CoreView Brings Microsoft 365 Governance to HALO Trust’s Global Demining Operations

CoreView has completed deployment of its Microsoft 365 governance and security platform across The HALO Trust, a humanitarian demining organization operating in 36 countries and territories, including active war zones like Ukraine. The implementation, supported by cybersecurity firm Cyber Vigilance, gives HALO Trust granular control over identity, delegation, licensing, and security at a scale few NGOs have achieved. It marks a significant step in securing sensitive operational data while enabling thousands of staff and volunteers to collaborate seamlessly under extreme conditions.

HALO Trust has cleared more than 2 million landmines worldwide since 1988. Its teams work in some of the most volatile environments on Earth, heavily reliant on Microsoft 365 tools like Teams, SharePoint, Exchange Online, and Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) for coordination. With operations spanning remote field offices, mobile demining units, and administrative hubs, the organization faced mounting governance challenges: over-privileged accounts, license sprawl, and inconsistent security policies across tenants.

Why HALO Trust Needed Enterprise-Grade M365 Governance

Running a global humanitarian operation on standard Microsoft 365 tools without centralized governance is a recipe for security gaps. HALO Trust’s IT team struggled with:

• Lack of visibility into who had access to what across multiple geographies
• Manual license management leading to wasted spend and compliance risks
• Inconsistent delegated administration causing bottlenecks when field staff needed quick access to resources
• No unified security posture to enforce conditional access or detect anomalous sign-ins in high-risk regions

Cyber Vigilance, a UK-based security specialist with deep non-profit experience, recommended CoreView after reviewing the organization's M365 estate. CoreView’s platform sits on top of Microsoft’s native admin centers and APIs, providing a single pane of glass for delegated administration, identity lifecycle, license optimization, and security monitoring.

Inside the CoreView Platform: What Was Deployed

CoreView’s solution is built around a zero-touch, least-privilege model. Here’s what HALO Trust implemented across its 36-country footprint:

1. Role-Based Delegated Administration (RBAC)

Microsoft 365’s native admin roles are often too broad. CoreView enables custom admin roles scoped to specific organizational units, locations, or even individual teams. For HALO, this meant:

• Country directors could manage mailboxes and Teams for their own staff without seeing data from other regions
• IT admins at headquarters retained global oversight but only elevated privileges when necessary
• Temporary field workers received just-in-time access that expired automatically

2. Identity Governance and Lifecycle Management

With high staff turnover in conflict zones, identity lifecycle is critical. CoreView automated:

• Onboarding: Creating user accounts, assigning licenses based on role, and adding to relevant groups the moment an HR record is created
• Offboarding: Immediately disabling accounts and revoking licenses when personnel left or were relocated
• Attestation campaigns: Regular reviews where managers certify that users still need access, preventing privilege creep

3. Intelligent License Optimization

Like many NGOs, HALO Trust juggled a mix of E3, E5, F3, and standalone licenses. CoreView’s analytics identified:

• Underutilized licenses—users with E5 but only using E3 features
• Over-licensed service accounts consuming costly add-ons
• Opportunities to shift users to Microsoft 365 F3 for frontline workers, saving up to 60% per seat

Reports show HALO Trust reduced its per-user licensing cost by 23% within three months of deployment.

4. Security and Compliance Guardrails

CoreView extends Microsoft’s security stack with policy-driven controls:

• Conditional access baseline templates applied to high-risk countries like Ukraine and Afghanistan
• Risky sign-in dashboards that correlate Azure AD signals with CoreView’s own telemetry
• Automated remediation: isolating compromised accounts, resetting passwords, and notifying admins without manual intervention
• Multi-tenant reporting: essential for HALO’s federated structure, allowing security teams to see aggregated threat data

5. Continuous Compliance Monitoring

HALO Trust must adhere to international sanctions, GDPR, and donor data-protection requirements. CoreView’s compliance module maps controls to frameworks like ISO 27001, automatically flagging configuration drifts. For example, if a SharePoint site in Ukraine was accidentally shared externally, CoreView would alert and could auto-revoke access.

The Cyber Vigilance Partnership: Implementation Expertise

CoreView’s deployment at HALO Trust was engineered by Cyber Vigilance, a cybersecurity firm that specializes in securing non-profits and mission-driven organizations. Their team handled:

• Tenant assessment and design workshops
• Custom role definitions aligned with HALO’s org chart
• Migration of existing admin processes into CoreView workflows
• Staff training to ensure adoption without overwhelming field workers

“Non-profits often lack dedicated M365 administrators. We designed the solution so that a small IT team can manage thousands of users securely,” said a Cyber Vigilance architect involved in the project.

The Ukraine Factor: Governance Under Fire

HALO Trust’s presence in Ukraine is one of its largest and most complex operations. With over 1,200 staff clearing mines in active conflict areas, reliable and secure communication is a matter of life and death. CoreView’s platform enables:

• Break-glass accounts that bypass conditional access only for emergency scenarios, logged and audited in real time
• Offline-capable policy enforcement that syncs when connectivity resumes, critical in areas with intermittent internet
• Risk-based authentication that can block sign-ins from IP addresses associated with known threat actors without adding friction for legitimate users

Cyber Vigilance noted that during initial testing, CoreView detected and blocked multiple brute-force attempts originating from sanctioned regions, preventing potential account compromises.

How This Compares to Native Microsoft Tools

Microsoft 365 offers a broad set of governance features: Azure AD Privileged Identity Management, Licence Advisor, Compliance Manager, and the unified admin center. But these tools are often siloed, require complex configuration, and can’t easily span multiple tenants. CoreView aggregates and extends them:

For organizations like HALO Trust with limited IT staff, CoreView’s value is the ability to manage everything from one interface with minimal PowerShell or manual scripting.

Real-World Impact for HALO Trust

Since the rollout, HALO Trust reports tangible improvements:

• IT helpdesk tickets reduced by 42% because country managers can handle basic admin tasks without escalation
• Average time to onboard a new field worker dropped from 3 days to under 2 hours
• License waste fell by 23%, freeing funds for demining equipment
• Zero unauthorized access incidents across the 36 countries, even as threat actors targeted the NGO sector

These metrics are critical for an organization where every dollar saved is a dollar toward life-saving demining.

What This Means for Other NGOs and Distributed Enterprises

HALO Trust’s deployment serves as a blueprint for other non-profits and geographically dispersed companies using Microsoft 365. The key takeaways:

• Governance is not a luxury—even NGOs on tight budgets must invest in identity and access management to protect sensitive data and comply with donor requirements.
• Delegated administration saves time and reduces risk when done with proper scoping and auditing.
• License optimization can self-fund the governance platform, making it a cost-neutral initiative.
• Partnering with a specialist like Cyber Vigilance ensures that the platform is configured for the unique needs of a mission-driven organization, not just generic enterprise scenarios.

CoreView has a growing focus on the non-profit sector, offering discounted licensing under its “CoreView Cares” program. Combined with Microsoft’s non-profit grants, the total cost of ownership can be surprisingly low.

The Road Ahead: AI-Driven Governance and Zero Trust

HALO Trust is already exploring CoreView’s AI-powered capabilities, currently in preview. These include:

• Anomaly detection: identifying unusual Teams file sharing patterns that could indicate data exfiltration
• Smart license forecasting: predicting license needs based on historical growth and seasonal spikes (e.g., surge in volunteers during emergency response)
• Copilot readiness assessments: as more NGOs adopt Microsoft 365 Copilot, CoreView can scan for overexposed sensitive data and recommend remediation before enabling the AI assistant

Additionally, the organization plans to integrate CoreView’s governance data into its SIEM for holistic security monitoring, moving closer to a zero-trust architecture where every access request is verified regardless of location.

Conclusion

CoreView’s deployment for The HALO Trust demonstrates that Microsoft 365 governance can be both comprehensive and accessible, even for organizations operating on the front lines. With Cyber Vigilance’s guidance, HALO Trust now has a security posture that matches its mission’s gravity—saving lives while safeguarding the data that makes it possible. The project underscores the critical role of third-party governance tools in maximizing the value of Microsoft’s cloud ecosystem for non-profits worldwide.