Yesterday Thomas and I was really honored to be invited to the Azure APE XXL event in Appeldorn, Netherlands.
Speaking at Azure APE XXL about Azure Governance Best Practices and Enterprise Scale together with Thomas Naunheim
Tag Archives: Azure Security
MS Ignite 2024 Recap
On my way home from a very inspiring Microsoft Ignite, which I was able to attend in person for the first time. Microsoft Ignite 2024 took place in Chicago at McCormick Place, a very large convention center near Lake Michigan.
The conference started on Monday with a Preday, where Microsoft Ignite attendees had the opportunity to attend various workshops after registering. I took the opportunity to get to the venue, get my badge and meet some people from the community. In the evening, Microsoft had organized an MVP Meet and Greet where MVPs had the opportunity to meet other MVPs who were also attending Ignite. It was a great evening and I saw many people from all over the world again.
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Speaking at NICConf 2024 in Oslo about Microsoft Defender for CSPM and Hybrid Cloud with WS2025, Azure Arc and WAC
I´m thrilled to announce that I have been invited to the Nordic Infrastructure Conference in Oslo, the NICconf, for the second time.
NICconf is a two-day event in the heart of Oslo with around 3000 particioants, focusing on Microsoft technologies such as Azure, Hybrid Cloud, Identity and Security. There will also be a pre-day organized where attendees can participate in different masterclasses (full day workshops). There will be a masterclass by Paula Januszkiewics or Mikael Nyström and Viktor Hedberg,
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Microsoft enforces MFA requirements for user login to Azure portal for all tenants
Password spray attacks on accounts have increased rapidly in recent months. As a result, the security risks for accounts that do not use MFA for authentication have increased significantly. Microsoft works in the past on different ways to enable MFA for all users they work with Azure and Microsoft 365. One first try was the activation of security defaults, but this can be deactivated by user.
Based on this development and for other reason Microsoft announced the enforcement for Mutlifactor authentication for all sign-in/access to the Azure Portal. This announcement was a little suprise and bringe some challenges to organization espesically when we take a look at service principals and break glass accounts. Don´t get me wrong, it is mandatory to enable MFA for all users they access your tenant and have a valid and regulary reviewed Conditional Access policy in place. But for some special accounts this was not the focus or recommended. In this article I will explain how Microsoft rollouts this enforcement which steps you have to proof and how you can ensure that you are not affected or prepared for the upcoming changes.
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Awarded as Defender for Cloud Champion and as Community Advocate 2024
The Microsoft Security Community programm continues to grow and there are many exiting new features and additional previews coming to live. I´m working on some of the new previews to gain insights and provide feedback and there are really great new offerings coming.
I`m happy to share that I was awarded as Defender for Cloud Champion and as Community Advocate 2024.
The new Azure Update Manager is GA – Part 2 – How it works and the valuable new features
In the first part of this article (Three-big-reasons-to-migrate-to-update-manager-and-forget-the-classic-update-management-center) I dived into the improvements and reasons why Micrsoft introduce Azure Update Manager as a successor of the classic Update Management Center solution based on Azure Automation. In this part, I will explain how it works and what major improvements and new functions the Azure Update Manager offers
Please note: Azure Update Center is based on Azure Automation and needs the Microsoft Monitoring Agent. The MMA has been discontinued and will no longer be supported after August 2024. Support for Update Center has therefore also been discontinued.
Continue reading The new Azure Update Manager is GA – Part 2 – How it works and the valuable new features2nd note: Microsoft will charged at a daily prorated value of 0.16/server/day which equates to approximately $5 USD/server/month beginning 1 February 2024 for customers using Azure Update Manager on Arc-enabled servers.
Enable granular pricing for Defender for Servers P1 or P2 on specific resources within your subscription via API/Powershell
Microsoft model for a scalable Cloud Adtoption is based on the Enterprise Scale Architecture and I think this is a scalable and useful modell for every customer that uses Azure ressources. It´s based on the definition to granulary devide the workloads in different subscriptions and gives via Management Groups the possibility to group this differnent subscription into workload groups like Development, Core, etc. I know many customers struggle with this model and mistakenly think that Enterprise Scale is a reference to Enterprise customers, but this is not the case.
Based on the Enterprise Scale Architecture some services and security features can only be activated on subscription level to guarante that each resource inside the subscription is secured. This basis makes it even more important for customers to consider the Enterprise Scale Architecture or to orient themselves towards it.
The Microsoft Defender for Cloud and especially the Defender for Server P1 and P2 plans can only be activated on subscription level in the past. Microsoft has decided to change this and now allow plans to be activated at resource level (per server). It is important to understand that the principled approach activating on Subscription Level and the Enterprise Scale architecture are still valid and needed and this possibility is only a concession to cover certain requirements:
- manage security configurations at a lower hierarchy level
- flexibility for excluding specific resources (VMs) inside the subscription
- enable different plans on subscription because for implementation of Enterprise Scale approach
Microsoft Defender for CSPM is GA – Information about activation, billing and new pricing information
Microsoft announced with Defender for Cloud Security Posture Management a new plan in the Defender for Cloud product family which focuses on a central view on the security posture of the customer.
In this article I will give a overview about which topics Defender for CSPM covers, how it will be enabled and how the pricing is actual working which holds some suprises if Defender for Servers is already in use.
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Speaking at Experts Live Netherlands 2023 about Mastering Defender for Servers
I´m really happy to announce that I will speak at the Experts Live Netherlands 2023 Spring edition. The last one was the 10th annivesary edition in Fall last year. The Experts Live Netherlands is one of the biggest Experts Live conferences next to Experts Live Europe and because of the big Experts Live Europe will take place this year in autumn, the Orga Team decided to organize the 11 edition in spring.
Contents [show]
Session overview
This year, my session will be about the Mastering Defender for Servers. In this session I will focus on Defender for Servers to protect servers across hybrid and multicloud environments. So I dived into the different plans, feature sets, deployment methods and more. Futhermore I show as a side note the new Defender for CSPM Plan and explore how agentless scan methods works. Deploy defender for servers at scale will complete the view and enable the attendees to mastering defender for servers.
Motivation
I like the idea behind the Experts Live community and really looking forward to see many community members there, greats friends again and certainly make new contacts.
This year the edition is with 1,200 registrations sold out. The Keynote will be held by Dona Sarkar. So it is worth to be there
About Experts Live Netherlands
Experts Live is an international Microsoft community platform focusing on knowledge sharing through live events.
Every year Experts Live Netherlands organizes a large-scale one-day event where more than 1200+ IT Pros and Developers gain knowledge of Microsoft technology. National and international community experts update visitors on the latest Microsoft technologies in one day.
Slides
It was a pleasure to speak at 11th edition of the Experts Live Netherlands. With more then 1200 attendees is was one of my biggest in-person conferences in the last couple of months. Thanks to the organizers and sponsors who made this possible!
You can find the slides from my talk about Mastering Defender for Servers here. Please keep in mind that this slides was only for the Experts Live Event and I will improve the session based on the Feedback from the attendees.
Azure Firewall Basic SKU is now GA
Microsoft announces with the Azure Firewall Standard and Premium two native Firewall Services available as PaaS solution what are a great benefit to classic Firewall deployments, because of native Autoscaling Features, no need for VM Management and more. Unfortunately the price was to high for SMBs, with 900€ for the Standard and over 1200€ for the Premium Edition. A frequently requested Features, was a cheaper variant aimed at small and medium businesses.
This wish has been answered and last year October with the Azure Firewall Basic edition (public preview). The Azure Firewall Basic (AzFw Basic) has leaved the Public Preview and are now GA. The planned subscription must first be prepared before the deployment can begin with some Powershell commands.
Now Azure offers three different Azure Firewall solutions. The following table list the different SKUs and the price for using in West Europe (03/2023).
Microsoft has made some changes to deploy the Firewall Basic compared to the Firewall Standard and Premium SKU for better Service avalability. This article will give you a short overview of this changes.
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