Security

Microsoft’s Build conference was on last week and it gave us lots of AI, Machine Learning, and every other type of “machines doe it better” cloud tech announcements. But there were also a few infrastructure announcements during the month. I’ve become the “Azure networking” person at my job, so it’s no surprise (to me) that… Read More

Last week Microsoft announced improvements to its cloud-native SIEM product, Azure Sentinel. In an effort to make Sentinel more efficient for Security Operations (SecOps) teams, Microsoft has improved the quality of rules and includes more innate intelligence out-of-the-box. There's also built-in support for SAP in preview. Plus, other features like UEBA and entity pages, which… Read More

As you make the move from Microsoft on-premises infrastructure to the cloud, you'll move from Group Policy management of your endpoints to MDM management.  This move isn't always a "lift and shift" process because there isn't always a 1-to-1 relationship between the settings available in Group Policy and those in Intune.  Additionally, you need to… Read More

When we think about administrative rights on Intune-enrolled Windows 10 devices, we need to consider two possible device states for that device: Azure AD joined (AADJ), or Hybrid Azure AD joined (HAADJ).  This is due to the different administrative roles available at the directory level. For Azure AD joined devices, at the time of performing… Read More

Microsoft announced at its Ignite conference earlier this year that it is extending its Secured-Core initiative to Windows Server 2022. Currently available for selected Windows 10 devices, Secured-Core requires hardware to meet new standards that follow isolation best practices and to have minimal trust of firmware. Microsoft says that Secured-Core devices are intended for industries… Read More

As part of the Automatic VM Guest Patching for Azure VMs preview announced at Ignite in March, Microsoft introduced Windows Server hotpatching. Hotpatching lets organizations apply security patches to Windows Server without rebooting. A feature that's been part of other server platforms for years, hotpatching finally comes to Windows Server. But there are some caveats.… Read More

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve spotted lots of tiny little changes in the Azure Portal. And my feeds have lit up over the last few hours. There must be a big Microsoft conference happening right around now? Yup, Microsoft Ignite (March 2021) is here and that means there will be lots of cool… Read More

Flash Player is a plug-in for browsers that is installed and maintained separately. Although it came bundled with some browsers. Not only that, but it was responsible for some scary security vulnerabilities over the years. So, developers and IT admins alike were glad to see the back of it.

Azure Automanage helps you to make sure your virtual machines (VM) are consistently configured with Microsoft's best practice recommendations. And that's a valuable service because Azure is constantly growing and changing, making it hard for IT professionals to keep up with best practice recommendations. Automanage is currently in preview. It is designed to configure and… Read More

Microsoft has released a relatively small number of fixes this month, in total just 56. But they include patches for a zero-day flaw in the Win32k component and some serious TCP/IP networking stack vulnerabilities. Windows and Windows Server February's cumulative update (CU) for Windows 10 comes with a patch for a zero-day Elevation of Privilege… Read More

Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is an open standard that facilitates user logon to on-premises and cloud services.

Microsoft is rolling out a new feature that will alert you if a phishing link or malware is delivered to a mailbox because of a policy exception.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently released a PowerShell-based tool to help organizations detect compromised accounts and applications in Microsoft Azure and 365.

One of the biggest malware attacks in recent history was the SolarWinds exploit where malware was spread through SolarWinds’ software update process to thousands of government and private sector customers. SolarWinds is a well-known provider of IT management products and their Orion infrastructure monitoring and management platform was the product that was attacked. Automatic updates… Read More

Microsoft fixes a zero-day in its Defender antimalware software and issues a patch for a vulnerability that was publicly disclosed in December.