Young Lewisham Project is a community based organisation that provides alternative education programmes and practical workshops for young people. Its focus is to create a positive and inclusive environment where learners can build confidence, develop vocational skills and receive support tailored to their needs. The project plays an important role in helping young people access opportunities that promote long term personal development.
Young Lewisham Project wanted to strengthen the security of its Microsoft 365 environment and ensure its systems continued to support safe and effective working across the team. With a desire to follow recognised best practice and improve its Secure Score, the organisation sought a structured review and enhancement of its policies across identity protection, email security, data governance and device usage. This included ensuring conditional access controls were implemented, modern security standards were applied to Microsoft Defender policies and the organisation’s data remained protected regardless of the device or location from which it was accessed. The aim was to achieve a more robust, predictable and manageable security posture without disrupting the day to day work of staff.
Our team carried out a detailed review of Microsoft 365 and implemented a series of improvements designed to increase security, strengthen governance and align the environment with current best practice.
Conditional Access was fully configured and enforced to ensure only trusted users and compliant devices could access organisational data. Defender Standard policies were enabled to provide consistent protection across endpoints, while Anti Phish, Anti Malware and Anti Spam policies were updated to enhance email security and reduce risks associated with modern threats. A dedicated quarantine policy was created with updated global settings to provide clearer oversight and safer management of flagged messages.
We improved user consent settings to prevent unnecessary exposure of data and configured Data Sensitive Labels to support safer handling of internal information. Company branding was applied to reinforce trust and provide a consistent experience during identity related processes. Additional protections were implemented by disabling users from installing Outlook add ins and disabling external calendar sharing to avoid the accidental disclosure of internal scheduling details.
Finally, we applied app protection policies for BYOD devices to ensure that any personal devices accessing Microsoft 365 data did so under strict controls, reducing risk without preventing staff from working flexibly.
Young Lewisham Project now benefits from a significantly stronger and more controlled Microsoft 365 environment. The improvements have increased their Secure Score and ensured staff can work in a safer and more predictable digital setting. Email protections are more robust, reducing the likelihood of phishing or malware reaching users, while conditional access ensures only approved users and devices can access sensitive information.
Data handling practices have improved through the introduction of sensitive labels, helping the organisation meet compliance expectations and maintain stewardship of information. BYOD protections have allowed staff greater flexibility without compromising security. Overall, the changes have helped establish a resilient and modern security baseline that supports the organisation’s important work with young people.
- Increased Microsoft Secure Score
- Improved email security across phishing, malware, spam and quarantine
- Enhanced data governance with sensitivity labels
- Safer use of personal devices through app protection controls
- Reduced risk of unauthorised data sharing
- Consistent and trusted user experience with updated branding
