Recent Blogs
My name is Ron Arestia, and I am a Security Researcher with Microsoft’s Detection and Response Team (DART). We respond to customer cybersecurity incidents to assist with containment and recovery from...
Dec 01, 2025
Generative AI is reshaping how enterprises operate, introducing new efficiencies—and new risks. Imagine launching a helpful chatbot, only to learn a cleverly crafted prompt can bypass safety controls...
Nov 30, 2025
It was great to see so many of you at Ignite! In case you missed the event—or any of the sessions for identity and network access professionals—we’ve got all the replay links right here in this post!...
Nov 26, 2025
When threat actors infiltrate a company to steal documents and other critical business information, Microsoft Incident Response - the Detection and Response Team (DART) responds. With more than 4,500...
Nov 25, 2025Recent Discussions
IdentityLogonEvents - IsNtlmV1
Hi, I cannot find documentation on how the IdentityLogonEvents table's AdditionalFields.IsNtlmV1 populated. In a demo environment, I intentionally "enforced" NTLMv1 and made an NTLMv1 connection to a domain controller. On the DC's Security log, event ID 4624 shows correct info: Detailed Authentication Information: Logon Process: NtLmSsp Authentication Package: NTLM Transited Services: - Package Name (NTLM only): NTLM V1 Key Length: 128 On MDI side however it looks like this: (using the following KQL to display relevant info here: IdentityLogonEvents | where ReportId == @"f70dbd37-af8e-4e4e-a77d-b4250f9e0d0b" | extend todynamic(AdditionalFields) | project TimeGenerated, ActionType, Application, LogonType, Protocol,IsNtlmV1 = AdditionalFields.IsNtlmV1 ) TimeGenerated ActionType Application LogonType Protocol IsNtlmV1 Nov 28, 2025 10:43:05 PM LogonSuccess Active Directory Credentials validation Ntlm false Can someone please explain, under which circumstances will the IsNtlmV1 property become "true"? Thank you in advanceSensitivity Labels and CoPilot - "No AI"
As a Purview Administrator, I recently received a request that might resonate with many of you: add a “No AI” designation to every sublabel we have. Why? Because our contracts and EULAs explicitly state that certain documents must not be used with AI tools. This raises an important question: What’s the best way to implement this without creating unnecessary complexity? The Challenge If we simply append “NoAI” to every existing label and sublabel, we end up duplicating our entire labeling structure. For example, if you follow Microsoft’s guidance on default sensitivity labels and policies, doing this “times two” for every label and sublabel is clearly not scalable. How do you deploy it? Best regards Stephan
Block all 365 apps except Outlook via CA
Trying to block 365 for a subset of users, except email. The old app-based CA rules made this easy. The new 'resource' based setup... I'm not even sure if it's possible. CoPilot just keeps telling me to use the old version of CA, because it hasn't clued into Microsoft's downgrade cycle. If I try to filter by resource attribute, I'm told I don't have permission to do so. I'm the global admin. Here's what searching for Outlook gives me and Exchange Advice? We ARE intune licensed, but i'm not sure App Protection Policies will help here. The intention is to block BYOD from accessing anything but Outlook / Exchange. That is, Mobile devices that aren't (whatever param I decide on)
Break-glass Account Prompted for Authenticator App Despite Exclusions
We have a break-glass account configured with two FIDO2 security keys as the only authentication method. The account is: Excluded from Microsoft Authenticator in Authentication Methods policy Also, the included target is a dynamic group that includes all users but the break glass account. Excluded from the MFA Registration Campaign Also, the included target is a dynamic group that includes all users but the break glass account. Excluded from all Conditional Access policies However, whenever we test the account, it still gets prompted to set up the Microsoft Authenticator app during sign-in. We can skip the setup, but ideally, the prompt should not appear for this account. How can we prevent the Authenticator setup prompt entirely for this break-glass account?What are the prerequisites to see Microsoft Secure Score?
My teammate says that even Basic or Standard M365 license provides Secure Score. Which is kind of right as you can see a basic score when opening a tenant in Lighthouse. But if you try to go to Defender console and then Exposure menu and press on Secure Score, it won't load with just Standard/Basic licenses assigned to users. I have tried to find a definitive list, but i can't. Copilot said you need at least Premium Business or E3/E5 or Defender P1. Which seems to make sense. But i need a confirmation. And also why do i see some score on tenant's page in Lighthouse?
How to stop incidents merging under new incident (MultiStage) in defender.
Dear All We are experiencing a challenge with the integration between Microsoft Sentinel and the Defender portal where multiple custom rule alerts and analytic rule incidents are being automatically merged into a single incident named "Multistage." This automatic incident merging affects the granularity and context of our investigations, especially for important custom use cases such as specific admin activities and differentiated analytic logic. Key concerns include: Custom rule alerts from Sentinel merging undesirably into a single "Multistage" incident in Defender, causing loss of incident-specific investigation value. Analytic rules arising from different data sources and detection logic are merged, although they represent distinct security events needing separate attention. Customers require and depend on distinct, non-merged incidents for custom use cases, and the current incident correlation and merging behavior undermines this requirement. We understand that Defender’s incident correlation engine merges incidents based on overlapping entities, timelines, and behaviors but would like guidance or configuration best practices to disable or minimize this automatic merging behavior for our custom and analytic rule incidents. Our goal is to maintain independent incidents corresponding exactly to our custom alerts so that hunting, triage, and response workflows remain precise and actionable. Any recommendations or advanced configuration options to achieve this separation would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your assistance. Best regards
sensor service fails to start
Hello, i've installed MDI on all of our domain controllers and everything went fine. I am trying to install MDI our Entra connect server and our certificate authority server (which are not domain controllers) and the service is continually failing to start. Could someone please point me in the right direction on how to rectify this? I've tried: recreating the service account (3x), checking the service account with Test-ADServiceAccount (works fine from both member servers) verified the service account is given the right to log on as service. The error log is very vague: 2025-11-13 19:05:30.0968 Error DirectoryServicesClient+<CreateLdapConnectionAsync>d__49 Microsoft.Tri.Infrastructure.ExtendedException: CreateLdapConnectionAsync failed [DomainControllerDnsName={FQDN of DC}] at async Task<LdapConnection> Microsoft.Tri.Sensor.DirectoryServicesClient.CreateLdapConnectionAsync(DomainControllerConnectionData domainControllerConnectionData, bool isGlobalCatalog, bool isTraversing) at async Task<bool> Microsoft.Tri.Sensor.DirectoryServicesClient.TryCreateLdapConnectionAsync(DomainControllerConnectionData domainControllerConnectionData, bool isGlobalCatalog, bool isTraversing) 2025-11-13 19:05:30.1124 Error DirectoryServicesClient Microsoft.Tri.Infrastructure.ExtendedException: Failed to communicate with configured domain controllers [ _domainControllerConnectionDatas={FQDN of DC}] at new Microsoft.Tri.Sensor.DirectoryServicesClient(IConfigurationManager configurationManager, IDirectoryServicesDomainNetworkCredentialsManager domainNetworkCredentialsManager, IDomainTrustMappingManager domainTrustMappingManager, IRemoteImpersonationManager remoteImpersonationManager, IMetricManager metricManager, IWorkspaceApplicationSensorApiJsonProxy workspaceApplicationSensorApiJsonProxy) at object lambda_method(Closure, object[]) at object Autofac.Core.Activators.Reflection.ConstructorParameterBinding.Instantiate() at void Microsoft.Tri.Infrastructure.ModuleManager.AddModules(Type[] moduleTypes) at new Microsoft.Tri.Sensor.SensorModuleManager() at ModuleManager Microsoft.Tri.Sensor.SensorService.CreateModuleManager() at async Task Microsoft.Tri.Infrastructure.Service.OnStartAsync() at void Microsoft.Tri.Infrastructure.TaskExtension.Await(Task task) at void Microsoft.Tri.Infrastructure.Service.OnStart(string[] args)
Understand New Sentinel Pricing Model with Sentinel Data Lake Tier
Introduction on Sentinel and its New Pricing Model Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platform that collects, analyzes, and correlates security data from across your environment to detect threats and automate response. Traditionally, Sentinel stored all ingested data in the Analytics tier (Log Analytics workspace), which is powerful but expensive for high-volume logs. To reduce cost and enable customers to retain all security data without compromise, Microsoft introduced a new dual-tier pricing model consisting of the Analytics tier and the Data Lake tier. The Analytics tier continues to support fast, real-time querying and analytics for core security scenarios, while the new Data Lake tier provides very low-cost storage for long-term retention and high-volume datasets. Customers can now choose where each data type lands—analytics for high-value detections and investigations, and data lake for large or archival types—allowing organizations to significantly lower cost while still retaining all their security data for analytics, compliance, and hunting. Please flow diagram depicts new sentinel pricing model: Now let's understand this new pricing model with below scenarios: Scenario 1A (PAY GO) Scenario 1B (Usage Commitment) Scenario 2 (Data Lake Tier Only) Scenario 1A (PAY GO) Requirement Suppose you need to ingest 10 GB of data per day, and you must retain that data for 2 years. However, you will only frequently use, query, and analyze the data for the first 6 months. Solution To optimize cost, you can ingest the data into the Analytics tier and retain it there for the first 6 months, where active querying and investigation happen. After that period, the remaining 18 months of retention can be shifted to the Data Lake tier, which provides low-cost storage for compliance and auditing needs. But you will be charged separately for data lake tier querying and analytics which depicted as Compute (D) in pricing flow diagram. Pricing Flow / Notes The first 10 GB/day ingested into the Analytics tier is free for 31 days under the Analytics logs plan. All data ingested into the Analytics tier is automatically mirrored to the Data Lake tier at no additional ingestion or retention cost. For the first 6 months, you pay only for Analytics tier ingestion and retention, excluding any free capacity. For the next 18 months, you pay only for Data Lake tier retention, which is significantly cheaper. Azure Pricing Calculator Equivalent Assuming no data is queried or analyzed during the 18-month Data Lake tier retention period: Although the Analytics tier retention is set to 6 months, the first 3 months of retention fall under the free retention limit, so retention charges apply only for the remaining 3 months of the analytics retention window. Azure pricing calculator will adjust accordingly. Scenario 1B (Usage Commitment) Now, suppose you are ingesting 100 GB per day. If you follow the same pay-as-you-go pricing model described above, your estimated cost would be approximately $15,204 per month. However, you can reduce this cost by choosing a Commitment Tier, where Analytics tier ingestion is billed at a discounted rate. Note that the discount applies only to Analytics tier ingestion—it does not apply to Analytics tier retention costs or to any Data Lake tier–related charges. Please refer to the pricing flow and the equivalent pricing calculator results shown below. Monthly cost savings: $15,204 – $11,184 = $4,020 per month Now the question is: What happens if your usage reaches 150 GB per day? Will the additional 50 GB be billed at the Pay-As-You-Go rate? No. The entire 150 GB/day will still be billed at the discounted rate associated with the 100 GB/day commitment tier bucket. Azure Pricing Calculator Equivalent (100 GB/ Day) Azure Pricing Calculator Equivalent (150 GB/ Day) Scenario 2 (Data Lake Tier Only) Requirement Suppose you need to store certain audit or compliance logs amounting to 10 GB per day. These logs are not used for querying, analytics, or investigations on a regular basis, but must be retained for 2 years as per your organization’s compliance or forensic policies. Solution Since these logs are not actively analyzed, you should avoid ingesting them into the Analytics tier, which is more expensive and optimized for active querying. Instead, send them directly to the Data Lake tier, where they can be retained cost-effectively for future audit, compliance, or forensic needs. Pricing Flow Because the data is ingested directly into the Data Lake tier, you pay both ingestion and retention costs there for the entire 2-year period. If, at any point in the future, you need to perform advanced analytics, querying, or search, you will incur additional compute charges, based on actual usage. Even with occasional compute charges, the cost remains significantly lower than storing the same data in the Analytics tier. Realized Savings Scenario Cost per Month Scenario 1: 10 GB/day in Analytics tier $1,520.40 Scenario 2: 10 GB/day directly into Data Lake tier $202.20 (without compute) $257.20 (with sample compute price) Savings with no compute activity: $1,520.40 – $202.20 = $1,318.20 per month Savings with some compute activity (sample value): $1,520.40 – $257.20 = $1,263.20 per month Azure calculator equivalent without compute Azure calculator equivalent with Sample Compute Conclusion The combination of the Analytics tier and the Data Lake tier in Microsoft Sentinel enables organizations to optimize cost based on how their security data is used. High-value logs that require frequent querying, real-time analytics, and investigation can be stored in the Analytics tier, which provides powerful search performance and built-in detection capabilities. At the same time, large-volume or infrequently accessed logs—such as audit, compliance, or long-term retention data—can be directed to the Data Lake tier, which offers dramatically lower storage and ingestion costs. Because all Analytics tier data is automatically mirrored to the Data Lake tier at no extra cost, customers can use the Analytics tier only for the period they actively query data, and rely on the Data Lake tier for the remaining retention. This tiered model allows different scenarios—active investigation, archival storage, compliance retention, or large-scale telemetry ingestion—to be handled at the most cost-effective layer, ultimately delivering substantial savings without sacrificing visibility, retention, or future analytical capabilities.Convert Group Source of Authority to the cloud. Global Groups support?!
This is the exact feature we need, unfortunately it's also unusable for an existing environment. Does anyone know when Entra SOA will support global groups? We have ZERO universal groups and we are not going to convert into them.Downgrading of encrypted label (User defined permission) in SPO to Desktop app
Hi I have a file stored in SharePoint that was originally labeled Restricted with user-defined encryption. When I open the word file from SharePoint using a desktop Office application and downgrade the label to Internal, the original encryption and permissions are still retained. This issue occurs only when opening the file from SharePoint into the desktop app—the previous protection settings persist even though the sensitivity label correctly updates to Internal. I’ve attached a screenshot for reference. Is there any official Microsoft documentation that explains why this behavior occurs and the underlying reason for it? Additionally, what is the recommended workaround if I want to fully remove user-defined permissions when downgrading the label? I have already tried reapplying the Internal label, but the file remains encrypted with the prior permissions.
Defender exclusion model seems to Violate CIS Benchmarks
Basically i wanted to exclude Shadow copies from the Virus scans as this already takes forever and i could see high system usage while this was done on our server. The logic being that this data was already scanned multiple times again and again, and even if a virus managed to infect the shadow volume it would be caught as soon as the file was restored. Unfortunately it seems to be impossible to only exclude the HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy, so to achieve this i would have to exclude the whole "System Volume Information" folder.... and this obviously violates the CIS benchmark for security, and is generally just weak design that this is not possible (unless I am misunderstanding something and that it is possible in some way). So here is the long and short after my debate with Copilot: Microsoft Defender Antivirus currently lacks support for exclusions using NT device paths such as: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy* This limitation forces administrators to exclude the entire System Volume Information folder to prevent scanning of VSS shadow copies. However, this folder contains multiple critical system components beyond shadow copies, including: NTFS Change Journal (USN) DFS Replication Database Indexing Service Data Other system metadata Excluding this entire folder violates CIS Benchmarks and Microsoft’s own hardening guidance, which recommend minimizing antivirus exclusions to the smallest scope possible (Principle of Least Privilege). Current design introduces unnecessary risk and creates compliance gaps for organizations following CIS or similar frameworks. Impact: Security risk: Broader exclusions than necessary reduce visibility into system metadata. Compliance risk: Organizations cannot meet CIS Benchmark requirements for AV configuration. Operational inefficiency: Defender scans shadow copies using kernel paths but does not allow precise exclusions for those same paths. Recommendation: Microsoft should: Support exclusions for NT device paths (e.g., \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy*). Alternatively, provide a specific policy setting to exclude VSS snapshots without excluding other system components. This change would align Defender with CIS Benchmark principles, reduce unnecessary exclusions, and improve performance without compromising security. References: CIS Microsoft Windows Server Benchmark v3.0 Microsoft Defender Antivirus Configuration Guidelines Principle of Least Privilege in AV Exclusions
Windows Hello passkeys dialog appearing and cannot remove or suppress it.
Hi everyone, I’m dealing with a persistent Windows Hello and passkey issue in Chrome and Brave and yes this is relevant as they're the only browsers having this issue whilst Edge for example is fine, and at this point I’m trying to understand whether this is expected behavior, a bug, or a design oversight. PS. Yes, I'm in contact with related browser support teams but since they seem utterly hopeless i'm asking here, since its at least partially Windows Hello issue. Problem description Even with: Password managers disabled in browser settings, Windows Hello disabled in Chrome/Brave settings, Windows Hello PIN enabled only for device login, Passkeys still stored under chrome://settings/passkeys (which I cannot delete since its used for logging on the device), The devices are connected to Entra ID but this is not required to reproduce the issue although a buisness account configuration creates a Passkey with Windows Hello afaik. Observed behavior When I attempt to sign in on office.com, Windows Hello automatically triggers a dialog offering authentication via passkeys, even though: I don’t want passkeys used for browser logins, passkeys are turned off everywhere they can be, Windows Hello is intended only for local device authentication. The dialog cannot be suppressed, disabled, or hidden(trust me, i tried for weeks). It effectively forces the Windows Hello prompt as a primary option, which causes problems both personally and in business contexts (wrong credential signaling, misleading users that are supposed to use a dedicated password manager solution insted of browser password managers, enforcing an unwanted authentication flow, etc.). What I already verified Many, many, (too many) Windows registry workarounds that never worked. Dug through almost all flags on those browsers. Chrome/Brave → Password Manager: disabled Chrome/Brave → Windows Hello toggle: off Looked through what feels like almost every related option in Windows Settings. Tried gpedit.msc local rules System up to date Windows Hello configured to use PIN, but stores "passkeys used to log on to this device" Why this is a problem Windows Hello automatically assumes that the device-level Windows Hello credentials should always be available as a WebAuthn authenticator. This feels like a big security and UX issue due to: unexpected authentication dialogs, Inability to controll where and how passkey credential are shared to applications, inability to turn the feature off, no administrative or local option to disable Hello for WebAuthn separately from device login. Buisness users either having issues with keeping passwords in order (our buissnes uses a dedicated Password Manager but this behaviour covers its dialog option) or not having PIN to their devices (when I disable windows hello entierly, since when there is no passkeys the option doesn't appear) Questions Is there any supported way to disable Windows Hello as a WebAuthn/passkey option in browsers, while keeping Hello enabled for local device login? Is this expected behavior from the Windows Hello, or is it considered a bug? Are there registry/policy settings (documented or upcoming) that allow disabling the Windows platform authenticator specifically for browsers like Chrome and Brave? Is Microsoft aware of this issue? If so, is it tracked anywhere? Additional notes This issue replicates 100% across (as long as there are passkeys configured): Windows 11 devices i've managed to get my hands on, Chrome and Brave (latest versions), multiple Microsoft accounts and tenants, multiple clean installations. Any guidance or clarification from the Windows security or identity teams would be greatly appreciated. And honestly if there is any more info i could possibly provide PLEASE ask away.need to create monitoring queries to track the health status of data connectors
I'm working with Microsoft Sentinel and need to create monitoring queries to track the health status of data connectors. Specifically, I want to: Identify unhealthy or disconnected data connectors, Determine when a data connector last lost connection Get historical connection status information What I'm looking for: A KQL query that can be run in the Sentinel workspace to check connector status OR a PowerShell script/command that can retrieve this information Ideally, something that can be automated for regular monitoring Looking at the SentinelHealth table, but unsure about the exact schema,connector, etc Checking if there are specific tables that track connector status changes Using Azure Resource Graph or management APIs Ive Tried multiple approaches (KQL, PowerShell, Resource Graph) however I somehow cannot get the information I'm looking to obtain. Please assist with this, for example i see this microsoft docs page, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sentinel/monitor-data-connector-health#supported-data-connectors however I would like my query to state data such as - Last ingestion of tables? How much data has been ingested by specific tables and connectors? What connectors are currently connected? The health of my connectors? Please helpLatest Threat Intelligence (November 2025)
Microsoft Defender for IoT has released the November 2025 Threat Intelligence package. The package is available for download from the Microsoft Defender for IoT portal (click Updates, then Download file). Threat Intelligence updates reflect the combined impact of proprietary research and threat intelligence carried out by Microsoft security teams. Each package contains the latest CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), IOCs (Indicators of Compromise), and other indicators applicable to IoT/ICS/OT networks (published during the past month) researched and implemented by Microsoft Threat Intelligence Research - CPS. The CVE scores are aligned with the National Vulnerability Database (NVD). Starting with the August 2023 threat intelligence updates, CVSSv3 scores are shown if they are relevant; otherwise the CVSSv2 scores are shown. Guidance Customers are recommended to update their systems with the latest TI package in order to detect potential exposure risks and vulnerabilities in their networks and on their devices. Threat Intelligence packages are updated every month with the most up-to-date security information available, ensuring that Microsoft Defender for IoT can identify malicious actors and behaviors on devices. Update your system with the latest TI package The package is available for download from the Microsoft Defender for IoT portal (click Updates, then Download file), for more information, please review Update threat intelligence data | Microsoft Docs. MD5 Hash: 0ed5b864101c471d987b332fc8619551 For cloud connected sensors, Microsoft Defender for IoT can automatically update new threat intelligence packages following their release, click here for more information.
