For years, cyber security has focused on detection and response. That remains essential — but a significant shift is underway. The question is no longer just 'how quickly can we detect attackers?' It's increasingly 'why were they able to get in at all?'

Most Cyber Incidents Start With Identity

When we investigate cyber incidents today, a common theme emerges. Attackers rarely need to exploit sophisticated vulnerabilities. More often than not, they're taking advantage of accounts without MFA, excessive administrative permissions, stale accounts that should have been removed, and weak Microsoft 365 security settings.

Huntress has consistently reported that identity-based attacks continue to grow because logging in is often easier than hacking in.

What Is ISPM?

ISPM stands for Identity Security Posture Management — think of it as a continuous health check for your Microsoft 365 security configuration. Rather than waiting for a compromise to occur, ISPM continuously assesses your tenant against security best practices and identifies areas where risk can be reduced.

It helps answer questions such as: Do we have accounts with unnecessary privileges? Are our authentication controls configured correctly? Have security settings drifted from best practice? Are there risky configurations that attackers commonly exploit?

Why We Like the Huntress Approach

Most security posture tools simply tell you what's wrong — generating long lists of alerts and leaving your IT team to work out what matters most. For many SMEs, that's not particularly helpful.

What makes Huntress different is that they're using intelligence gathered from millions of protected identities and endpoints to determine which controls actually matter in the real world. The focus isn't on creating another dashboard. The focus is on reducing the attack surface that criminals are actively exploiting.

A Natural Extension of Huntress ITDR

Many Dataplanet customers already benefit from Huntress Managed ITDR — monitoring Microsoft 365, detecting account compromise, and investigating identity-based threats. ISPM complements this perfectly.

If ITDR helps identify when attackers are abusing identities, ISPM helps reduce the opportunities for those attacks to succeed in the first place. It's the difference between "we detected a problem" and "we've removed the condition that allowed the problem to exist."

The most effective cyber incident is the one that never happens.

Combined with Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Huntress Managed ITDR, Huntress MDR, managed backup and a well-managed security baseline, ISPM adds another important layer to a genuinely defence-in-depth security strategy.