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Aug 06, 2026
5 MIN READ
Security teams don't struggle with a lack of security signals. The real challenge is understanding which activity matters, why it stands out, and where to focus first.
Microsoft Sentinel's Behavio...
Aug 06, 2026
6 MIN READ
Microsoft Defender Monthly news - August 2026 Edition
This is our monthly "What's new" blog post, summarizing product updates and various new assets we released over the past month across our Defe...
Aug 05, 2026
Co Author: JiteshThakur
AI agents are useful because they can act. They call tools, query databases, send messages, and hand work to other agents. That same freedom creates a problem: access ...
Aug 05, 2026Recent Discussions
Location of Defender for Identity Entry in Defender Tables
Our GRC group wants an automated report on windows servers and workstations over 7 days old not onboarded for Defender for Endpoint. A change in our environment (not sure if it was MS or us) has caused an additional entry in a column named "DiscoverySources" for Defender for Identity. It's my understanding that D4I is only used on domain controllers, but we get entries on non-DCs as well. This identifier does not appear on the device dashboard, nor can I add it in with the custom column tab. Furthermore, if a machine requires onboarding for D4E, it will show them both in the same column, it separates them with a comma in the same field. Right now, I have to do this process manually and with the overhead involved, it takes me about 30 minutes to run the reports, filter out the false positives and forward them to the appropriate staff. They want this every day, and I can't do this operationally. I'd welcome the opportunity to create a Logic App based on a query to perform this function and route it. Can someone point me in the direction of the table which contains the DiscoverSources column? I haven't been able to find it. That would help me to perform the necessary KQL and Logic App to automate this process. Long time listener. First time publisher. Thanks
Expected exactly one role management policy assignment but 0 were found
I am getting the following error in Entra when I try to assign a custom role to a user: Expected exactly one role management policy assignment but 0 were found What I have done: entra.microsoft.com → Entra ID: Roles & admins → New custom role Basics * Role name: User Directory Reader * Description: Provides read-only access to user directory information. Intended for security analysts and auditors who require visibility into user identities without modification permissions. Permissions * microsoft.directory/users/standard/read *microsoft.directory/users/memberOf/read *microsoft.directory/users/manager/read When I click + Add assignment I get the error "Expected exactly one role management policy assignment but 0 were found". I have trial license for Privileged Identity Management (Entra ID P2).
Microsoft Purview Data Map Sensitivity Labelling
I'm testing the new Microsoft Purview Data Map Sensitivity Labelling capability against Azure SQL and have a question about the relationship between Data Map classifications and Information Protection auto-labelling. My goal is to automatically apply a sensitivity label such as PERSONAL DATA to Data Map assets and columns when PII is detected. Examples of the PII classifications I'm interested in include: All Full Names Email Address Date of Birth Ethnic Group Person Age Person Gender Personal IP Address UK Driving Licence Number UK Electoral Roll Number UK NHS Number UK Passport Number UK UTR National Insurance Number Payment Card Number Other common personal identifiers From my testing, it appears that Data Map classifications and Microsoft Purview Information Protection auto-labelling use different detection engines and different supported rule sets. For example: Data detected Data Map classification Can directly trigger the Data Map Sensitivity Label? Full Name Yes No Date of Birth Yes, or detected through schema and context No Email Address Yes Not available in my tenant's rule picker National Insurance Number Yes Yes UK Passport Number Yes Yes Payment Card Number Yes Yes This suggests that Purview can classify many types of personal data during scanning, but only a subset of those classifications are available as conditions in the Data Map auto-labelling policy. My questions are: Is this the expected behaviour, or am I missing additional configuration? Is there a published mapping between Data Map classifications and the supported Sensitive Information Types (SITs) that can trigger Data Map sensitivity labels? Can custom Sensitive Information Types be used for Data Map auto-labelling, or are only Microsoft prebuilt SITs supported? Is there a roadmap for supporting classifications such as All Full Names, Date of Birth, Email Address, Person Age, Person Gender and similar PII as auto-labelling triggers? How are other organisations implementing a consistent PII handling model when many common personal-data classifications cannot currently trigger a Data Map sensitivity label? At present, my understanding is that the practical approach is: Use supported auto-labelling for eligible identifiers, such as National Insurance numbers and passport numbers. For classifications that cannot trigger a sensitivity label, such as Full Name or Date of Birth, use governance metadata such as custom attributes, glossary terms or Critical Data Elements (CDEs), together with governance policies and access controls. I'd be interested to hear how others are implementing this in enterprise Purview environments and whether there are any recommended patterns from the Microsoft product team.
Microsoft Account Is Showing Up As Not Existing (Hacked/Deleted?)
I cant sign into my minecraft/microsoft account, it says that there is no microsoft account by my email despite me play minecraft with it the day before. Im sure that it was that email and I even have the reciept, it could either be a glitched or someone hacked it. If possible if this account is comprimised could I switch the minecraft account to another Microsoft account, or js be able to recovery my account. There is pretty much nothing on the account but minecraft.[HELP] "Action required for browser protections" alert
Hello! I have an Endpoint DLP policy with Device location. After several scoping changes (device groups, inclusions/exclusions) to narrow it to a specific target group, the orange alert appeared: Action required for browser protections. One or more policies were not applied in Edge for Business. This could be due to a policy sync issue, lack of required permissions, or an issue with the server. Either resync these policies or contact an admin with the required permissions to resync. After resyncing, you might still see this message for up to 1 day while the system completes the sync and activates protections. The policies were working before. Clicked Resync multiple times, only for the error to return. Please help!
Microsoft purview exchange online DLP duplicate events and alerts
Hello Everyone, We have Microsoft purview DLP policy for exchange online, We dont have any other exchange policy apart from this. there are three rules High (51- Any), Medium (10-50), Low( 2-9). Whenever any rule matches there are two events in activity explorer and alerts getting generated. Does anybody has encountered this issue? Kindly provide the feedback. Thank you.
Insider Risk Level not being correctly picked up by DLP
I have two users currently with assigned Insider Risk levels, one elevated and one minor. I have taken the templated DLP policy (DSPM for AI - Block sensitive info from AI sites) which looks for sensitive information being pasted to generative AI sites, and applies a block if the user is an elevated risk user, and a block with override for a moderate/minor risk user (this was audit only originally). For each advanced DLP rule within that policy, I have a separate policy tip which shows so I know which Advanced DLP rule has been hit. However, I'm having some discrepancies with the correct insider risk level being identified by Purview and therefore the wrong advanced DLP rule is being applied. Testing examples: Logged into a Windows 11 PC with the account, and using Medium confidence UK NINO's I try pasting the content into ChatGPT: Elevated risk user: Block with Override Minor Risk user: Block with Override If I try the exact same scenario on a different PC, I can sometimes get to the point where even though its the same set of data, Purview allows me to paste it at after checking the data. Or in another scenario, I was getting both users hitting the "elevated risk" advanced DLP rule. The Devices are all showing as up to date sync wise with DLP policies, and the policy itself is showing as fully synced. Assigned insider risk levels: DLP Rules: Elevated: Moderate/Minor:Purview Endpoint DLP "Turn on Device onboarding" Query
Hello Microsoft Community, We are planning to enable device onboarding in Microsoft Purview as a prerequisite for deploying Microsoft Purview Endpoint DLP. Our environment uses CrowdStrike Falcon as the primary antivirus/EDR solution. However, we have identified a significant number of Windows 11 devices where Microsoft Defender Antivirus is currently reporting: AMRunningMode : Normal This is occurring even though CrowdStrike is installed and is expected to be the primary antivirus provider. Our understanding is that, when a supported third-party antivirus such as CrowdStrike is correctly registered with Windows Security Center, Microsoft Defender Antivirus should normally operate in Passive mode after the device is onboarded to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. We are investigating why these devices are showing Normal mode. One suspicion is that there may have been an incomplete or unsuccessful Microsoft Defender for Endpoint deployment in the past, or an issue with CrowdStrike registration, Windows Security Center, Defender policies, or the existing MDE onboarding state. We would like clarification on the impact of enabling Purview device onboarding in this situation. Environment Windows 11 devices CrowdStrike Falcon is intended to be the primary antivirus/EDR Microsoft Purview Endpoint DLP is planned Device onboarding has not yet been broadly enabled through Purview Some devices report Microsoft Defender Antivirus in Passive mode Large number of devices report Microsoft Defender Antivirus in Normal mode We are separately troubleshooting the Normal-mode devices Questions Does enabling Turn on device onboarding in the Microsoft Purview portal make any immediate configuration change to Windows devices, or is it only a tenant-side setting until the onboarding package is deployed? After “Turn on device onboarding” When the Purview onboarding package/script is deployed when the device is in “Normal mode”, does it modify the Microsoft Defender Antivirus operating mode? Is there any risk of performance degradation, duplicate file scanning, application impact, or antivirus conflict on devices where: CrowdStrike is active, and Microsoft Defender Antivirus is also reporting Normal mode? If we enable device onboarding? We are mainly trying to determine whether Purview device onboarding itself introduces any negative impact, as there is a pre-existing condition where both CrowdStrike and Microsoft Defender Antivirus may be operating actively. Thank you.EnableConvertWarnToBlock will not enable - stays False
We have a GPO applied to Windows 11 Pro machine - fully patched and onboarded to MDE. The GPO enables "EnableConvertWarnToBlock" as follows: The GPO is applied to the machine and the following registry key is populated: But when I check the status on the client - it will not enable: I have enabled troubleshooting mode and disabled tamper protection in case this is blocking but nothing seems to work. Its as if MDAV/MDE is not even looking/reading that registry key. Anyone else have the same issue or ideas on resolution?
Group-Based Licensing (E3 → Business Premium): MutuallyExclusiveViolation – Months Unresolved
We operate a Microsoft 365 environment with Entra ID, Intune, and Exchange Online. For months, we have been dealing with a critical issue that remains unresolved to this day — despite an active Microsoft Support ticket. The Technical Problem: During the migration of approximately 87 user accounts from Microsoft 365 E3 to Business Premium (SPB) via group-based licensing in Entra ID, all affected accounts receive a MutuallyExclusiveViolation error. Microsoft's backend treats E3 and Business Premium as mutually exclusive, blocking the SPB assignment — despite sufficient licenses being available. A sequential approach (removing E3 first, then assigning Business Premium) is not an acceptable solution: a test run proved that this causes a complete loss of Exchange Online access. For a rollout across 87 productive user accounts, this is not viable. What is required is a seamless, atomic license swap at the backend level — exclusively via group-based licensing. The Support Problem: Two support engineers assigned — zero technical progress. Instead of a substantive solution, we received standard documentation steps that do not address the actual problem. A false resolution notice was issued — the issue had demonstrably not been resolved. Our own PowerShell tests (Get-MgUser, Get-MgSubscribedSku) and CSV exports from the Entra ID portal disproved this conclusively. Committed updates from the Engineering Team were not delivered. Instead, automatically generated follow-up emails were sent with no substantive relation to the ongoing case. An additional unexplained behavior: a test user appears in the error report of a license group they were never added to — a further backend inconsistency that has not been investigated. Current Status: The ticket has been open for months. 87 user accounts cannot be migrated to Business Premium. An escalation to the Team Manager has been initiated. No resolution is in sight. My Question to the Community: Has anyone experienced a similar issue with MutuallyExclusiveViolation in group-based licensing (E3 → Business Premium)? Is there a known workaround or an official Microsoft statement on this? Ticket Reference: #2604241410000669Sentinel Foundry - MCP Server (Github Community Release)
I’ve been cooking something that a lot of people in SOC have been struggling with — especially on the engineering side of Microsoft Sentinel. Thanks to the Microsoft Security team for shaping the capabilities of Sentinel even better with Sentinel Data Lake & Modern SecOps. Today’s the day I can finally share it. Note: This is not an official Microsoft product, but it is designed to make the Sentinel Build even better (complement) with much more intelligence. 🚀 Sentinel Foundry is now in public preview with 43 tools. (Sentinel Foundry - MCP Server) It’s an MCP server built to act like the brain of a strong Sentinel engineer — helping make building, improving, and operating Sentinel far more practical, faster, and honestly more enjoyable. For a lot of teams, the challenge is not understanding what Sentinel can do. The hard part is the engineering work around it: -> Deciding what data should actually be ingested -> Building a clean, scalable Sentinel foundation -> Writing useful detections instead of noisy ones -> Balancing security value with cost -> Turning ideas into deployable engineering outputs That is exactly why I built Sentinel Foundry to help communities grow stronger. It helps with the real engineering tasks behind Sentinel — from architecture thinking to detection design, deployment planning, ingestion strategy, automation ideas, and many of the workflows outlined in the GitHub project. How does it work? Here’s one of the flagship prompts I ran with it: “Give me a complete security posture report for our workspace. Score each pillar and tell me what to prioritise.” And within seconds, it produced a structured engineering blueprint that would normally take a lot longer to pull together manually. You can see the example prompts here in what it can do: https://github.com/prabhukiranveesam/Sentinel-Foundry#what-can-it-do I want building Sentinel to feel less like repetitive engineering overhead — and more like real security engineering that is fast, creative, and enjoyable. If you work with Sentinel as a SOC L2 analyst, engineer, detection engineer, consultant, or architect, I’d genuinely love for you to try it and tell me what you think. 🔗 Public Preview: https://github.com/prabhukiranveesam/Sentinel-Foundry This is just the start of an AI era — and I’m excited to keep shaping it with more powerful features over the coming days. This is very easy to set up and will be available to all of you at no cost during this month as part of the public preview, and your feedback is extremely valuable to shape this as a powerful solution.
Windows Forwarded Events connector with Windows Security Events NRT rules
Hello, We are testing Microsoft Sentinel using the official Windows Forwarded Events connector. Environment - Windows Server WEC - Windows Event Forwarding - Azure Arc - Azure Monitor Agent - Windows Forwarded Events connector Everything works correctly. Forwarded security events are successfully ingested into the WindowsEvent table. For example: - Event ID 1102 - Event ID 4732 However, the built-in Windows Security Events NRT Analytics Rules (Content Hub version 1.0.1) query only the SecurityEvent table. Example: NRT Security Event log cleared SecurityEvent | where EventID == 1102 As a result, forwarded events received through the Windows Forwarded Events connector never trigger these NRT rules. Question: Is this expected behavior? Should Windows Forwarded Events customers use a different set of analytics rules (ASIM or other templates), or should these built-in NRT rules also support WindowsEvent? Thank you.I just want to secure AI. DLP vs Info Protection vs DSPM vs Governance vs...
I'm with an MSP, and I've avoided Purview like the plague, because it seems to be suffering from the same 'made by marketing teams' 'strategy' the 365 documentation is. However, it's my understanding Purview policies are needed for Data control of Copilot. Here's my issue: all of these different 'solutions' sound like the exact same thing, but are pitched as if they are something different. i'm going to post a couple of descriptions for these 'solutions' to illustrate this. 'discover, label, and protect sensitive and business-critical info' 'make sure your organization can identify, monitor, and protect sensitive info across the expanding Microsoft 365 landscape' 'discover and secure all your sensitive data across Microsoft 365 and non-365 data sources' 'Discover, label, and protect sensitive and business-critical info across your multicloud data estate.' I genuinely do not have time to figure out what each of these 'solutions' are, then figure out their policies, then their giant library of settings (below)... It's not even clear to me what's active NOW, considering we never licensed Purview - but somehow have been roped into it. It SEEMS like these are all variations of marketing terms, which all point to 3-4 actual technical implementations in obscure ways. Can someone advise on the ACTUAL technical policies we want to target and enable? Or just give some clarity? I've never felt so overwhelmed or disconnected from Microsoft's environment. We just want to secure our tenant's AI usage.Performance in scanning
We are trying to search for CUI data on internal file stores. Last week, I decided to run another discovery scan, this time using ALL instead of Policy Only. It took much longer and left the scanner server in an almost unusable state and didn’t give really any more information than the first one did. Based on my research, we need to define and set the policy before we run scans. This is the information tip from the Purview scanner settings: Scan started at: 2026-05-20 22:54:06Z Scan ended at: 2026-05-24 16:16:51Z Scan duration: 3 days, 17 hours, 22 minutes, 45 seconds Scan id: 93acb922-e2ac-4fb7-b259-d6184e7aa434 Repository: \\cab-filesrv-01.fg.com\Departments. Enforce mode is Off Scanned files:3509640 Actions: Classified:3369456 Classified as Public:14 Classified as Fg Private:3369442 Labeled:0 Remove label:0 Protected:0 Remove protection:0 Files with matched information types:572895 Skipped due to - No match:0 Skipped due to - Not supported:0 Skipped due to - Already labeled:0 Skipped due to - Already scanned:0 Skipped due to - Require justification:0 Skipped due to - Unknown reason:0 Skipped due to - Excluded:98833 Skipped due to - Attribute:0 Failed:41318Unexpected button behaviour when using the prompt=create parameter in Entra External ID user flows
Hi, In a recent workload, I'm assisting a client to implement Entra External ID for streamlined authorization as well as single sign-on for associated registered external facing third-party applications for external customer users through their Entra External ID identity, as well as assisting the client with auth branding and other UI customizations, and preparing Entra ID federation custom OIDC providers and configuration for enabling SSO with organizational internal and remote work- and school accounts etc. The sign-up / create account experience is of importance to the client, as a rather substantial amount of users are expected to sign-up via self-service sign-up following having received an invite via another app. To ensure that the user lands on the create account view, in order to minimize the number of steps and actions the users need to take to get there, the prompt=create parameter is used to pre-select the sign-up/register experience in the user flows UI. Having stress-tested the user flows and experience recently, we noticed that in a specific scenario, some UI elements behave in a manner that could be described as unexpected, and even though a workaround has mitigated it to some extent, the behaviour of some elements could probably be improved a bit to ensure an even more consistent user experience in the built-in user flows. Specifically, if the user flow is invoked with the prompt parameter set, the user lands on the create account screen as expected, however, unless custom CSS modification is applied, the Back button that would typically be there, as if having arrived there from the initial sign-in screen where it’s also displayed. If pressing the Back button displayed on the Create account view when having navigated there with the prompt=create set in the /authorize request, pressing the button seemingly doesn’t have any impact or result in any action, one can click it, but nothing happens. I'd suspect it's perhaps a "remnant" from if the flow is invoked without any prompt parameter set, or with prompt=login set, but when prompt=create is set, there is no state/page history in the UI to navigate back to, as no previous page has been displayed or rendered yet and added to the history, and the Back button click thus doesn’t have any effect. In general, I think buttons that don't have any tangible action should not be displayed, also, if prompt=login is set, the Back button isn't shown then either on the very initial user flow view shown then, so it would seem the built-in user flows actually already follow such approach in fact, but not when the prompt=create has been set, thus causing some inconsistency in the UI that users could notice unless custom CSS styling is applied. The expected behaviour for our business case would be that if prompt=create is set, then, similar to the prompt=login, no Back button should be displayed, or, if shown, it should result in some navigation (perhaps something like javascript.go(-1), but that could/would be dependent on from where the user arrived, e.g., going back a step in the browser history won't work if the user clicked a link from an invite email ) and preferably not be non-actionable. Furthermore, on the topic of the Back button and its behaviour when the prompt=create parameter is set, there is another case at which we observed some unexpected button behaviour as well, that could probably benefit from some attention. At a specific second scenario, it seems that the Continue button is displayed without providing any action, and when clicking the Back button then, clicking it seemingly resets the "create account", state likely set by the prompt=create initially, and instead switches the flow back to the sign-in state, which can at least affect the display text of some subsequent buttons shown in later steps in the UI. The user arrives at a built-in Entra External ID user flow /authorize endpoint, with the prompt=create query parameter set The user triggers the OTP challenge by entering an email address to verify the email address The user receives the OTP code but enters it incorrectly, i.e., doesn't copy the full code length of eight digits, and instead enters/pastes six of the eight code digits. The UI then shows an error message that the code could not be used/validated, and the email address field is displayed again with the email address that was used for the verification attempt prefilled. If the user clicks the Continue button at this stage, nothing happens. If the user clicks the Back button instead (given that it’s not hidden), it shows the same view one more time, with the Back and Continue buttons at the bottom. However, if the user clicks the Continue button this time, it works and a new code is sent. On the next screen, where the newly sent code can be entered, instead of a button named "Continue", it will now instead show a button with the text "Sign-in" (it would seem like the create account state has gotten lost somewhere along the way at this point, perhaps when the back button in the step 5 above was pressed). If one omits the prompt=create parameter, or when using prompt=login, things seem to work fine, the above occurs when the prompt=create is set. The reason why is the prompt=create is used is due to a business requirement to try to minimize the steps, especially in conjunction with the registration/sign-up, as far a possible when signing up. We have opted for the built-in user flows, not the self-hosted native authentication UI pages, for this project, and then as I understand it, it is the prompt=create parameter that can/should be used to enable the user to land directly on the registration page without having to navigate there manually via the sign-up link, that is otherwise shown on the initial sign-in page. It would thus be great if the prompt=create parameter could have some attention (or perhaps if a dedicated sign-up user flow type could be added potentially, even though that would perhaps warrant some update to the user flow app linking as well, as my understanding is that one user flow can be linked to one app registration at a time currently) to avoid that some buttons become unresponsive when the parameter is used, or falls back to sign-in, to improve the built-in user flows further, as the prompt=create fulfils the business requirement well otherwise. If there would be any further/follow-up questions on the above, e.g., to clarify the requirement, or further explain the reproduction steps and behaviour observed, or anything else, please tell, and I'll ensure to get back as soon as possible. Also, would someone have some input on potential other/additional ways to pre-select the create account/sign-up experience, that would naturally be much appreciated as well, thanks! Regards Kristoffer
SmartScreen reputation issue for EV Code Signed Windows application
Hello Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence Team, We are the developer of a legitimate Windows desktop application called "ShangJing". Recently, our users reported that Microsoft Defender SmartScreen displays the following warning when downloading and launching our application: "Microsoft Defender SmartScreen can't verify this file is safe." The application is not malicious and has been digitally signed with a GlobalSign EV Code Signing Certificate. Application information: Product Name: ShangJing Publisher: Zhaoyi Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. Certificate: GlobalSign EV Code Signing Certificate File: 尚镜_2.0.0_platinum_setup.exe Issue: Users receive SmartScreen reputation warning when downloading our application. We have already submitted the file through Microsoft Security Intelligence submission portal 7 days ago, but we have not received any update yet. Submission ID: 0c015296-b9cf-4130-9eaf-fc59cd145370 The file is distributed through our official website: https://www.changine.cn/downloads We would like to understand: 1. Is this caused by insufficient SmartScreen reputation for a newly released binary? 2. Is there any additional verification required from the software publisher side? 3. How can we ensure our legitimate application gains proper SmartScreen reputation? Our application is widely used for live streaming and camera-related workflows. It does not contain any malicious behavior. We would appreciate any guidance from the Microsoft team. Thank you.
Events
David Weston leads Agentic Security at Microsoft, where he builds the AI models, autonomous agents, and evaluation systems redefining how defenders operate. At Microsoft since the Windows 7 era, he h...
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