Who really owns your Microsoft 365?

What a tenant is

When a business signs up for Microsoft 365, Microsoft creates a tenant: a private space that holds your users, mailboxes, Teams, SharePoint sites, licenses and security settings. Everyone in your business signs in to it.

A few accounts in the tenant are global administrators. They can do anything: read any mailbox, reset any password, delete data, change billing.

Why ownership matters

Tenants are often set up by whoever was handy at the time: a tech-savvy employee, a previous IT company, a website designer. Years later, the business may not know who holds the administrator accounts, or the person who does has left.

That causes problems when you need to:

• recover an account after an attack,
• change IT providers,
• prove to Microsoft that you own the tenant,
• or simply buy more licenses.

What to check

• Who are your global administrators? There should be at least two, held by people or a provider you trust and still work with.
• Do administrators sign in with multi-factor authentication? These are the most valuable accounts you have.
• Is the billing account in the business’s name and paid by the business?
• Is there a written record of who manages the tenant and how to reach them?