Recent Exchange Hack: Microsoft Cloud Migration Looking Better Than Ever

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The recent Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerability should be a wake-up call for any small business still running email servers on-premises. Several years ago you may have had a financial or business reason to keep your email or other critical applications and data in-house, but the situation is much different now.

If you’ve been skeptical about migrating your business to Microsoft cloud, the Exchange vulnerability is another very big reason to reconsider.

Today there are far better and more secure solutions available to businesses of all sizes, and these solutions are becoming more affordable than the traditional on-premises server solution ever was.

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Exchange Online is Microsoft’s cloud-based email service running over 275,000 mailbox servers. The fact that the recent vulnerability did not affect any of these mail servers speaks for itself. To the contrary, almost all on-premise servers were attacked successfully. 

The level of security that Microsoft has built into their modern office and cloud solutions (Exchange Online migration included) simply cannot be matched -- improving businesses’ ability to stay protected against the most sophisticated cyber threats today.

Leveraging the Zero Trust Security model, protection is extended across your entire digital estate and verifies access is secured at the resource, creating a much more comprehensive, end-to-end security strategy for today’s business environment.

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When you move your data and business applications to the cloud, the responsibility shifts from you (the customer) to the cloud provider (Microsoft). Plus, once you migrate to Microsoft's Cloud, you never buy, power or maintain another server ever again. 

And it’s worth noting, these tech giants like Microsoft have a deep pool of world-renowned security experts (over 10,000 security employees) handling the maintenance of your cloud environment, making a pretty strong case that Microsoft 365 and Azure are as secure as it’s going to get right now, even for your most sensitive business assets.

Let’s say for instance Exchange Online did fall victim to a zero-day attack with the on-prem Exchange servers earlier this month. Microsoft could push out the security patches immediately to their cloud and issue an announcement after all the protection was in place, rather than downtime and sleepless nights many IT departments endured in recent weeks. These types of issues are Microsoft’s problem now, not yours. It’s one of the many benefits of the cloud.

As the saying goes: “a day late and a dollar short” does not fly when you’re talking about technology.

Here are a few key takeaways from the recent event:

  1. On-premises is not more secure. More than 90 percent of all breaches come from business email compromises. It’s much easier for bad actors to penetrate an on-premises environment for the reasons stated above. If you are insistent on maintaining on-premise servers, you must be prepared to significantly increase your security spend to prevent future hacks.
  2. Small and Mid-size businesses (SMBs) are at risk. SMBs are no longer flying under the radar with the cybercrime community. In fact, they are now viewed as easier targets due to lack of resources and use of older technologies. We anticipate these types of hacks trending as we continue moving forward.
  3. Negative Impacts of Ransomware far outweigh any preventative security expense. The cost to protect your business with proper cybersecurity is far less than the impacts of Ransomware of a successful data breach. If you continue to keep your servers on-premises, make sure you have sufficient Cybersecurity insurance.
  4. You must take a strategic approach to IT. A Managed Service provider like ANP is still required to ensure you have the right cloud strategy in place, to ensure your migrations follow best practices and your environment is properly secured.m365 CTA large2

If you’re still operating on-premises and didn’t get Ransomware this time around, consider yourself extremely lucky and get onboard with the cloud before it’s too late.

At ANP we’ve been big advocates for Microsoft Cloud migrations for sometime now, and not just because we’re a proud partner and Cloud Solution Provider.  We’ve witnessed first-hand the power of Azure and Microsoft 365 and the competitive advantage it provides for our business and customers alike.

Would you like to talk to our cloud migration team about what it would take to move your mail server to Exchange Online?

Contact us at (215) 572 - 0111 today to sign up for our free Cloud Readiness Assessment or visit us online  to learn about our Secure Cloud Advantage bundle and what your options are for moving your business to M365 and Azure.

 

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