If your business already runs on Microsoft 365, the question is rarely “do we have security features?” It’s whether your day-to-day operating practices consistently apply baseline controls—and whether you can evidence that consistency when a customer, supplier, insurer, or internal stakeholder asks.
Cyber Essentials is useful here as a CE-style baseline: a small set of control areas that help you define what must be true, who owns decisions, and what evidence should exist over time. This is about alignment, not process theatre.
Done well, it reduces scope ambiguity and decision latency: fewer debates in the moment, clearer ownership, and fewer “we assumed” gaps. Microsoft 365 can enable many of these controls, but it does not remove the need for governance and evidence-led assurance.
Firewalls and edge controls in a Microsoft 365–centric SME
Cloud perimeter policies
In a Microsoft 365–centric environment, “firewalls and edge” is often misunderstood as purely a network appliance discussion. Governance-wise, it’s broader: where your organisation’s boundary is defined, what traffic and access paths are permitted, and who decides when exceptions are allowed.
The baseline question is simple: can you show that boundary controls exist, are intentionally set, and are managed as a control—not as a one-off project?
Device firewalls
Even when most services are cloud-based, devices remain a practical enforcement point. Alignment here is not about specific settings; it’s about whether device-side boundary controls are in scope, owned, and evidenced as part of the baseline—so “it depends on the laptop” isn’t an acceptable operating state.
Secure configuration as governance, not settings
Default security
Secure configuration is not “we set it once.” It’s an operating control: who owns configuration standards, who approves change, and how you prevent drift over time.
A CE-style baseline starts from the idea that default states should not be assumed to be appropriate. The governance question is whether you can define the baseline you expect—and show it is consistently applied and maintained.
Configuration governance
In practical terms, alignment means you can explain:
what your baseline configuration is intended to achieve,
who can change it, and
how you know the baseline still holds today (not just when it was first introduced).
Most SMEs accumulate exceptions: urgent workarounds, “temporary” access, legacy devices, special user needs. Without governance, exceptions become the default—and the baseline stops being meaningful. Alignment requires two things: a decision right (who can approve an exception) and a record (what was approved, why, and when it will be reviewed).
User access control as a lifecycle control
Least privilege & account lifecycle
User access control is a lifecycle discipline: how access is granted, changed, and removed as people join, move roles, or leave. The control isn’t “we use MFA”; it’s whether access is consistently governed across accounts, data, and administrative privilege.
From a governance standpoint, you should be able to show:
who authorises access,
what access rules exist (including role-based boundaries), and
what evidence demonstrates access changes happen reliably and promptly.
Privileged access is where ambiguity becomes expensive: it increases review overhead, slows decisions, and widens the scope of what needs assurance. Alignment means you can demonstrate that privileged access is minimised and intentionally granted—so “admin” is a controlled exception, not a convenience default.
Multi-factor & authentication policies
MFA is important, but governance requires more than turning a control on. Alignment means authentication policies are owned, consistently applied, and reviewed—so that access assurance does not vary by team, user, or historical setup.
The practical aim is predictable decision-making: when someone requests access (or an exception), the organisation can decide quickly because the rules and owners are already defined.
Malware protection as baseline maintenance
Endpoint anti-malware
Malware protection, at baseline level, is about ensuring endpoints and core services have protective measures that are consistently applied—rather than relying on individual user behaviour or ad-hoc fixes.
This remains governance-led: define what must be true across devices, who owns the baseline, and what happens when a device falls outside it.
Email and app filtering
In owner-managed SMEs, email and common applications are where day-to-day work happens—and where protective controls often need clear scope and ownership. Alignment means the business can define what filtering/handling expectations exist, who owns them, and what evidence shows they are consistently applied, including how exceptions are approved and reviewed.
The operational test is evidence: can you demonstrate that protection is active and maintained over time (including how exceptions are handled and reviewed)? Evidence reduces decision latency: you do not need to debate whether protection exists—you can show it does.
Security update management as baseline maintenance
Patch policy
Security update management is not a technical schedule; it’s a control that ensures systems stay within an acceptable baseline as software changes.
Alignment means you can define which systems are in scope, who owns update decisions, and how you avoid “unknown versions” becoming normal.
Software lifecycle
Over time, software estates change: new apps appear, old ones linger, and responsibility becomes unclear. A CE-style baseline treats lifecycle management as governance: what remains supported, what is accepted as an exception, and what evidence shows decisions are being made intentionally rather than by neglect.
The governance requirement is the same: evidence that updates are being managed in practice, not assumed. That includes visibility of exceptions, ownership of risk acceptance, and a review cadence that keeps the baseline credible over time.
