Forum Discussion
What are the prerequisites to see Microsoft Secure Score?
It started loading again after a few weeks. According to MS support they found an issue on the backend and it was fixed (apparently many customers reported the issue). So, Copilot was wrong (again) and Secure Score will show even if you only have Basic or Standard M365 licenses.
Secure Score appears in several places, but the prerequisites differ depending on where you’re viewing it.
- Microsoft 365 Secure Score (M365 portal / Lighthouse)
This version of Secure Score is calculated from your tenant configuration and does not require Defender for Endpoint licenses.
That’s why you can still see a baseline Secure Score in Lighthouse even if users only have Basic/Standard licenses. - Defender Secure Score (Defender portal → Exposure → Secure Score)
This view requires Defender workload data (device risk, threat exposure, recommendations).
To load this page, you need at least:
- Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P1/P2, or
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium, or
- Microsoft 365 E3/E5 (which include the Defender components)
Without those licenses, the Defender portal cannot calculate exposure-based metrics, so the Secure Score page won’t load.
Why the mismatch?
Lighthouse displays the M365 configuration score, while the Defender portal requires security telemetry from Defender workloads.
So it’s normal to see a score in Lighthouse even when the Defender Secure Score UI isn’t available.
Hope that clarifies the difference — both are called Secure Score, but they’re based on completely different data sources and licensing requirements.