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About Security Posture Management & Baselines
Table of Contents
Syncro’s Security Posture Management is a powerful way to assess and monitor the security posture of Microsoft 365 tenants.
At the core of this capability are Baselines—sets of security Rules aligned with industry best practices, such as the CIS Microsoft 365 Foundations Benchmark.
Baselines provide value across a number of security categories, including:
| Security Categories | Core Capability | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Identify | Assessments |
Gain visibility into your current security posture, understand gaps, and receive clear guidance for prioritizing improvements.
|
| Prevent | Baselines |
Standardize configurations and reduce your attack surface by aligning to proven best practices and frameworks.
|
| Detect | Monitoring |
Turn signals into action with actionable insights that highlight misconfigurations, exposures, and risks. |
| Respond | Alerts | Automatically respond to known threats and deviations to minimize response time and maximize protection at scale. |
Syncro's Security Posture Management feature gives your team a continuous view into the health of your (Customer) Organizations—and the ability to respond with automation or professional services when needed.
To Get Started
Note: To use Baselines, you must be subscribed to Syncro's Teams Plan.
To use Syncro’s Security Posture Management and Baselines, you’ll need to:
- Integrate with Microsoft 365: Ensure each Microsoft 365 tenant is connected to Syncro. This authorizes Syncro to perform security and compliance checks.
- Map Microsoft Tenants to Syncro Tenants: Associate each connected Microsoft 365 tenant with a corresponding Syncro Tenant to enable proper visibility and management. See Integrate Microsoft & Map Syncro Tenants for details.
- Attach a Baseline to One or More Syncro Tenants: By default, you’ll have access to the Security Essential Baseline. More Baselines may be introduced over time as part of Syncro's ongoing posture management updates. See Attach or Detach Baselines for details.
Syncro will audit the Tenant’s configuration against the rules in the attached Baseline. Initially this may take several hours to complete depending on the complexity and size of the Tenant being evaluated. Daily audits automatically re-check configuration status every 12 hours.
You can then view compliance results—including pass/fail per rule, Microsoft Secure Score, and overall Compliance score. See XYZ for details.
Optionally, you can enable:
- Notifications: To alert Syncro Users when rules fail. See Manage Notifications for Rules for details.
- Auto-Remediation: To automatically fix failed configurations when supported. (Coming Soon)
Things You Should Know
In addition to the Syncro Glossary, here are some Posture Management terms and concepts you should know.
About Frameworks & Benchmarks
A Framework outlines the set of activities that organizations should take to manage their security posture, including identifying threats, assessing risks, and developing security controls. Frameworks take a broad, strategic view.
Benchmarks are detailed configuration recommendations and instructions for specific systems that Frameworks often include.
About Baselines & Rules
Baselines use industry-standard best practices (i.e., Frameworks and Benchmarks) to audit Microsoft 365 tenants, strengthening security and enhancing visibility into misconfigurations.
In Syncro, a Baseline is a set of rules used to ensure that an attached Syncro Tenant meets Microsoft settings you require, for the purposes of measuring (and potentially enforcing) compliance. Syncro evaluates each individual Rule inside the Baseline during an audit.
Syncro's Security Essential Baseline--which focuses on foundation rules--is based on the CIS Critical Security Controls v8.1 Framework and aligned the CIS Microsoft 365 Benchmark, which provides structured guidance for securing Microsoft 365 environments.
About Microsoft Secure Scores
The Microsoft Secure Score is a percentage measurement of an (Customer) Organization's security posture, with a higher number indicating more recommended actions taken. It's taken directly from Microsoft. (See Microsoft Secure Score for more information.)
About Compliance Scores
The Compliance Score is a percentage of how many Rules passed compared to the total number of Rules in the Baseline.
It's a percentage measurement of an (Customer) Organization's security posture, with a higher number indicating better compliance. Syncro calculates this score by averaging the compliance scores across the four key categories identified in each Rule:
- Identity
- Apps
- Endpoints
- Data
Note: If a category is not applicable to a Syncro Tenant, Syncro excludes it from the final score calculation.
About Assessments
In the context of Security Posture Management and Baselines, an Assessment is a prescriptive, systematic evaluation process designed to measure how well a Microsoft 365 environment aligns with defined security Baselines.
Syncro generates an assessment report that includes Rule compliance data, a Microsoft Secure Score, and other relevant details collected during an audit of a Syncro Tenant.