Top 3 AD Security Fixes You MUST Do Now! (With Sean Metcalf)

Petri Dish

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Join Russell Smith as he sits down with Sean Metcalf, one of only 100 Microsoft Certified Masters in Active Directory and Identity Security Architect at TrustedSec. Craig Birch also joins the interview, Principal Technologist at ‪Cayosoft‬, for an in-depth conversation on the future of Identity and Access Management.

In this episode, we cover:

The latest Identity and Access trends shaping the 2025 threat landscape
Common Active Directory and Entra ID weaknesses organizations still face and how to fix them
Actionable security tips you can implement right now to protect privileged accounts and reduce risk
The challenges of Conditional Access policies and why most companies get them wrong
How Zero Trust is evolving, and why the journey never truly ends
The real impact of AI on identity security: hype vs. reality
Essential skills for anyone starting out in identity management today

🔗 Links and resources

https://adsecurity.org – Sean Metcalf’s resource for AD security tips
https://cayosoft.com – Learn more about Guardian Protector and other tools

Russell Smith

Russell Smith, the Editorial Director at Petri IT Knowledgebase, has over two decades of hands-on experience in IT, in both small business settings and government IT infrastructure projects. Russell started writing for Windows IT Pro Magazine in the early 2000s. Since then, he has contributed insights to various IT publications, including Petri and CDW. His authoritative voice has resonated across industry blogs, where he dissects complex topics into an ‘easy read’. Russell has authored over a thousand articles, each a testament to his depth of knowledge. His expertise doesn’t stop there: he wrote a book on Privilege Management and co-authored another for Microsoft’s MOAC series. Moreover, Russell’s commitment to education shines through in the courses he crafted for Pluralsight. He is also presenter on his own YouTube channel, This Week in IT, and the current presenter of Petri Dish.