M365 Copilot Readiness and Remediation

 This concise article provides an overview of how organizations can effectively prepare for the introduction of M365 Copilot. A primary concern often encountered is the risk of data oversharing accumulated over time and determining where to initiate data remediation. Much of this remediation should focus on SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. Common issues include:

• Site privacy settings that grant organizational-wide access.
• Default sharing options configured to “everyone.”
• Broken permission inheritance, where site permissions differ from those at the folder or file level.
• Sharing with the “everyone except external users” domain group.
• Sites and files lacking sensitivity labels.

It is important to note that solutions such as M365 Copilot will access all data available to a user when generating results. While this data is also accessible via search, M365 Copilot significantly streamlines the discovery process.

One of the key tools for identifying areas requiring remediation is SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM). Key features of SAM include:

• Content Management Assessment: Generates reports highlighting misconfigurations, inactivity, permission issues, and lifecycle risks across SharePoint sites.
• Site Lifecycle Management: Automatically detects inactive or ownerless sites and recommends remediation actions, such as marking sites as read-only, archiving them, or prompting owners to maintain content.
• Oversharing Control with Permission State Reports: Offers comprehensive reports on site permissions across M365, identifying broken inheritance, public links, and excessive group permissions. Remediation actions can be initiated, including site access reviews or the application of Restricted Access and Restricted Content Discovery controls.
• Restricted Access Control: Enables administrators to restrict site access to a specified user list, overriding existing permissions for rapid content lock-down until remediation is completed.
• Restricted Content Discovery (RCD) and Delegation: RCD allows administrators to prevent overshared sites from being accessed by M365 Copilot.

While SAM offers a robust starting point, additional solutions such as Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) can further address oversharing risks. DSPM assesses active SharePoint sites, surfaces risks related to sensitive files and their protection, identifies overexposed sharing patterns, and provides insights into site usage.

Organizations are also encouraged to utilize Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention policies to prevent Copilot from processing data with certain sensitivity labels. Moreover, implementing Microsoft Purview Information Protection enables the creation of auto-labeling policies that apply protections like encryption for file access control.

Finally, it is advisable to use Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management to establish retention policies for data governance and automated deletion of outdated information. This ensures Copilot does not reference obsolete content when generating responses.

Reference: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft365copilotblog/mitigate-oversharing-to-govern-microsoft-365-copilot-and-agents/4448744