Security related items and thoughts
Before deploying Microsoft Defender for Identity (MDI), administrators traditionally have relied on the MDI Test Readiness script to validate domain controller prerequisites. The script is intended to catch configuration issues early, such as missing directory permissions or insufficient system resources, before sensor installation begins. However, a recent update has caused a question to be raise… Read the rest “MDI Readiness Test Script”
In Active Directory, the Deleted Objects container is a hidden location where objects reside temporarily after they have been deleted, before they are fully removed by the tombstone or recycle bin process. This container plays a critical role in object recovery and directory hygiene. By default, permissions on it are limited and the container itself is often overlooked since it is out of sight.
Th… Read the rest “MDI–Assign & Verify Permissions To Deleted Objects Container”
In today's threat landscape, passwords alone are no longer sufficient to protect access to cloud systems. Enter Multifactor Authentication (MFA): a security mechanism that requires users to present two or more independent validation factors—typically something you know (e.g. password), something you have (e.g. a mobile authenticator or hardware key), or something you are (e.g. biometric data)—befo… Read the rest “Time To Stop Using The Legacy Azure MFA & SSPR Portal”
Deploying Microsoft Defender for Identity (MDI) requires more than just installing the sensor on a domain controller. MDI demands careful capacity planning to ensure reliable performance and accurate threat detection. Each MDI sensor analyses authentication traffic, monitors Active Directory activity, and reports telemetry to the MDI cloud service. If the underlying domain controller is undersize… Read the rest “MDI Sizing Tool”
Controlling connections to Azure VMs using the just in time (JIT) policy of Microsoft Defender for Cloud (MDC) certainly improves the overall security of the Azure resource. However, then having to enable JIT on a given VM runs into issues pretty quickly.
Who thought it was a great idea to have “All configured IPs” as the default option? No thanks – I do not want to enab… Read the rest “Quick Tip – Easily Allow JIT to Azure VMs In A Resource Group”
Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) uses endpoints to provide access to features. There are a series of different endpoints which each serve a different purpose from password reset, publishing federation metadata or multiple web services protocols. It is important to ensure that only the required features are actually enabled, and also if those features are to be made available internal… Read the rest “Check If AD FS WSTrust Endpoint Enabled”
There are a multitude of online tools that help diagnose issues with various mail services, but understanding what these tools actually check is valuable. One example is around manually checking published DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) records. DKIM is described in RFC 4871. As an interesting piece of history DKIM went through a previous iteration "Domain-Based Email Authentication Using Pub… Read the rest “How to Use NsLookup To Check DKIM Record”
Note that there have been changes to Safe Links policy for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (MDO).
Previously you could add URLs to the Safe Links policy to control how MDO would process the URLs. As part of this change the URL blocking is moving to the Tenant Allow Block List (TABL).
Below is a screenshot showing that a previously entered URL needs to be migrated to TABL.
&nb… Read the rest “Migrate Safe Links Block Settings to TABL”
When delivering Office 365 Security Optimisation Assessments (SOA) to customers, one of the control items is the version of Azure AD Connect deployed along with some related configuration elements. In many cases, Azure AD Connect is not updated to a build that resolves both security and feature issues. Why is Azure AD Connect not current? Good question.
There are two main scenarios that I see rig… Read the rest “Upgrade to Azure AD Connect 2.0”
Windows Server 2012 R2 was a great platform and was very widly adopted. Unlike it’s less popular step-sister, Server 2012. At least the R2 product had a start button, rather than the start pixel….
However, it really does show its age when viewed under a modern security lens. Unsurprisingly, things have changed from a security perspective over the last decade. Not all of the Server 2012 R2 defaul… Read the rest “Joys of Server 2012 R2 TLS Defaults in June 2022”