Who can discover, access or share sensitive collaboration content?
Trace external sharing and collaboration back to the information, owners and access decisions behind them.
Begin with the business decision and the affected population. A targeted workload review may be sufficient; an interconnected tenant assessment may be more useful where the same identity, device or data dependency affects several services.
Evidence we agree to examine
- Organisation and site-level sharing controls, link defaults and guest restrictions
- A risk-based sample of site permissions, broad groups, owners and external members
- Teams guest/external collaboration settings and connected SharePoint sites
- Guest review records, expiry processes and approved collaboration exceptions
Why context changes the conclusion
A restrictive tenant setting is not a complete access review. Existing permissions, broad internal groups, selected site exceptions and ownership records must also be examined.
Treat this as an assessment question, not a finding about your organisation. During an engagement, a conclusion must identify the dated evidence, the sampled population and any exceptions that could not be corroborated.
The output your team can use
A sampled access and sharing register, separated into configuration issues, ownership gaps and confirmed exceptions.
Each action should identify its accountable owner, licence or business dependency, proposed rollout safeguards and the record that will demonstrate successful closure. A policy screenshot alone is not enough when the finding concerns coverage or sustained operation.
Access and boundaries
Content is minimised. Broad eDiscovery, exhaustive file classification and reading all employee documents are not default audit procedures.
We agree evidence access before work begins. Your team can lead supervised sessions and provide approved, minimised exports. The assessment does not require you to send passwords, grant access through this website or permit production changes. See access and data handling.
Prepare your audit request
Use the Microsoft 365 Audit Planner for a licence-aware starting scope, or the detailed scoping assistant. Review the brief and send it with your enquiry. You can attach your NDA or RFP in the contact form.
Sources & further reading
Reviewed 6 October 2026. Product names, licence entitlements and guidance can change. Confirm applicability to your tenant and agreed assessment date.
