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Identity & AccessProtect accounts

Secure Your Microsoft 365 Admin Accounts

Admin accounts are the highest-value target in your tenant. Separate them from daily work, give each admin a dedicated account, and lock them down with the strongest MFA you have.

Read time
10 min
Audience
Microsoft 365 admins and business owners
Last reviewed
2026-09-22

Before you start

  • ✓Global admin access to Microsoft 365
  • ✓A separate, non-admin mailbox for daily work

Steps

  1. 1

    Create dedicated admin accounts (for example, admin.garrett@domain) that are used only for administrative tasks.

  2. 2

    Assign each admin a separate mailbox and require a strong, unique password stored in a password manager.

  3. 3

    Enforce phishing-resistant MFA (hardware key or passkey) on every global admin account.

  4. 4

    Reduce the number of global admins to the minimum, and use least-privilege roles (User Admin, Billing Admin) for the rest.

  5. 5

    Enable Privileged Identity Management if you have the license, so admin rights are time-bound and require activation.

  6. 6

    Block legacy authentication protocols (IMAP, POP, SMTP) in Conditional Access, since they bypass MFA.

  7. 7

    Review the admin list monthly and remove access from anyone who no longer needs it.

References