. Incident Response: You should develop and implement an incident response plan to quickly address any security incidents identified through monitoring and auditing.

10. Remember to use Microsoft Secure Score

Microsoft Secure Score in the Microsoft 365 Defender portal scans your environment and alerts you to configuration changes that align with the latest security standards.

It also provides insights into potential threats, how to defend against them, and which features can enhance overall security.

These tools are continually updated based on Microsoft’s research and real-time system monitoring.

How can Aztech help you?

We understand that implementing SharePoint is a significant endeavour, which is why our comprehensive consulting services make it manageable.

From migration to development, implementation, training, and ongoing support, our consultants will assist you in harnessing the full potential of SharePoint.

Aztech provides tailored solutions and personalised support to ensure a seamless implementation aligned with your organisation's goals.

Aztech offers a range of services to help organisations enhance their SharePoint Online security.

Our experts can assist with:

1. Content Control & Access

Our consultants enable secure connectivity to content from any device, promoting flexible remote working.

In addition, we optimise access management to promote collaboration and productivity while ensuring stringent security protocols are maintained.

Our comprehensive solutions meet diverse business needs, facilitating efficient content management in dynamic work environments.

2. Document Management & Security

Our consultants ensure a smooth migration to SharePoint, providing advanced document management and security features that enhance productivity and compliance.

With our services, your organisation can efficiently manage documents while meeting compliance standards.

3. Collaboration

Our SharePoint services enable real-time collaboration on documents regardless of geographical location.

This promotes transparency, enhances communication, and accelerates decision-making processes within your organisation.

By partnering with Aztech, SMEs and large enterprises can benefit from expert guidance and support, ensuring their SharePoint environment is secure and compliant.

Summary

Ensuring the security of your SharePoint environment is essential to protect sensitive data and maintain compliance.

By implementing the best practices outlined in this article, you can enhance the security of your SharePoint Online environment.

Additionally, partnering with experts like Aztech can provide the support and expertise needed to maintain a secure and efficient SharePoint environment.

Prioritise SharePoint security to safeguard access to your organisation’s data and ensure peace of mind.

SharePoint Security Best Practices FAQs

How can I protect sensitive data in SharePoint?

To protect sensitive data, use SharePoint's DLP features, configure security settings to restrict access, and regularly review and update permissions.

How often should I review SharePoint access rights?

Review access rights at least quarterly, or more frequently if your organisation deals with sensitive content or has a high turnover rate.

What are the best practices for assigning permissions in SharePoint?

Business owners should use SharePoint groups to assign permissions instead of individuals and assign the least privilege necessary for users to perform their jobs.

Can I prevent users from sharing content anonymously in SharePoint?

Yes, you can disable anonymous sharing through the SharePoint Admin Center to ensure that only authenticated users can access your SharePoint sites.

What tools are available in SharePoint for monitoring and auditing?

SharePoint audit also provides audit logs, compliance features, and integration with the Security and Compliance Centre to monitor and audit activities.