Recent Discussions
Pending Approval/Provisioning for Microsoft Defender XDR Lab/Trial Environment
Hello Microsoft Community Team, On June 26, 2026, our organization applied for a Microsoft 365 Developer Environment / Free Trial to support evaluation of the Microsoft Defender XDR Lab environment. To date, the environment has not been provisioned, and we have not received any status updates or confirmation. Impact: Current Status: We are currently utilizing our production environment to test project capabilities, which poses risks and limitations. Future Intent: Our organization plans to transition to a full, paid Business/Enterprise purchase immediately upon proving the platform’s benefits. Urgency: This delay is stalling our evaluation phase. We urgently need this environment onboarded and activated so we can proceed with deployment tests and subsequent procurement. Request: Please review the status of our registration and expedite the onboarding/provisioning of this developer environment. Thank you for your prompt assistance.DefenderXDR "Preparing new space for data and connecting them" is stuck , and never finished !
Hello everyone, I am delivering SC-200 courses and on the lab environment of Skillable (or even free-tiers) when you have to "initiate" the data space for DefenderXDR, the process seems to be stuck .... never finished and we are "locked" in the page of a ...coffee cup and the phrase "Hang on. We are preparing new spaces for your data and connecting them. " does anyone else have same problem ? Any resolution , (I have already open a support ticket to Skillable support, but I haven't got resolution for over 1+day , and cannot open or continue the lab (for connecting or onboarding Microsoft Defender for Endpoint ) which is frustrating for the participants-students Thanks PanosLooking for a simple deployment guide
MS Learn is a great starting point, but it just doesn't seem to cover the steps needed to get up and running safely. I have concerns about adding or setting something that suddenly creates a vulnerability or exposure. Where is the installation guide that installs and configures the solution then tells you, "You are now protected". Do I really want to set my own policies? Why aren't the default set of rules good enough, safe enough. I can't have a solution that is so complicated I need to hire a team to manage it 24 hours a day. I am okay investigating an alert and helping a user solve a pop-up question. Why is every major corporation around the world required to re-invent the same or similar policies the company next door is creating to make this tool work? I want to onboard all of our Intune devices and monitor anything that CAN'T be stopped by default security measures. Just the fact that Sentinel appears to be changing as an embedded tool within Defender gives me hope that this will be getting closer to a more manageable tool. But that still seems a way off. I am ready to do the reading and research to get this set up but I am hoping for a guide that is specific enough to achieve a final result. Thank for understanding my challenges here.Ask Microsoft Anything: Attack Disruption with Microsoft Defender on July 14
Hey Defender enthusiasts! Just wanted to remind you all that we are holding an AMA next week at 9AM PST on July 14 with the Attack Disruption team. Come learn about Attack Disruption—Microsoft Defender’s built‑in, AI-powered capability that stops in‑progress attacks at machine speed by analyzing attacker intent, identifying compromised assets, and containing threats before they spread. Bring your questions and hear directly from product experts on real‑world scenarios and best practices. Hope to see you there! Event Link: Ask Microsoft Anything: Microsoft Defender Attack Disruption | Microsoft Community Hub
Microsoft 365 Developer E5 license lacking endpoints and device on defender portal
Dear Support Team, I am a microsoft certified trainer (MCT). I currently have a Microsoft 365 Developer E5 license assigned to my tenant. However, I have noticed that my Microsoft Defender portal (security.microsoft.com) is missing several critical features. For example, I cannot see the Endpoints or Devices menus, which is preventing me from implementing and testing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. Additionally, my Azure tenant and Microsoft 365 tenant are separate. This has created challenges when configuring security services such as Microsoft Sentinel (SIEM), as certain prerequisites and integrations require configuration through the Microsoft Defender portal. Due to the missing Defender features, I am unable to complete the necessary setup. I would appreciate your assistance in understanding: Why the Endpoints and Devices sections are unavailable in my Defender portal despite having a Microsoft 365 Developer E5 license. Whether additional licensing, onboarding steps, or tenant configurations are required to enable Microsoft Defender for Endpoint features. How best to integrate or align my separate Azure and Microsoft 365 tenants to support services such as Microsoft Sentinel and Defender XDR. These issues are significantly impacting my ability to evaluate and implement Microsoft's security solutions. I would appreciate any guidance or recommendations to resolve them. Thank you for your assistance. Kind regards, [Your Name]Feature Request: Manual Invocation Mode for Embedded Security Copilot Experiences to reduce cost !
Hello, I see that Copilot for Security in XDR dashboards , if used in embedded mode (I mean whenever you are opening a case to investigate) you get AUTOMATICALLY a summary of the incident , and you are consuming SCU costs. I want a way either globally as a tenant option, or through a pwsh to be able to DISABLE this, or be able to PRESS the AI button AND THEN generate the AI reply (and consume SCU credits ..) Current behavior: Open Incident --> Copilot automatically generates Incident Summary --> SCUs ARE consumed Desired behavior: Open Incident --> No AI execution --> Click "Generate Summary" MANUALLY --> SCUs consumed I am not talking about RBAC controls to assign WHO of my admins can use Security Copilot, I have set that, BUT I want my admin to decide IF they want AI to help them (and consume - pay for that SCU credits-costs) OR NOT !! At the moment I havent found any solution, except to educate my admin to press CANCEL the moment he/she opens such an XDR dashboard ! :) Does anyone knows something ? Regards, Panos
Prompted to sign in to Microsoft Defender Platform on W11/W2025 using Entra
Hi Microsoft Defender XDR community, Since around May 18th, our users on devices that are onboarded to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint are being prompted to sign-in to the following application using Entra on login to Windows. Application Microsoft Defender Platform Application ID cab96880-db5b-4e15-90a7-f3f1d62ffe39 Is anyone aware of a change that requires user sign-in to Entra as a requirement for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint? I have tried raising a support topic on this topic. Regards ChrisDefender of XDR - Quarantine - Lack of filter/search options
Hi Microsoft, I love what you're doing with the Defender XDR portal, but could you please show some love to the Quarantine section soon? On a daily basis, I have to review emails caught in quarantine for false positives, and the lack of search and filtering options is appalling. As a company based in Denmark, 99% of legitimate emails come from .dk domains. Yet there is no way to search for or filter on something this simple. If I type .dk into the search box, I get 0 results, even though I can clearly see .dk sender addresses on the page. The filter options only allow me to enter full sender or recipient email addresses, which is of course almost useless in a quarantine-review context. Some examples of filters that would be extremely useful: Sender domain ends with .dk Sender domain contains .dk URL domain filtering Attachment name filtering Saved filter views More flexible search across message properties The Quarantine experience could be made dramatically better with relatively little effort. So please, pretty please, give the Quarantine portal some attention. It's often the part of Defender that security teams interact with every single day.Microsoft Defender will not let me log in on Windows 11
I have a subscription to the Personal Microsoft 365 plan which includes Microsoft Defender. When I try logging into Microsoft Defender on my Windows PC, I receive an error message stating "Couldn't sign in to Microsoft Defender. Something went wrong-please try again later". I have been having this issue for several months now. I have recently contacted Microsoft Tech support who just directed me to this community. The tech support representative mentioned that others may have experienced similar issues as mine. I would appreciate if anyone could advise. My PC is running Windows 11 and is up to date on updates. All of my 365 applications are also up to date. I have also tried running the repair tool on Microsoft Defender in addition to uninstalling and reinstalling the application. The tech support representative mentioned something to me about the issue could be because I am using a personal email account for my login for Microsoft Defender. I did not fully understand why that would be the issue. I would like to note that I have no issue logging into Microsoft Defender on my Android phone. The problem appears to only occur on my PC and only for the Microsoft Defender app. All other apps that come with my 365 subscription use the same login and appear to be working fine.
Is "Endpoint Security Policies" available to us? (error getting Intune policies)
Question We'd like to use Defender \ Endpoint Security Policies. Is that possible for my tenant's environment? Getting below error on "Defender \ Endpoint Security Policies" page "There seems to be an issue getting your Intune policies" Details of our environment Purpose of defender To protect our server fleet that's running outside of Azure Tenant GCC - Moderate Scoped Region Commercial Azure East US 2 Subscription Microsoft Defender for Servers Plan 1 (No other subscription, etc.) Defender Client OS Windows 2016, 2019, 2022 RHEL8, 9 (No desktops\laptops) Agents installed on each Windows and Linux server Defender is onboarded Arc is onboarded Configured Settings and Errors Defender \ Settings \ Configuration management \ Enforcement scope https://security.microsoft.com/securitysettings/endpoints/configuration_management2 Error at top of page "Intune is not configured to allow Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to manage security configuration settings." Use MDE to enforce security configuration settings from Intune Set to ON Enable configuration management Windows Server devices On tagged devices Windows Server Domain Controller devices On tagged devices Linux devices On tagged devices Security settings management for Microsoft Defender for Cloud onboarded devices. Set to ON Manage Security settings using Configuration Manager Set to OFF Defender \ Settings \ Configuration management \ Intune Permissions https://security.microsoft.com/securitysettings/endpoints/intune_permissions Getting error "Access needed You don't have the right permissions in AAD to view this information (in addition to those you already have in MDE). To adjust your permissions, go to the AAD portal." Defender \ Endpoint Security Policies https://security.microsoft.com/policy-inventory On main page, getting below error There seems to be an issue getting your Intune policies If I try to make a new policy There seems to be an issue loading the policy authoring wizard. Intune \ Endpoint security https://intune.microsoft.com/#view/Microsoft_Intune_Workflows/SecurityManagementMenu Getting Error You don't have access Intune roles | My permissions https://intune.microsoft.com/#view/Microsoft_Intune_DeviceSettings/RolesLandingMenuBlade/~/myPermissions You're an administrator with full permissions to all Microsoft Intune resources. Intune roles | Administrator Licensing https://intune.microsoft.com/#view/Microsoft_Intune_DeviceSettings/RolesLandingMenuBlade/~/administratorLicensing Allow admins without an Intune license to access Intune. Their scope of access is determined by the Intune roles you've assigned them. I've clicked the box "Allow access to unlicensed admins" Alternatives If Defender \ Endpoint Security Policies isn't available, as alternatives, I guess we could use SCCM Antimalware policies to manage Windows servers Deploying a central mdatp_managed.json to manage Linux servers However, it would be greatly preferred to use the Defender \ Endpoint Security Policies feature for Windows and LinuxMicrosoft Defender Incident – Handling incident severity change
There's no dedicated history/audit endpoint for field-level transitions (like "this incident went from Low → High at timestamp X") in the /security/incidents Graph API — the incident object only exposes the current severity plus a lastUpdateDateTime, not a change log. So this isn't something you're missing; it genuinely doesn't exist as a queryable history today. Also worth knowing before you build around it: Graph change notifications (webhooks) are not documented as supported for /security/incidents — subscription/webhook support is only documented for the legacy /security/alerts resource, and that resource is deprecated with removal expected around April 2026. So polling is currently the only supported pattern for incidents specifically, not a limitation of your approach — there's no webhook alternative to fall back to yet. Given that, the fix is in your polling strategy, not in finding a hidden feature: instead of filtering once at creation time and then ignoring the incident, poll using $filter=lastUpdateDateTime gt {last_poll_timestamp}. Since lastUpdateDateTime bumps on any property change — including a severity escalation — this catches incidents that started as Low/Informational and later got escalated, without re-fetching everything. A pattern that works well in practice: GET /security/incidents?$filter=lastUpdateDateTime gt {last_poll_time}&$orderby=lastUpdateDateTime asc Then in your own store, diff the incoming severity against what you last recorded for that id to detect the transition yourself — you're effectively reconstructing the history client-side since the API won't give it to you natively. Store (incidentId, severity, lastUpdateDateTime) on each poll and compare. One gotcha: this still won't tell you the exact moment the severity changed if multiple fields changed between polls — only that it changed sometime between your last two poll timestamps. If you need second-level precision on transition timing, you'd need to poll more frequently (your 5-minute interval is probably fine for SOC triage purposes, but not for precise SLA timestamping).Campaign-Centric Hunting with Microsoft Defender XDR and Microsoft Sentinel
Phishing investigations usually start with one suspicious email. A user reports a message. An alert is generated. An analyst opens the email details, checks the sender, reviews the URL, and tries to understand whether the message is malicious. That is a normal starting point. However, in a real SOC investigation, one email is rarely the full story. Attackers usually operate in campaigns. They reuse sender infrastructure, similar subjects, URLs, payloads, templates, and delivery techniques. A single email may be only one part of a wider phishing or malware campaign targeting multiple users. This is why campaign-centric hunting is important. I wrote this article from the perspective of a SOC analyst who often needs to move quickly from a single suspicious email to the full campaign impact. The goal is simple: use Microsoft Defender XDR and Microsoft Sentinel together to understand who was targeted, what was delivered, who clicked, and what should be prioritized first. Why Campaign-Centric Hunting When investigating a phishing or malware email, analysts usually need to answer practical questions: How many users received messages from the same campaign? Were the messages blocked, junked, delivered, or remediated? Did any user click the URL? Did anyone click through a Safe Links warning? Were any priority or high-risk users affected? Was the email removed after delivery? Are there related Defender XDR or Sentinel incidents? If we only investigate one message, we may miss the bigger picture. Campaign-centric hunting helps the SOC move from this question: Is this email malicious? To this question: What is the full impact of this campaign? That shift is important because the response priority should be based on campaign impact, not only on a single alert. What Campaign Views Provides Campaign Views in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 help analysts investigate coordinated email attacks such as phishing and malware campaigns. From Campaign Views, analysts can review campaign-level information such as: Campaign name Campaign type Campaign subtype Targeted users Inboxed messages Clicked users Visited links Sender domains Sender IPs Payload URLs Delivery actions Campaign timeline Campaign flow This is useful during triage because it quickly shows whether an email is part of a wider attack. For example, one reported phishing message may look small at first. But if Campaign Views shows that the same campaign targeted 50 users, delivered messages to 15 inboxes, and had 2 users click the URL, the investigation becomes much more urgent. Where CampaignInfo Fits The CampaignInfo table gives analysts a KQL-based way to query campaign-related data. Some useful fields are: Field Purpose CampaignId Unique identifier for the campaign CampaignName Name of the campaign CampaignType Campaign category, such as Phish or Malware CampaignSubtype Additional context, such as brand being phished or malware family NetworkMessageId Unique identifier for the email message RecipientEmailAddress Recipient affected by the campaign Timestamp Time when the event was recorded For correlation, the most important field is usually: NetworkMessageId This field can help connect campaign data with other Defender XDR email tables, including: EmailEvents UrlClickEvents EmailPostDeliveryEvents EmailAttachmentInfo EmailUrlInfo This makes CampaignInfo a useful pivot table for campaign-level hunting. Important note: CampaignInfo is currently documented as Preview. Before using these queries in production analytics rules, validate the table availability, schema, and results in your own tenant. Practical Scenario An analyst receives a phishing alert in Microsoft Defender XDR. The alert is related to a user who received a suspicious email with a credential-harvesting URL. The analyst opens Campaign Views and sees that the message belongs to a wider phishing campaign. At that point, the investigation should not stop with the original user. The analyst should now ask: Who else received this campaign? How many messages were delivered? Which users clicked? Did any users click through the Safe Links warning? Were the messages removed after delivery? Are there related incidents in Microsoft Sentinel? The investigation flow could look like this: Start from Campaign Views in Microsoft Defender XDR. Identify the campaign details. Use CampaignInfo to list affected users and messages. Join with EmailEvents to validate delivery status. Join with UrlClickEvents to identify user interaction. Join with EmailPostDeliveryEvents to confirm remediation. Review related Microsoft XDR incidents in Microsoft Sentinel. Prioritize response based on campaign impact. Query 1: List Recent Campaigns The first query gives a simple overview of recent campaigns. CampaignInfo | where Timestamp > ago(14d) | summarize FirstSeen = min(Timestamp), LastSeen = max(Timestamp), AffectedUsers = dcount(RecipientEmailAddress), Messages = dcount(NetworkMessageId) by CampaignId, CampaignName, CampaignType, CampaignSubtype | order by LastSeen desc This helps analysts quickly identify campaigns that affected the organization during the selected period. Useful questions to ask from this output: Which campaigns are most recent? Which campaigns affected the most users? Are the campaigns phishing, malware, or spam? Is there a specific brand or malware family in the subtype? Are similar campaigns appearing repeatedly? Query 2: Understand Delivery Impact After identifying campaigns, the next step is to understand delivery impact. A campaign that was fully blocked is different from a campaign that reached user inboxes. let Campaigns = CampaignInfo | where Timestamp > ago(14d) | project CampaignId, CampaignName, CampaignType, CampaignSubtype, NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress; Campaigns | join kind=leftouter ( EmailEvents | where Timestamp > ago(14d) | project NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress, Subject, SenderFromAddress, SenderFromDomain, SenderIPv4, DeliveryAction, DeliveryLocation, ThreatTypes, DetectionMethods, Timestamp ) on NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress | summarize Messages = dcount(NetworkMessageId), AffectedUsers = dcount(RecipientEmailAddress), Subjects = make_set(Subject, 5), SenderDomains = make_set(SenderFromDomain, 10), SenderIPs = make_set(SenderIPv4, 10) by CampaignId, CampaignName, CampaignType, CampaignSubtype, DeliveryAction, DeliveryLocation | order by AffectedUsers desc, Messages desc This query helps separate campaigns that were blocked from campaigns that actually reached users. From a SOC perspective, delivered messages deserve closer attention, especially if they reached the inbox. Query 3: Identify Users Who Clicked Campaign URLs Delivery is important, but clicks usually increase the priority of the incident. This query joins campaign data with UrlClickEvents. let Campaigns = CampaignInfo | where Timestamp > ago(14d) | project CampaignId, CampaignName, CampaignType, CampaignSubtype, NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress; Campaigns | join kind=inner ( UrlClickEvents | where Timestamp > ago(14d) | project NetworkMessageId, AccountUpn, Url, ActionType, IsClickedThrough, ThreatTypes, DetectionMethods, IPAddress, Workload, ClickTime = Timestamp ) on NetworkMessageId | summarize FirstClick = min(ClickTime), LastClick = max(ClickTime), ClickEvents = count(), ClickedUsers = dcount(AccountUpn), ClickThroughUsers = dcountif(AccountUpn, IsClickedThrough == true), ClickedUrls = make_set(Url, 10), SourceIPs = make_set(IPAddress, 10) by CampaignId, CampaignName, CampaignType, CampaignSubtype | order by ClickThroughUsers desc, ClickedUsers desc, LastClick desc This query helps identify campaigns where users interacted with the payload. If a user clicked a phishing URL, the next step should usually include identity-focused investigation, such as reviewing sign-in activity, MFA status, session activity, and possible risky sign-ins. Query 4: Focus on Click-Through Events Safe Links may block access to a malicious site. In some cases, however, a user may continue through a warning page. Those cases should be reviewed carefully. let Campaigns = CampaignInfo | where Timestamp > ago(30d) | project CampaignId, CampaignName, CampaignType, CampaignSubtype, NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress; Campaigns | join kind=inner ( UrlClickEvents | where Timestamp > ago(30d) | where IsClickedThrough == true | project NetworkMessageId, AccountUpn, Url, ActionType, ThreatTypes, IPAddress, ClickTime = Timestamp ) on NetworkMessageId | project ClickTime, CampaignId, CampaignName, CampaignType, CampaignSubtype, AccountUpn, RecipientEmailAddress, Url, ActionType, ThreatTypes, IPAddress | order by ClickTime desc This is one of the most useful views during incident response. A click-through event does not automatically mean compromise, but it is a strong reason to investigate the user account further. Query 5: Confirm Post-Delivery Remediation A malicious message may be delivered first and removed later by ZAP, AIR, or manual remediation. This query joins CampaignInfo with EmailPostDeliveryEvents. let Campaigns = CampaignInfo | where Timestamp > ago(30d) | project CampaignId, CampaignName, CampaignType, CampaignSubtype, NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress; Campaigns | join kind=leftouter ( EmailPostDeliveryEvents | where Timestamp > ago(30d) | project NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress, RemediationTime = Timestamp, Action, ActionType, ActionTrigger, ActionResult, DeliveryLocation, SourceLocation ) on NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress | summarize RemediatedMessages = dcountif(NetworkMessageId, isnotempty(ActionType)), RemediationTypes = make_set(ActionType, 10), RemediationResults = make_set(ActionResult, 10), LastRemediation = max(RemediationTime) by CampaignId, CampaignName, CampaignType, CampaignSubtype | order by LastRemediation desc This helps answer a very important question: Were the delivered malicious messages actually removed? This is useful for both SOC triage and reporting because it shows not only detection, but also response. Query 6: Campaign Blast Radius Summary The following query combines campaign, delivery, click, and remediation data into one campaign-level view. let TimeRange = 30d; let Campaigns = CampaignInfo | where Timestamp > ago(TimeRange) | project CampaignId, CampaignName, CampaignType, CampaignSubtype, NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress; let Delivery = EmailEvents | where Timestamp > ago(TimeRange) | summarize DeliveryActions = make_set(DeliveryAction, 10), DeliveryLocations = make_set(DeliveryLocation, 10), DeliveredMessages = dcountif(NetworkMessageId, DeliveryAction =~ "Delivered"), JunkedMessages = dcountif(NetworkMessageId, DeliveryAction =~ "Junked"), BlockedMessages = dcountif(NetworkMessageId, DeliveryAction =~ "Blocked"), Subjects = make_set(Subject, 5), SenderDomains = make_set(SenderFromDomain, 10) by NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress; let Clicks = UrlClickEvents | where Timestamp > ago(TimeRange) | summarize ClickEvents = count(), ClickThroughEvents = countif(IsClickedThrough == true), FirstClick = min(Timestamp), LastClick = max(Timestamp), ClickedUrls = make_set(Url, 10) by NetworkMessageId; let Remediation = EmailPostDeliveryEvents | where Timestamp > ago(TimeRange) | summarize RemediationActions = make_set(ActionType, 10), LastRemediation = max(Timestamp) by NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress; Campaigns | join kind=leftouter Delivery on NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress | join kind=leftouter Clicks on NetworkMessageId | join kind=leftouter Remediation on NetworkMessageId, RecipientEmailAddress | summarize AffectedUsers = dcount(RecipientEmailAddress), Messages = dcount(NetworkMessageId), DeliveredMessages = sum(DeliveredMessages), JunkedMessages = sum(JunkedMessages), BlockedMessages = sum(BlockedMessages), TotalClickEvents = sum(ClickEvents), ClickThroughEvents = sum(ClickThroughEvents), Subjects = make_set(Subjects, 10), SenderDomains = make_set(SenderDomains, 10), ClickedUrls = make_set(ClickedUrls, 10), RemediationActions = make_set(RemediationActions, 10), LastClick = max(LastClick), LastRemediation = max(LastRemediation) by CampaignId, CampaignName, CampaignType, CampaignSubtype | extend SuggestedPriority = case( ClickThroughEvents > 0, "High", TotalClickEvents > 0, "Medium", DeliveredMessages > 0, "Medium", "Low" ) | order by SuggestedPriority asc, AffectedUsers desc, Messages desc This type of query can be useful during hunting sessions, incident review, and campaign reporting. The goal is not only to collect more data. The goal is to help the analyst decide what needs attention first. Correlating Campaign Activity with Microsoft Sentinel When Microsoft Defender XDR is connected to Microsoft Sentinel, incidents and alerts can be synchronized into the Sentinel incident queue. This allows the SOC to correlate campaign-related email activity with other security signals, such as: Suspicious sign-ins Identity alerts Endpoint alerts Cloud app activity OAuth consent activity Data exfiltration attempts Related Microsoft XDR incidents For example, if a user clicked a phishing URL, the SOC can then review whether the same user had suspicious sign-in activity shortly after the click. The following query is a simple starting point for reviewing Microsoft XDR incidents in Microsoft Sentinel. SecurityIncident | where TimeGenerated > ago(30d) | where ProviderName == "Microsoft XDR" | where Title has_any ("phish", "phishing", "email", "malware", "campaign") | summarize Incidents = count(), HighSeverity = countif(Severity == "High"), MediumSeverity = countif(Severity == "Medium"), Closed = countif(Status == "Closed"), Active = countif(Status == "Active") by bin(TimeGenerated, 1d) | order by TimeGenerated desc This query does not replace campaign hunting. It simply helps analysts understand how email-related activity is represented in the Sentinel incident queue. Suggested SOC Workflow A practical campaign-centric workflow could look like this: Step 1: Start from Campaign Views Review campaigns with delivered messages, clicked users, visited links, or high user impact. Step 2: Pivot to KQL Use CampaignInfo to list campaign-related messages and affected recipients. Step 3: Validate Delivery Join with EmailEvents to confirm whether messages were blocked, junked, delivered, or replaced. Step 4: Review User Interaction Join with UrlClickEvents to identify users who clicked URLs or clicked through Safe Links warnings. Step 5: Confirm Remediation Join with EmailPostDeliveryEvents to confirm whether delivered messages were removed after delivery. Step 6: Correlate in Sentinel Review related Microsoft XDR incidents and correlate with identity, endpoint, and cloud activity. Step 7: Decide Response Depending on the impact, the SOC may decide to: Escalate the incident Notify affected users Review user sign-ins Revoke user sessions Reset passwords Block sender domains or URLs Submit false negatives Create a watchlist for related indicators Tune analytics rules or response processes Suggested Priority Logic Not every campaign needs the same level of response. A simple triage model could be: Condition Suggested priority Campaign blocked before delivery Low Campaign delivered to junk Low to Medium Campaign delivered to inbox Medium Campaign delivered to multiple inboxes Medium to High User clicked URL High User clicked through warning High Priority account clicked High Click followed by suspicious sign-in Critical This model should be adapted to each organization’s risk profile and response process. Limitations and Things to Validate Before using this approach in production, validate the following: Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 availability Campaign Views permissions CampaignInfo table availability Defender XDR connector configuration Advanced hunting event streaming Field names in your environment Retention period Data latency Join behavior using NetworkMessageId Whether click events can be joined to email metadata in all cases One important limitation is that some URL click events may not join cleanly with email metadata. For example, clicks from Drafts or Sent Items may not have the same message metadata available for correlation. Also, because CampaignInfo is currently documented as Preview, I would avoid depending on it alone for critical production automation without testing and validation.Operational Notes on Microsoft Security Copilot Agents in Defender XDR and Microsoft Entra ID
Microsoft Security Copilot is now becoming more visible inside day-to-day security operations, especially through embedded experiences and agent-based workflows across Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft Intune, and Microsoft Purview. Instead of looking at Security Copilot only as a standalone prompt interface, SOC and identity teams should also understand how Security Copilot agents are deployed, how they consume Security Compute Units, how they appear in operational workflows, and where activity can be monitored. This post summarizes practical observations from a security operations perspective, with a focus on Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Entra ID, usage monitoring, and KQL-based activity review. Licensing & Capacity Units Requirements Requires eligible Microsoft security licensing, typically: Microsoft 365 E5 Microsoft 365 E7 Security Compute Units (SCUs) Security Copilot capacity is measured using Security Compute Units (SCUs). SCUs are billed based on provisioned capacity. Indicative pricing: $4 per Provisionied SCU/hour $6 per Overage SCU/hour Billing is calculated hourly, based on the amount of SCUs provisioned. Included Capacity Organizations with: 1,000 Microsoft 365 E5 licenses Receive: 400 included SCUs Included SCUs are shared across the tenant within a common capacity pool. Scaling SCU capacity can be scaled dynamically based on operational requirements and workload demand. Data Retention Security Copilot session and interaction data without active SCU-backed retention is typically retained for: 90 days Security Copilot Agents - Microsoft Defender This section outlines the Microsoft Security Copilot agents currently available in the Microsoft Defender portal. NameKey characteristics Security Alert Triage Agent (Preview) Manual setup from Defender portal Automatically creates Unified RBAC custom role Runs automatically when a user reports a suspicious email or when a new supported alert is generated, supported alert sources: MDI, MDC, MDO If an alert tuning rule is enabled, it will be automatically disabled when the agent is deployed. Creates and connects with agentic user account: Phishing Triage Agent (Security Copilot) Automatic alert assignment to SecurityCopilotAgentUser-db16fec3-f1fb-4632-843e-46d07408c584@<tenant-domain>Alert was assigned to Phishing Triage Agent (Security Copilot). Adds Tag Agent to the created Incidents Threat Hunting Agent Manual setup from Defender portal Automatically creates Unified RBAC custom role This agent runs manually. There isn't an automatic trigger. Creates and connects with agentic user account: Threat Hunting Agent (Security Copilot) Analyst Questions in natural language Generates and executed KQL queries in Advanced hunting Provides charts, dynamic follow-up questions and remediation actions recommendations No activity is identified from agent's identity during agent execution Threat Intelligence Briefing Agent Manual setup from Defender portal Provides automated TI briefing summary Configured from https://security.microsoft.com/securitysettings/defender/agent_configuration-threatintelligencebriefingagent Security Analyst Agent Manual setup from Defender portal Dynamic Threat Detection Agent (Preview) Automatically enabled always-on, runs continuously in the background Correlates: Alerts, Security events, Behavioral anomalies, TI signals Generates Alerts with Detection Source: Security Copilot The Alerts can be correlated with existing Multi-Stage Incidents No agentic user account identity is used by this agent Available free of charge during public preview, will begin consuming Security Compute Units (SCUs) once generally available (GA) Incidents handled by Security Alert Triage Agent: Alerts created by Dynamic Threat Detection Agent: Execution of Threat Hunting Agent: View agents in use: https://security.microsoft.com/security-copilot/agents View Unified RBAC custom roles: https://security.microsoft.com/mtp_roles View Security Copilot user identities in Microsoft Entra ID: Notes: CloudAppEvents activity logs only from the following agents: Phishing Triage Agent Conditional Access Optimization Agent Security Copilot Agents - Microsoft Entra ID Conditional Access Optimization Agent Usage Monitoring Sign-in to Security Copilot portal using Global Admin account and navigate to the following location: https://securitycopilot.microsoft.com/usage-monitoring Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/security/manage-usage Logging Activity Copilot Agents Management: CloudAppEvents | where ActionType contains "CopilotAgent" | extend AgentName = RawEventData.AgentName | extend Workload = RawEventData.Workload | extend ResultStatus = RawEventData.ResultStatus | project TimeGenerated, ActionType, ResultStatus, AgentName, Application, Workload All Copilot Workload data: CloudAppEvents | extend Workload = RawEventData.Workload | where Workload == "Copilot" | summarize EventCount = count() by ActionType, AccountDisplayName
SessionID in IdentityLogonEvents?
Hi, The SessionId information is not available in IdentityLogonEvents. The SessionID data can only be found in the XDR table AADSignInEventsBeta. According to the documentation of that table "All sign-in schema information will eventually move to the IdentityLogonEvents table". I cannot find the SessionID in Sentinel anywhere else than in CloudAppEvents. Is this expected? How are we supposed to investigate stolen sessions without the sessionId information in Sentinel?
Blocking domain for group of users/or devices
Hi all, I am trying to find a way to block youtube for a group of users. We are using M365 E5 Security so can use Defender for endpoint or Defender for cloud apps. However, cant find a way to implement this. My idea was to create an INDICATOR in Endpoint that will be blocked, however I cannot select any group and "all devices" are included there in default. So not sure if this is a way. Neither Web Content Filtering cannot be used for my scenario Another idea was to use Defender for cloud apps. This looks promising but I am not sure how to target only specific users or devices? I managed to mark an app as "unsanctioned" but it applies for all devices. Any idea ? Thank you.Microsoft Defender Incident – Handling incident severity change.
I am polling incidents via Microsoft Graph API every 5 minutes, initially filtering out Low/Informational incidents. Later, some low severity incidents are updated to High/Medium severity. Is there any built-in mechanism in Defender for tracking severity transitions?Identity Attack Graph in Microsoft Sentinel
Identity is now one of the most important attack surfaces in cloud security. In many real-world incidents, attackers do not rely only on malware or network movement. Instead, they abuse identities, permissions, role assignments, group memberships, service principals, and misconfigured access paths to move from an initial compromise to high-value resources. This is why the new Identity Attack Graph in Microsoft Sentinel is an important capability. It helps security teams visualize how identities are connected to Azure resources and how an attacker could potentially move from one identity to another resource through permissions and relationships. What is the Identity Attack Graph? The Identity Attack Graph in Microsoft Sentinel provides a visual way to understand how identities, permissions, groups, and Azure resources are connected. Instead of manually checking multiple portals, logs, and role assignments, the graph helps analysts understand relationships such as: Which identities have access to specific Azure resources Which users or service principals are over-privileged Which groups provide indirect access to sensitive resources Which identities may have a path to critical assets What the potential blast radius of a compromised identity could be How attackers could move laterally through identity and permission relationships This is especially useful because identity risk is often not obvious when looking at a single user, group, or role assignment in isolation. The real risk usually appears when these relationships are connected together. A user may not directly have access to a sensitive resource, but the user may be a member of a group that has access to another resource, which then has permissions that create a path toward a high-value asset. The Identity Attack Graph helps expose these hidden relationships. Why this matters In many Azure environments, permissions grow over time. Users change roles, groups are reused, emergency access is granted, service principals are created, and temporary permissions are not always removed. As a result, organizations often end up with: Too many privileged identities Unused or stale permissions Service principals with excessive access Guest users with unnecessary permissions Groups that provide indirect access to sensitive resources Subscription-level roles that are broader than required Lack of visibility into who can reach critical assets Traditional investigation usually requires analysts to move between several places, including Microsoft Entra ID, Azure RBAC, Azure Activity logs, Sentinel queries, Defender XDR, and Azure Resource Graph. The Identity Attack Graph reduces this complexity by presenting identity relationships as a connected graph. This makes it easier to answer practical security questions such as: “What can this identity access?” “What happens if this user is compromised?” “Which identities have a path to critical resources?” “Which access path should we remediate first?” “Which permissions create the highest risk?” “Why does this identity have access to this asset?” Key use cases The feature can support several important identity security and cloud security scenarios. 1. Attack path discovery Security teams can use the graph to identify how an attacker could move from a compromised identity to a sensitive Azure resource. This is useful during both proactive assessments and active incident response. For example, if a user account is suspected to be compromised, the graph can help identify which resources may be reachable through that identity’s direct or indirect permissions. 2. Blast-radius analysis When an identity is compromised, one of the first questions is: What could the attacker access with this identity? The Identity Attack Graph can help analysts understand the potential impact of a compromised user, group, service principal, or managed identity. This can help with containment, prioritization, and communication with stakeholders. 3. Over-privileged identity detection The graph can help identify identities that have more permissions than they need. Include: Users with Owner or Contributor access at subscription level Service principals with broad permissions Guest users with privileged access Groups that grant access to sensitive resources Identities that have access to multiple critical assets This is useful for enforcing least privilege and reducing identity attack surface. 4. Privileged access review IAM and cloud security teams can use the graph to support access reviews. Instead of only reviewing a list of role assignments, teams can understand the real impact of those permissions. This helps answer: Is this role assignment still required? Does this group create unnecessary risk? Does this identity have access to critical resources? Is this access direct or inherited? Is this path expected or suspicious? 5. Incident response and threat hunting For SOC teams, the graph can support investigations involving: Suspicious sign-ins Compromised users Privilege escalation Suspicious role assignments Lateral movement Service principal abuse Unusual access to sensitive resources The graph does not replace logs or hunting queries, but it gives analysts a faster way to understand relationships and prioritize what to investigate next. Important prerequisites and setup notes During my evaluation, there were a few important setup requirements that should be clearly highlighted. Microsoft Sentinel permissions The environment must already be onboarded to Microsoft Sentinel, and the user testing or configuring the feature must have the appropriate Microsoft Sentinel permissions. The documented role requirement includes Microsoft Sentinel Contributor. However, in my experience, this is not always enough for the full onboarding and validation experience. Subscription-level Owner permission One important prerequisite that should be clearly mentioned is that Owner permissions at the Azure subscription level may be required. This is especially important during onboarding and activation, because the graph depends on access to Azure resource and permission relationships. If the user does not have sufficient subscription-level permissions, some setup steps or visibility into resources and relationships may not work as expected. Recommended permission note: In addition to Microsoft Sentinel permissions, ensure that the user configuring the preview has Owner permissions at the subscription level for the subscriptions that should be represented in the graph. This should be made very clear in the onboarding documentation to avoid confusion during deployment. Required data connector: Azure Resource Graph Another very important setup step is the Azure Resource Graph data connector. The Azure Resource Graph connector must be: Installed manually Activated manually Connected to the relevant Sentinel workspace This is a key point. The connector is not automatically enabled just because the Identity Attack Graph feature is available. Without this connector, Sentinel may not have the required Azure resource relationship data needed to build a useful graph. Why Azure Resource Graph is important Azure Resource Graph provides visibility across Azure resources, subscriptions, and relationships. For an identity attack graph, this data is essential. The graph needs to understand not only identities, but also the resources those identities can reach. This may include: Subscriptions Resource groups Storage accounts Key Vaults Virtual machines Managed identities Role assignments Resource relationships Resource hierarchy Critical assets Without Azure Resource Graph data, the attack graph may not provide the full picture of how identities connect to Azure resources. For this reason, I believe the onboarding instructions should explicitly state: The Azure Resource Graph data connector must be manually installed and activated before using the Identity Attack Graph. Recommended onboarding checklist Before using the Identity Attack Graph, I would recommend validating the following: Requirement Recommendation Microsoft Sentinel workspace Ensure the workspace is active and accessible Sentinel role Microsoft Sentinel Contributor or equivalent access Subscription permissions Owner permissions at subscription level Azure Resource Graph connector Manually install and activate the connector Azure RBAC visibility Ensure access to relevant role assignments Microsoft Entra ID visibility Ensure identity and group data is available Resource visibility Validate that relevant subscriptions and resources are visible Data freshness Allow enough time for data collection and graph population This checklist can help avoid issues where the feature appears available but does not show the expected relationships. How the Identity Attack Graph improves investigation Before using a graph-based approach, an analyst often needs to manually collect and correlate data from multiple sources. A typical investigation may include: Checking the user in Microsoft Entra ID Reviewing group memberships Reviewing Azure RBAC assignments Checking subscription-level access Looking at resource-level permissions Reviewing PIM activations Searching Sentinel logs Running KQL queries Checking Azure Activity logs Validating access with cloud or IAM teams This process can be time-consuming. The Identity Attack Graph helps reduce this effort by showing relationships visually. This allows the analyst to understand the possible path faster and decide where to focus. For example, instead of manually asking: “Does this user have access to this resource through any group, role, or inherited permission?” The graph can help show the relationship directly. This is valuable because many risky permissions are indirect. The user may not have direct access, but may inherit access through a group, role assignment, nested relationship, or service principal path. Where validation is still needed Although the graph provides strong visibility, I would still validate findings before taking remediation action. This is especially important because removing access can affect business operations or production systems. I would still validate with: Microsoft Sentinel KQL queries Microsoft Entra sign-in logs Microsoft Entra audit logs Azure Activity logs Azure RBAC role assignments PIM activation history Defender XDR signals Defender for Cloud recommendations Azure Resource Graph queries IAM team input Cloud platform team input Application owner confirmation The graph is very useful for discovery and prioritization, but final remediation decisions should still be validated. GQL and graph-based investigation One of the interesting aspects of this feature is the use of graph-based thinking. Security teams are already familiar with query languages such as KQL for log analytics. However, graph investigation is different. KQL is excellent for searching and analyzing events over time, such as sign-ins, alerts, audit logs, and activity logs. Graph Query Language, or GQL, is designed for querying connected data. Instead of only asking what happened at a specific time, graph queries help answer how entities are connected. In identity security, this is very powerful because the risk often exists in the relationship between objects. Graph entities include: Users Groups Service principals Managed identities Roles Subscriptions Resource groups Azure resources Permissions Sessions Attack paths Graph relationships include: User is member of group Group has role assignment Identity has access to resource Service principal owns application Managed identity can access Key Vault User can escalate privilege Identity can reach critical asset This allows analysts to ask more relationship-focused questions, such as: Which identities can reach this resource? What is the shortest path from this user to a critical asset? Which groups create privileged access? Which service principals have paths to sensitive resources? Which identities have indirect access through nested relationships? Which attack paths include subscription Owner or Contributor permissions? KQL vs GQL: why both are useful KQL and GQL serve different but complementary purposes. Area KQL GQL / Graph Querying Main purpose Analyze logs and events Analyze relationships and paths Best for Time-based investigation Connected identity/resource investigation question “Did this user sign in from a risky location?” “What resources can this user reach?” Data model Tables Nodes and edges Common use Detection, hunting, analytics Attack path discovery, relationship mapping Strength Event correlation Path discovery In practice, security teams need both. KQL can identify a suspicious sign-in. The Identity Attack Graph can show what the compromised identity could access. KQL can then be used again to validate whether the attacker interacted with those resources. This creates a strong workflow between event-based detection and relationship-based investigation. Graph investigation scenarios The following are conceptual are the types of graph questions that would be useful in identity attack path analysis. Find paths from a user to critical resources A useful graph query would help answer: Show me all paths from this user to critical Azure resources. This could help determine whether a compromised identity has a direct or indirect route to sensitive assets. Find identities with paths to Key Vaults Key Vaults often contain secrets, certificates, and keys. A graph query could help identify: Which users, groups, service principals, or managed identities have a path to Key Vault resources? This would be useful for prioritizing access review and remediation. Find subscription-level privileged identities Subscription-level roles are high-impact because they can provide broad access. A graph query could help find: Which identities have Owner or Contributor access at subscription level? This is especially important because subscription-level permissions can create wide attack paths. Find indirect access through groups Many access paths are created through group membership. A graph query could help answer: Which users have access to this resource through group membership? This can help IAM teams clean up excessive or unnecessary group-based access. Find service principals with broad access Service principals are often used for automation and applications, but they can become high-risk if over-privileged. A useful query would identify: Which service principals have broad access to subscriptions or critical resources? This is important because service principal compromise can lead to significant impact. How GQL can improve analyst workflows Adding strong GQL support to the graph explorer would make the feature more powerful for advanced users. You could use graph queries to: Search for specific paths Filter by identity type Filter by role Filter by resource type Find shortest paths Find high-risk paths Exclude known approved paths Focus on critical assets Query only privileged relationships Identify unexpected permission chains This would help both SOC analysts and cloud security engineers move from visual exploration to repeatable analysis. A SOC analyst may want a quick visual graph during an incident, while a cloud security engineer
Scope filter (preview) has stopped working in Edge/Chrome
We have noticed that the Scope filter (preview) under Exposure Management -> Vulnerability Management has stopped working across all our desktops on the latest versions of Edge and Chrome. We see it across the board so guess it should be replicatable by you too. Not critical enough that it warrants our time spent on an incident since it'll likely get reported anyhow, but putting it out here in case it's picked up by the Product Owners or Dev teams.
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