Common SharePoint Security Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Common SharePoint Security Mistakes

1. Granting Excessive Permissions

In many organizations, one of the most frequent yet dangerous SharePoint security issues is when users are given many more privileges than required. Since SharePoint is a multiple-level environment, SharePoint permissions can be provided at site, library, folder, and document levels. However, this flexibility has brought mixed benefits to loosely coupled systems.

The primary cause of over-permissioning is when an organization’s administrators strive to make things easier. For instance, assigning “Full Control” permissions may seem like the more convenient thing to do, but this increases your threat surface and risk dramatically. In the event an account is hacked, the attacker is in a position to view, download, or delete any document of their choice.

Furthermore, an organization sometimes fails to revoke or expire the given permission when an employee transfers to another department or leaves the organization, which creates more vulnerable accounts.

How to Avoid This Mistake:

• Apply the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) that grants users only what is necessary to perform their tasks.
• Take time and go through permissions periodically in an organization and compare them to the roles of the employees.
• Systematically disable or delete inactive or excessively privileged accounts through automation.

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2. Relying Solely on Passwords

Passwords are not as secure as they are believed to be. Unfortunately, many organizations continue using only passwords and other legacy security measures to protect SharePoint environments with various risks involved.

Ordinary passwords like ‘123456’ or ‘password’ are used by many users and even strong passwords might be hacked through phishing or brute force attacks or credential stuffing when an attacker tries to reuse the username and password that was leaked somewhere else.

This vulnerability is most worrying when applied to admin accounts. If an admin account is compromised, the attacker gains unrestricted access to the SharePoint site, including the possibility to view and edit any file with a shared link or configure any settings the admin previously changed.

How to Avoid This Mistake:

• Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to add an extra layer of security. With MFA, even if an attacker obtains a password, they’ll need additional verification, such as a code sent to the user’s phone.
• Use strong password policies and encourage employees to use password managers for generating and storing complex passwords.
• Regularly educate employees about phishing risks and password hygiene.

3. Ignoring Updates and Patches

SharePoint, like any other software needs to be updated from time to time to ensure it has the best security features. Sometimes, update rollups contain fixes for the vulnerabilities that attackers already use to target systems. That being said, it is common for many organizations to neglect updates, or simply choose to remain ‘updated’ instead of updating for the sake of security.

How to Avoid This Mistake:

• Make sure that updates are not going unnoticed; a specific team or person should be timeously responsible for its implementation.
• Perform updates during non-peak hours in order to produce less inconvenience to the users.
• Check that third-party plugins and extensions are upgraded as well, as they may contain security risks.

4. Weak External Sharing Controls

The external sharing options available in SharePoint allow for easy collaboration with third parties, including vendors, clients, as well as partners. Nevertheless, when external sharing controls are not set correctly, individuals will be able to see very sensitive information.

For instance, if an employee wants to share a file with a unique Web link, any individual with access to the link can preview the document. Employees may accidentally disclose information to unauthorized persons or forget to terminate access to individuals with whom they had to collaborate.

How to Avoid This Mistake:

• Allow external sharing only with some users or domains which are known to be safe.
• Choose options to share files with external users that would make them sign in first before the company grants them access.
• When using shared links, include an expiration date so as not to leave the link active for eternity.
• Periodically analyze external sharing activity to increase awareness of possible risks.

5. Failing to Classify and Protect Sensitive Data

When SharePoint data is not classified, important files such as financial records, legal patents, and other personal information and identity (PII) can be stored and distributed without any protection measures in place.

This oversight also leads to noncompliance with laws such as GDPR, HIPAA and CCPA which mandate organizations to protect data correctly.

How to Avoid This Mistake:

• Establish a data classification scheme to achieve the right level of protection to applicable data.
• Employ features of SharePoint such as sensitivity labels or third-party applications for classification and protection.
• Encrypt files that should not be accessed by other people when in transit as well as when they are stored.

6. Overlooking Backup and Disaster Recovery

Unfortunately, while Microsoft does offer SharePoint as a collaborative and productivity-improving tool, there is no one-fits-all solution to the data backup issue; as a result, organizations regularly do not have adequate plans and tools prepared for data loss scenarios such as ransomware, deletion by mishap, or hardware failure.

The key downside of not backing up your data is that restoring lost data is often slow, costly, or simply out of the question altogether. Of course, this interferes with commercial activities and exposes organizations to legal and compliance risks.

How to Avoid This Mistake:

• To support SharePoint backup, invest in a third-party backup solution specially designed for the platform.
• Frequency of backups should be planned and it is also important to check the effectiveness of that backup through a restoration exercise.
• Another protection scheme is to back up the stores offline or in air-gapped environments to guard against ransomware attacks.

7. Neglecting Audit Logs

User activity is one area that audit logs help in finding out who has had access to, edited or shared a particular file. Sadly, the majority of organizations do not have audit logging turned on or, even if it is on, do not review logs periodically.

It also creates challenges when identifying unauthorized uses of or attempts to breach the system or network.

How to Avoid This Mistake:

• Turn on audit logging in SharePoint and set it up to record the events of your interest like permission updates and document downloads.
• Search for surveillance utilities that would notify you immediately when there are some unusual activities.
• Review logs routinely for patterns and variations that might contain a signal for a security problem.

8. Integrating Unsecured Third-Party Apps

Making use of third-party applications is useful in expanding the features of SharePoint but is a security concern. Some apps can have unnecessary permissions, can contain vulnerabilities or do not meet security standards.

For instance, connecting an unknown app with file access permissions may lead to data leaks or compliance issues in your company.

How to Avoid This Mistake:

• Carefully evaluate third-party apps for security and compliance before integration.
• Limit the permissions granted to apps to the minimum required for functionality.
• Regularly review app usage and revoke access for unused or obsolete apps.

9. Failing to Secure Endpoints

The use of SharePoint is also growing as employees use their own devices at work, especially in work environments that are hybrid and remote. When not protected, these endpoints become openings through which attackers gain access to a network.

Company-owned devices usually have less protection compared to personal-owned devices since the latter can easily be attacked by malware, phishing, and many more.

How to Avoid This Mistake:

• Ensure endpoint protection policies are in place and implemented; some of the policies are; antivirus, and encryption among others.
• All SharePoint administrators should mirror conditional access to isolate the access of SharePoint from untrusted devices or networks.
• Use MDM procedures to provide SharePoint mobility in a secure environment.

10. Underestimating Human Error

Despite the fact that organizations employ the best security systems, user mistakes are among the primary reasons for data loss incidents. Employees can by mistake transfer confidential documents, get tricked into divulging information or set up an easy to guess passwords thereby posing a threat to SharePoint security.

How to Avoid This Mistake:

• Include relevant training sessions on SharePoint security at least once a quarter to reinforce participants’ knowledge of what a phishing attempt looks like and how to work responsibly with permissions.
• Ensure security awareness activities are conducted on a regular basis to remind the users to secure sensitive data.
• Phishing simulations can help organizations determine the areas which the employees are lacking information.

How Lepide Helps Secure SharePoint

Lepide Data Security Platform offers a comprehensive SharePoint auditing solution designed to address these security pitfalls. With features like permissions analysis, real-time alerts, and compliance reporting, Lepide makes it easier to secure your SharePoint environment.

Permissions Analysis: Identify over-permissioned accounts and enforce the Principle of Least Privilege.

Real-Time Alerts: Receive instant notifications about suspicious activities, such as unauthorized access or permission changes.

Audit Changes in SharePoint: Track every action in SharePoint to maintain full accountability and detect anomalies.

Data Classification: Automatically identify and label sensitive information for better protection.

Compliance Reporting: Generate detailed reports for regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS.

Conclusion

SharePoint security is a collaborative effort that demands constant monitoring; it must be implemented correctly and prevent risks and threats Do not wait until something happens to take actions that will protect your SharePoint, and by extension, your organization.

If you want to know more about how Lepide can help you enhance Sharepoint security, feel free to schedule a demo with one of our engineers today!