Microsoft 365 Security Hardening for a Regulated Insurance Provider
Industry
Insurance
Customer
Specialty Insurance Provider
X-Centric provided IT security services to a national specialty insurance provider operating in a highly regulated industry with strict security, compliance, and governance requirements. The organization relies heavily on Microsoft 365 services to support collaboration, communication, and day-to-day operations.
Key Highlights
Situation
The customer’s Microsoft 365 environment had grown organically over time, with security controls implemented inconsistently across identities, messaging, collaboration platforms, and compliance tools. Leadership needed a clear understanding of the current security posture, alignment with industry best practices, and a structured roadmap for improvement.
The organization sought a comprehensive hardening assessment that aligned with the CIS Microsoft 365 Foundations Benchmark and Microsoft Secure Score, enabling them to identify high-impact, low-effort improvements while minimizing disruption to ongoing business operations.
Problem
Existing security configurations lacked a unified baseline, and leadership had no reliable way to quantify risk or measure improvement over time. Key challenges included:
No consolidated view of Microsoft 365 security posture
Low alignment to CIS Benchmarks
A Microsoft Secure Score of 43%, indicating substantial opportunities for improvement
Difficulty determining which controls would yield the highest security value with the least business impact
Limited visibility into how to prioritize identity, email, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and compliance settings
The organization needed a structured, data-driven approach to analyze the tenant, identify gaps, and prioritize improvements based on actual risk and operational impact.
Solution
We conducted a comprehensive Microsoft 365 Hardening Assessment using automated tooling, manual validation, documentation review, stakeholder interviews, CIS 365 Benchmark mapping, and Secure Score analysis.
Key components of the solution included:
Tenant-Wide CIS & Secure Score Evaluation
Assessed the environment against the CIS Microsoft 365 Foundations Benchmark, evaluating all controls across identities, email, collaboration, compliance, and administration.
Mapped Secure Score controls to CIS requirements to maximize efficiency.
Manual Validation of Controls Not Measured by Microsoft
Validated key controls that required manual assessment, such as conditional access logic and third-party identity integrations.
Prioritized Remediation Framework
We created a scoring model that ranked each recommendation by:
Security value
Implementation difficulty
End-user impact
Operational complexity
Phased Hardening Roadmap
A three-phase roadmap was created to guide the customer through security improvements over a six-month period:
Phase 1: High-value, low-effort items that deliver immediate security gains
Phase 2: Moderate changes to improve protection across identity, messaging, and collaboration
Phase 3: More advanced security enhancements and governance improvements
The roadmap aimed to make progress quickly while minimizing disruption, with a projected increase in the Secure Score of ~125 points (from 43% to ~88%).
Operational Impact
Our team captured before-and-after metrics to assess engagement effectiveness and demonstrated visible progress in security hardening.
Before Assessment
43% Microsoft Secure Score
No unified roadmap or prioritization structure
Inconsistent controls across key workloads
After Assessment
88% Microsoft Secure Score
Delivered a clear roadmap targeting ~70%+ uplift in overall Secure Score
Identified 125+ points of achievable security improvements
Provided structured guidance and governance through a RACI matrix
Enabled fast implementation of high-impact changes with minimal business disruption
Business Outcomes
X-Centric's work helped the client improve individual controls and introduced a coherent framework that gave sponsors confidence in security posture and a clear line of sight into future IT priorities.
Established a quantifiable benchmark for Microsoft 365 security maturity
Team X-Centric enabled the client's leadership to make evidence-based decisions on risk, investment, and priorities
Strengthened compliance readiness through clear documentation and remediation planning
We improved security predictability and reduced risk across identity, messaging, collaboration, and data protection systems
By aligning security controls to CIS Benchmarks and Secure Score, and pairing analysis with a practical remediation roadmap, X-Centric helped the organization move quickly toward measurable risk reduction while maintaining operational stability.
