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Mailgun is an email sending service that provides logging and an API to send emails. PowerShell is particularly strong in its ability to use REST API’s. There are many use cases for needing to send emails, but one of the most common is that of sending emails when scripts are completed. This may be for status updates or failures.

As we enter a time of crisis that will see a significant number of employees asked to work from home, organizations need to provide effective but secure remote access to corporate resources. The tried and tested virtual private network (VPN) might seem like the obvious choice. But so called ‘zero trust’ is gaining popularity and could surpass traditional VPN access.

The rise of COVID-19 has put a significant amount of pressure on IT departments around the globe. With the onset of needing to support robust remote work experiences, every type of remote collaboration application has seen strong growth during the past month.

It’s a bit hard to believe but Microsoft’s Teams application is turning 3 this week. To say that the application has been a success for the company is under-selling its performance as the communication tool has been the fastest growing productivity app in the company’s history.

Office 365 Sensitivity Labels can now be applied to “containers” – Teams, Office 365 Groups, and SharePoint sites. Sensitivity labels replace the old text-only classifications that have been available since 2016. The labels don’t affect the contents of the containers, but they can control some container settings, like whether a team allows guest access or if it’s open to any tenant user to join. It’s yet another development in the label and protection story for Office 365.

Microsoft is planning to make changes to LDAP security settings in Windows Server. In today’s Ask the Admin, I show you how to audit for unsigned LDAP traffic hitting Windows Server Active Directory.

A growth in demand for Office 365 services caused some issues for users of Teams, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. The growth in Teams demand is understandable in light of the upswing in home working and online education caused by the COVID-19 virus. We’ll all have to be a little patient as Microsoft makes adjustments to keep services running.

To those who have been working 24×7 to keep the networks alive, who imaged 100s of laptops, issued security tokens, and have been looking at health metrics for your environment as they inch closer to failing-over, thank you.

Microsoft recommends applying an out-of-band emergency patch for SMB remote code execution flaw as soon as possible.

Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system has passed a significant milestone, the OS is running on more than 1 billion PCs around the globe. This is a considerable benchmark for the company and shows that customers are migrating from Windows 7 to 10 but you can expect this number to continue to climb higher.

Microsoft is gradually introducing multifactor authentication (MFA) for all organizational accounts in Azure Active Directory. In this article, I look at the new Security Defaults setting and how to enable it.

Because of the Coronavirus, this edition of Short Takes looks at a lot of virus-related collateral damage, including Microsoft Build 2020, Apple’s retail stores, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft’s ability to manufacture hardware, and even the DOD JEDI contract. OK, that one isn’t related to the Coronavirus.