There’s a number sitting inside your Microsoft 365 admin center that most business owners have never opened. It’s your Secure Score. And it’s made to tell you directly how well-protected your business is online, using security you may already be paying for.

Here’s what your Microsoft Secure Score means, and how to use it without having to go down a rabbit hole.

The 5 Key Takeaways

• It grades your Microsoft security setup against best practice and shows it as a percentage.
• It’s a way to put a number on where your cybersecurity currently sits compared to Microsoft’s “ideal” layout.
• Most improvements to increase your Secure Score will usually cost nothing. They’re typical features already purchased and existing in your license, just switched off. Note that some Secure Score features are behind additional paid licenses.
• Don’t chase the 100% target. Chase the handful of changes that genuinely reduce your risk in your business over perfection.
• It’s your starting line for using AI safely. Keeping your cybersecurity in check is a key part of AI-readiness.

So, what is your Secure Score?

Microsoft looks at how your 365 environment is configured, compares it to what good security looks like, and gives you a percentage. Each recommended action (turning on stronger sign-in, tightening how files are shared, switching on phishing protection) is worth points. Do more of them, and your score goes up.

Now what Secure Score doesn’t do is just as important. It won’t stop an attack on its own. It won’t prove you’re compliant with any standard. And it doesn’t know your business (it can’t tell which settings are most urgently in need of optimisation over others).

Quick tip? Treat Secure Score as a guide to strong cybersecurity, not a definitive number that proves your business is protected.

The bit most people miss (you may have already paid for this)

Most of the protection Secure Score asks for is already sitting in the licenses you pay for every month. For example, stronger sign-in, phishing protection, and sensible limits on sharing. All of this is usually just toggled off or disabled in your settings.

So, a low score usually isn’t a spending problem. It’s an unused value problem. It’s the same story as the rest of Microsoft 365: a very powerful kit, oftentimes running inside businesses at a fraction of what it can do.

What is your Secure Score number telling you?

Your Secure Score tells you:

• Where you’re exposed. The gaps in your score are the holes in your cybersecurity worth checking first.
• Whether you’re getting your money’s worth. A low score is a hallmark of protection that you’ve often bought and may not be using.
• The direction your Cybersecurity is heading. The trend matters far more than the snapshot. A score that’s climbing month on month will usually tell you more than any single number can. Keep an eye out for your Secure Score trends.

Why chasing 100% on your Secure Score is the wrong goal

A perfect score can backfire. How?

Well, choosing to select some of the strictest settings on the journey to 100% Secure Score adds friction that your team will quietly work around, which leaves you no safer. The goal isn’t the highest score. It’s the right score for your business. Look for the changes that cut genuine Cybersecurity risk without slowing you or your team down.

Think about Secure Score as the rough level of Cybersecurity for your business based on how close your settings are to Microsoft’s “ideal” layout.

You’ll often find that the businesses that know what level of cybersecurity they need personally, and what they can ignore, are significantly more protected, regardless of how high their Secure Score rating is.

How to use your Secure Score rating

You'll find it in the Microsoft Defender portal (security.microsoft.com), or via the Security link in your Microsoft 365 admin centre, under Secure Score. We recommend interpreting Secure Score ratings and improving them like this:

• Start by discovering what would genuinely hurt your business if a part of your Cybersecurity went wrong. Customer data? Your finance inbox? The shared drive everything lives on? Your Secure Score lists dozens of recommendations, but only a handful protect the things that can have the biggest impact. Those are the ones worth your attention to protect first.
• Understand that most break-ins don't involve clever hacking; someone simply gets hold of a password. Turning on multi-factor authentication (that second check on your phone when you log in via an authenticator app) shuts the front door on the vast majority of those attempts. It's usually the single biggest jump in your score for the least effort, and the one we'd switch on first, every time.
• Know that before you set every option to "most secure", ask: will my team use this? Strong security that gets used will beat security with a Secure Score rating of 100% that gets bypassed. When a recommendation looks like it'll get in everyone's way, that's a moment to re-evaluate if the move is worth going for.
• A number nobody's responsible for never gets consistently improved. Pick one person to be an owner. It could be you, your office manager, or whoever looks after your IT. Pick somebody to keep half an eye on your Secure Score. It doesn't need to be someone technical.
• Make sure to check your Secure Score regularly, not just once every 6 months. New staff, new apps, and new Microsoft features all nudge your score over time. A quick look once a month is plenty. What you're watching for is the direction of travel, not necessarily the exact figure. Steady and climbing is exactly what you want to see.
  

Where Microsoft Secure Score fits with AI (Copilot)

Copilot has a hand in your Microsoft assets across your business. This includes important pieces of data, such as your business email, files, and Teams chats.

Now, using Copilot inside your business is only ever as safe as the environment you switch it on in.

How so? Well, the information Copilot pulls to give you a hand on tasks doesn’t come out of nowhere. It works with what's already put in place inside your Microsoft infrastructure. Importantly, your cybersecurity.

The simplest way to picture it is this: your Microsoft cybersecurity is the foundation Copilot runs on. The strength of this foundation will determine how compliant Copilot is.

That's the part that catches businesses out. AI doesn't create these gaps; it just shines a very bright light on the ones already existing. So, the smartest move before you turn Copilot on is to get the basics in order first and review your Microsoft Secure Score.

Some examples:
Tighten who can see what, enable a two-step verification upon sign-in, and clear up any oversharing. None of it is glamorous work (we know), but it's the difference between Copilot being genuinely useful for your team or being a security risk for you by accessing files and sharing data it shouldn’t...

That's why Secure Score is the foundation to using Copilot, not a side quest. It's the cheapest, simplest groundwork you can do before you bring AI into the picture, and it's what turns Copilot from a risk into an assistant you can trust and deploy confidently.

A simple place to start

If you'd like to know where your Microsoft security really stands beyond the Secure Score number,  the easiest first step is a free Cybersecurity and Readiness audit. In this audit, we diagnose your Secure Score baseline, talk through the gaps that actually matter for your business, and give you (for free) a straight Copilot-readiness check. A quick snapshot to give you a guide on where to start improving first, not a deep audit. 

If it's useful and you'd like to go further, we do offer our Copilot Enablement + Readiness Workshop.  A structured session that turns those findings into a clear picture: where your cybersecurity currently sits, what we recommend fixing first, and where Copilot will bring you the highest ROI across your unique team. You come away with a roadmap heavily customised only for your business and a detailed summary of changes you can simply install for quick results that last. This workshop is online. 

And if any work does follow, there’s up to £1,000 of Microsoft funding behind qualifying projects.

To book an appointment with a member of our team to schedule your FREE discovery call and Cybersecurity readiness assessment (where we can provide details on the Copilot Enablement + Readiness Workshop), click the link below:

 Copilot Enablement Workshop by labdesk - Drive Value with Microsoft Copilot AI