Securing Data with Microsoft Purview IRM + Defender: A Hands-On Lab

That sounds like a solid lab and an excellent way to show how the compliance and security sides of Microsoft 365 connect. What you described is precisely the value proposition: Purview Insider Risk Management gives the governance and investigative layer, while Defender provides the telemetry and active response layer. In practice, many organizations begin with accidental data leakage cases, such as sensitive files being shared externally or downloaded en masse before an employee leaves, and then mature to address intentional insider threats, including IP theft or fraud.

In real-world environments, the primary challenges often involve balancing privacy concerns with effective detection and securing stakeholder buy-in. Most companies need to collaborate with legal and HR to define what “insider risk” means in their specific context and ensure that policies are transparent to employees. Another critical area is tuning. Out-of-the-box policies can be noisy, so refining risk indicators and thresholds is crucial before rolling out broadly.

Some organizations also tie Insider Risk Management to awareness training, so that users who trigger low-level alerts are automatically guided toward corrective behavior rather than being escalated immediately. And when incidents are more severe, integrating with SIEM/SOAR systems or Defender’s automated response capabilities helps ensure a consistent response process.

Your lab shows the full lifecycle well: policy → alert → triage → case → action. I would be curious to know how you configured thresholds in Purview (for example, volume of downloads, risky domains, or unusual access times) and how you linked those alerts to Defender for a unified incident view. That is usually where teams struggle in moving from theory to practice...

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