SEVERIAN

The practitioner

Matthew Silcox is the practitioner behind Severian Technology Group — a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional recognized for Purview and data security, and a United States Marine Corps veteran. For roughly six to seven years he has worked in Microsoft Security and Compliance consulting, with regulated enterprises whose Purview tenants are expected to do what their auditors, frameworks, and Copilot rollout plans already assume they do.

The work starts where most Purview engagements stop: in the gap between what an E5 license entitles an organization to and what its tenant actually enforces. The license was never the deliverable. It was only ever the starting material — the raw entitlement that has to be turned into controls an auditor, a board, or a remediation team can rely on.

Microsoft 365 Copilot did not create that exposure. It made it observable. The oversharing, the unclassified sensitive data, the permissions that drifted years ago — Copilot reads what users could already reach and surfaces it at the speed of a prompt. Naming that exposure precisely, before it is amplified, is most of the work.

Every engagement is fixed-scope and fixed-fee, built and delivered personally rather than staffed to a bench of juniors. The person who scopes the assessment is the person who runs the scan and reads out the findings.

Credentials

Microsoft MVP — Purview Data Security

Recognized by Microsoft for contribution to the Purview and data security community — one of a small handful of U.S. MVPs whose recognized area is Purview data security. The award is given for contribution, not coursework, and comes with roadmap briefings and pre-release access that inform the engagement work.

Certifications

SC-100 (Cybersecurity Architect Expert), SC-200 (Security Operations Analyst Associate), and SC-401 (Information Security Administrator Associate).

Background

Roughly six to seven years delivering Microsoft Security and Compliance engagements, preceded by service in the United States Marine Corps.