Using Microsoft 365 to offer comprehensive security across enterprise and SMC segments

While zero-trust initiatives may be more commonly associated with large enterprises, Microsoft partner Cyclotron is seeing a big uptick in interest from small and midsized companies (SMCs) for its comprehensive secure productivity offerings. When companies grow beyond the 300-user threshold for Microsoft 365 Business Premium or struggle with managing multiple third-party point products, Cyclotron promotes the security benefits of transitioning to Microsoft 365 E5 for its ability to enable a zero-trust model. “The value of the comprehensive security that Microsoft offers in E5 lands equally well with customers in enterprise and SMC. As organizations expand, it gets harder to use a manual approach for protecting data and systems on a user-by-user basis,” said Nathan Berger, Director of Security at Cyclotron. “Zero-trust in the Microsoft 365 stack lets our customers seamlessly implement security at scale. With smaller IT departments facing the same threats as enterprises, the need for zero-trust principles and practices in SMCs is just as critical.”

Cyclotron offers a variety of in-depth assessments that can measure a client’s existing security posture against what is possible with Microsoft 365 E5. “Our assessments show how to improve security against both external and internal threats as well as compliance efforts, but also where organizations can consolidate to eliminate unnecessary costs,” said Berger. “We cover everything from Intune, Entra, Defender, and Purview to Teams features, SharePoint conditional access, Copilot, and governance and deployment best practices.”

Helping Vantage West achieve its security vision with Microsoft 365 E5

Established in 1955, Vantage West has grown to become one of the largest credit unions in Arizona with more than 191,000 members and USD $3.0 billion in assets. To improve its security posture and reduce costs, Vantage West wanted to segment end-user threats from its production on-premises resources, utilizing a zero-trust approach and a more modern security stack. At the same time the credit union wanted to simplify its IT environment by moving to a unified, cloud-based solution that would further lower costs and make production workflows less dependent on the datacenter.

Vantage West engaged Cyclotron to conduct a zero-trust security assessment to its overall security and productivity state, along with a Microsoft Business Value Assessment to determine the value that Microsoft 365 E5 could deliver to help the 550-person organization meet its business goals. “We wanted to remove threats from our on-premises banking infrastructure by limiting end-user presence there,” said Jim Jenkins, Vice President and Security Officer at Vantage West Credit Union. “Microsoft 365 E5 provided the functionality we needed to securely provision end users in the cloud, and the integrated infrastructure is allowing us to accelerate implementation. Our security team can be incredibly productive with built-in visibility and integration that doesn’t require custom coding.”

Vantage West is well on its way to implementing its zero-trust security vision. Intune has reduced device provisioning from 4+ hours down to less than 60 minutes for all Windows devices, and there are plans to extend management to Mac devices, eliminating the need to have a specialized Mac-only tool. Intune is also being used to secure devices traveling outside of the corporate network by putting in place limited permissions to secure productivity until the user returns to network. Entra deployment has begun and, in addition to providing granular access control, it delivers automated, built-in reports on infrastructure and usage to the leadership team outlining domain admin activity and highlighting risky sign-in behaviors. For data leakage protection, Purview will be deployed shortly and will allow Vantage West to track and restrict access to data containing personal identifiable information (PII), loan information and other sensitive content. Besides providing new protection capabilities, Microsoft 365 E5 has also enabled Vantage West to consolidate the functions of 10 tools for savings of approximately USD $40K per year.

“Zero-trust is a journey, not a destination, and we are very happy with the value that the Microsoft 365 solutions have provided,” said Jenkins. “We have discussed our success with other credit unions both big and small, and the security model we’re implementing with Cyclotron is now also making a big impact for other organizations in our industry that are adopting a similar approach.”

Laying the security foundation for driving impact with Copilot

While zero-trust security is gaining a wider foothold in organizations, customers have a new security concern to deal with: Generative AI. Cyclotron has seen demand for generative AI security services skyrocket since Microsoft 365 Copilot was launched and has doubled its security team as a result. “We hear from customers that ‘our businesses are demanding more generative AI from us, but our security architecture cannot keep up fast enough.’ As Microsoft 365 experts, we’ve had a framework they can operate in from day one. That has really made a difference with clients,” said Berger.

In just 12 months, Cyclotron has delivered more than 125 Copilot readiness assessments, with nearly half of those being in the SMC segment. “Our assessment addresses key points of anxiety around security that can prevent Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption by quantifying the problem and setting proactive tasks to address potential gaps. We help identify use cases where Copilot can drive the most value while ensuring customers don’t open themselves up to new security risks,” concluded Berger.

"The value of the comprehensive security that Microsoft offers in E5 lands equally well with customers in enterprise and SMC."

— Nathan Berger, Director of Security, Cyclotron

"We are very happy with the value that the Microsoft 365 solutions have provided. We have discussed our success with other credit unions both big and small, and the security model we’re implementing with Cyclotron is now also making a big impact for other organizations in our industry that are adopting a similar approach."

— Jim Jenkins, Vice President and Security Officer, Vantage West Credit Union

Cyclotron enables zero-trust protections at Vantage West Credit Union