Olive + Goose helped a large retailer of sports equipment achieve better email security and saved them significant costs by utilizing licenses they already owned to replace a point solution. We helped them migrate from Mimecast to Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) and Microsoft Defender for Office 365.

We can also help you modernize your broader security posture providing enterprise-grade security for your apps, identity, data, and devices with Microsoft security solutions. Stay secure and save time and money, so you can focus on what matters most: running your business.

The importance of email security

Securing email has always been a high priority for organizations, but cyberthreats have increased in frequency and sophistication. Microsoft synthesizes 43 trillion signals per day, indicating that once a user clicks on a phishing link, it takes a mere 72 minutes for an attacker to get full access to the user’s inbox and two hours to move laterally across the organization.

Implementing a strong email security posture should be a high priority for any organization. Microsoft offers tools such as Exchange Online Protection, and Defender for Office 365 to help you achieve this. Our consultants have the understanding and expertise to implement these tools in a non-disruptive and efficient way.

Why Exchange Online Protection and Defender for Office 365?

Exchange Online Protection (EOP) alongside Microsoft Defender for Office 365 protects against malware, phishing, and spam, as well as malicious URLs and files, through a cloud-based filtering service. EOP is used to protect your on-premises email in standalone and hybrid environments; chances are, you probably already own the licenses for these two products. With Microsoft Defender for Office 365, you can extend that protection with advanced detection, investigation, and response.

EOP is the core of security for Microsoft 365 subscriptions and helps keep malicious emails from reaching employee’s inboxes. But with new, more sophisticated attacks emerging every day, improved protections are often required. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (Plan 1 or Plan 2) contains additional features that give admins more layers of security, control, and investigation.

  • Microsoft Defender for Office 365 P1 expands on threat prevention, adding extra forms of detection including real-time detections for investigations.
  • Microsoft Defender for Office 365 P2 expands on the investigation and response, adding a new hunting strength through automation, called Threat Explorer.

How to achieve cost savings and more efficient operations

Many businesses own Microsoft 365 E5 subscriptions for their users but also license a point solution for their email security.

Olive + Goose can help you review what licenses you currently own, consolidate costs, improve your security posture, and reduce the complexity of managing multiple solutions. We often find that our customers will benefit from migrating their email security solution to EOP and Defender for Office 365, whether they already own the licenses or not.

One of our customers (approximately 9,000 users) that benefitted from moving to EOP and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 had a Mimecast contract about to expire, initiating a conversation on whether to renew or migrate their email security to the Microsoft solution. The superior functionality of the Microsoft products and the fact they already had the licenses, convinced them to migrate.

Our consultants started the engagement within two days of being contacted by the customer, jumping straight in by documenting 40 security policies, their purpose, configurations, and any exceptions.

The analysis revealed many unused, conflicting, redundant policies, and a need for a dashboard providing analytics, monitoring, and reporting. We presented a plan to achieve all the expected outcomes, while reducing the number of policies to just 10. The cutover was planned with step-by-step instructions, including coordinating with the DNS providers and educating end-users.

Benefits to Customer

Using Exchange Online Protection and Defender for Office 365 provided all the desired functionality using licenses they already owned, saving them over $25,000 per month. We also provided a single pane of glass reporting system with an intuitive interface, and improved their security posture. In addition, the project was executed ahead of schedule, and with no disruption to end-users and security of email remained intact during the migration.

Olive + Goose has a portfolio of customers where we have successfully deployed security solutions. Contact us at [email protected] to learn more and discuss how we can help you with your unique security needs.