From “No” to “Now”: A 7-Layer Strategy for Enterprise AI Safety
The “block” posture on Generative AI has failed. In a global enterprise, banning these tools doesn't stop usage; it simply pushes intellectual property into unmanaged channels and creates a massive visibility gap in corporate telemetry. The priority has now shifted from stopping AI to hardening the environment so that innovation can run at velocity without compromising data sovereignty. Traditional security perimeters are ineffective against the “slow bleed” of AI leakage - where data moves through prompts, clipboards, and autonomous agents rather than bulk file transfers. To secure this environment, a 7-layer defense-in-depth model is required to treat the conversation itself as the new perimeter. 1. Identity: The Only Verifiable Perimeter Identity is the primary control plane. Access to AI services must be treated with the same rigor as administrative access to core infrastructure. The strategy centers on enforcing device-bound Conditional Access, where access is strictly contingent on device health. To solve the "Account Leak" problem, the deployment of Tenant Restrictions v2 (TRv2) is essential to prevent users from signing into personal tenants using corporate-managed devices. For enhanced coverage, Universal Tenant Restrictions (UTR) via Global Secure Access (GSA) allows for consistent enforcement at the cloud edge. While TRv2 authentication-plane is GA, data-plane protection is GA for the Microsoft 365 admin center and remains in preview for other workloads such as SharePoint and Teams. 2. Eliminating the Visibility Gap (Shadow AI) You can’t secure what you can't see. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (MDCA) serves to discover and govern the enterprise AI footprint, while Purview DSPM for AI (formerly AI Hub) monitors Copilot and third-party interactions. By categorizing tools using MDCA risk scores and compliance attributes, organizations can apply automated sanctioning decisions and enforce session controls for high-risk endpoints. 3. Data Hygiene: Hardening the “Work IQ” AI acts as a mirror of internal permissions. In a "flat" environment, AI acts like a search engine for your over-shared data. Hardening the foundation requires automated sensitivity labeling in Purview Information Protection. Identifying PII and proprietary code before assigning AI licenses ensures that labels travel with the data, preventing labeled content from being exfiltrated via prompts or unauthorized sharing. 4. Session Governance: Solving the “Clipboard Leak” The most common leak in 2025 is not a file upload; it’s a simple copy-paste action or a USB transfer. Deploying Conditional Access App Control (CAAC) via MDCA session policies allows sanctioned apps to function while specifically blocking cut/copy/paste. This is complemented by Endpoint DLP, which extends governance to the physical device level, preventing sensitive data from being moved to unmanaged USB storage or printers during an AI-assisted workflow. Purview Information Protection with IRM rounds this out by enforcing encryption and usage rights on the files themselves. When a user tries to print a "Do Not Print" document, Purview triggers an alert that flows into Microsoft Sentinel. This gives the SOC visibility into actual policy violations instead of them having to hunt through generic activity logs. 5. The “Agentic” Era: Agent 365 & Sharing Controls Now that we're moving from "Chat" to "Agents", Agent 365 and Entra Agent ID provide the necessary identity and control plane for autonomous entities. A quick tip: in large-scale tenants, default settings often present a governance risk. A critical first step is navigating to the Microsoft 365 admin center (Copilot > Agents) to disable the default “Anyone in organization” sharing option. Restricting agent creation and sharing to a validated security group is essential to prevent unvetted agent sprawl and ensure that only compliant agents are discoverable. 6. The Human Layer: “Safe Harbors” over Bans Security fails when it creates more friction than the risk it seeks to mitigate. Instead of an outright ban, investment in AI skilling-teaching users context minimization (redacting specifics before interacting with a model) - is the better path. Providing a sanctioned, enterprise-grade "Safe Harbor" like M365 Copilot offers a superior tool that naturally cuts down the use of Shadow AI. 7. Continuous Ops: Monitoring & Regulatory Audit Security is not a “set and forget” project, particularly with the EU AI Act on the horizon. Correlating AI interactions and DLP alerts in Microsoft Sentinel using Purview Audit (specifically the CopilotInteraction logs) data allows for real-time responses. Automated SOAR playbooks can then trigger protective actions - such as revoking an Agent ID - if an entity attempts to access sensitive HR or financial data. Final Thoughts Securing AI at scale is an architectural shift. By layering Identity, Session Governance, and Agentic Identity, AI moves from being a fragmented risk to a governed tool that actually works for the modern workplace.
Add Privacy Scrub Service to Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender protects accounts against phishing and malware, but attackers increasingly exploit nuisance data broker sites that publish personal information (names, emails, addresses). These sites are scraped to personalize phishing campaigns, making them harder to detect. I propose a premium Defender add‑on that automatically files opt‑out requests with major data brokers (similar to DeleteMe).
I no longer have an edit button for assignments on one EndpointSec>DiskEncrypt>Bitlocker profiles
I have two Intune>Endpoint Security>Disk Encryption>Bitlocker policies. One is the 2+ year old deprecated policy everyone is currently on, and the other is a new policy I made two months ago. I am in the process of testing to move the company from old to new. Old policy no longer has an "Edit" button for group assignments and exclusions, much like when you don't have permissions. However, I am still able to edit the actual policy. Has anyone seen this or can help with this? Attached picture. I am using Intune Administrator permissions, and again, it's not a permissions issue as I can edit the actual policy. I have tried different browsers. I have tried another computer. The policy is scoped to default. I was last able to edit group assignments 10/25/25 Solution right now will just be to delete the old profile and move to new with no more testing. Thank you in advance, -ZPKnown issue: Customizations not saved with security baseline policy update
Overview Microsoft Intune security baselines enable organizations to create turnkey policy configurations with Microsoft's recommended settings. Intune supports two upgrade paths for your customizations: automatic migration and manual migration. Our upgrade process is explicit when a manual customization upgrade is required as documented in Configure security baseline policies in Microsoft Intune | Microsoft Learn. Issue Identified in Security Baseline Updates We’ve recently identified an issue in the security baseline update process where, during upgrades from specific versions, customizations are not automatically retained. Instead, these values are replaced with the default recommended values contained in the latest release. The impacted baselines upgrades are as follows: Security Baseline for Microsoft Edge: Version 112 to Version 128 Security Baseline for Windows 10 and later: Version 23H2 to Version 24H2 Windows 365 Security Baseline: November 2021 to Version 24H1 Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Security Baseline: Version 6 to Version 24H1 Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise Security Baseline: Version 2206 to Version 2306 When updating these security baselines, Intune creates a duplicate policy (without assignments) and automatically populates Microsoft’s recommended settings for the new version. These default configurations can be edited to apply customizations. However, customizations are not automatically carried over from the previous version when updating and admins will need to manually apply the customizations when creating the new profile. If your organization deploys the new policy alongside the existing one and there are conflicting settings, Intune’s conflict resolution logic will determine which setting is applied (i.e. most secure wins, merge values), or leave the existing value in place until the conflict is resolved. In the event of conflict, Intune never removes policies from the device ensuring that devices always have security policy applied. The Intune team will be delivering an update to automate migration of the impacted security baselines (and all future versions) in an upcoming release. Interim Steps to Enable Custom Configurations in your Baseline Updates When updating a policy to a newer baseline, your customizations must be recreated in the policy creation wizard. Customizations to the version 23H2 baseline are not carried over to the new policy, and the new policy will revert to Microsoft’s default recommended values for version 24H2. Note: As mentioned above and reiterated here, this update does not remove the previous policy. > Security baselines blade. Organizations can upgrade an existing baseline (mentioned above) that will duplicate the profile: The Microsoft Intune admin center showing where to update the Security baseline. Organizations can customize baselines including modifying and editing the baseline in accordance with their organization’s policies: To identify devices with conflicts between baseline updates, refer to the steps below: Navigate to: Devices > Manage devices > Configuration > Policiestab and select an existing policy. On the summary page, click View report. The View report provides detailed insights into the devices targeted by the selected configuration policy, including: Devices that have received the policy Usernames associated with those devices The check-in status and the most recent time each device/user checked in with the policy You can also select a specific device to view more detailed information. Use the filter column to apply assignment filters. For example, the Check-in status filter helps you identify devices in different states such as Success, Error, and others - indicating how the policy was applied. For more information on policies and reporting, refer to: See device configuration policies with Microsoft Intune | Microsoft Learn. For further guidance, refer to the Update a profile to the latest version in the Microsoft Learn documentation or see the section above for more details on the baseline update process. If you have any questions, leave a comment on this post or reach out to us on X @IntuneSuppTeam. Post Updates: 7/7/25: Post updated with additional details and screen captures for clarity.Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune deep dive - Part 3: Explore and act on your Intune data with AI
By: Ravi Ashok - Sr. Product Manager & Zineb Takafi - Product Manager | Microsoft Intune Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune advances the way IT admins can accelerate their day-to-day endpoint management tasks by embedding generative AI capabilities directly into your Intune workflows, transforming how IT teams plan, troubleshoot, and optimize device configurations. Now generally available, Copilot in Intune delivers insights by summarizing policies, analyzing update deployments, and assisting IT with uncovering root causes of endpoint issues based on organizations Intune data. Today, we’re thrilled to introduce an AI-first experience in the Intune admin center to allow IT admins to explore and act on Intune data with the ease of natural language. As part of our ongoing commitment to help IT teams manage endpoints more effectively, this new experience provides a new way to find data they need about their digital estate and initiate endpoint management tasks based on the results. With a library of queries and using intelligent semantic search, admins can select natural language questions across key Intune domains including devices, apps, policies, users, compliance, app configuration, and app protection and refine the question with customizable parameters. Within the Intune admin center, IT admins can go from insights to taking direct action by adding devices or users to groups for streamlined endpoint management. This release marks a significant milestone towards simplifying endpoint management and accelerating day to day tasks by enabling iterative, natural language query refinement and actionable insights with generative AI assistance to enhance operational efficiency and decision-making. Explore Intune data across your workloads The new Explorer experience with Copilot in Intune enables admins to have a consistent experience viewing details about their Intune resources. Whether they’re navigating devices (including Windows 365 cloud PCs, physical PCs, or mobile devices), apps, users, or policies, IT admins can ask custom questions in natural language about their Intune resource data. They can see and iterate on the results of those questions, and then complete management tasks in one streamlined workflow. Admins can click into individual objects in the results view and navigate to Intune resources like a device details page as they complete their work. This journey in Intune applies to many workflows including: Troubleshooting and fixing issues: Identifying and acting on a specific set of devices, users, apps, or policies to resolve an issue. Creating custom reports: Building custom data views to answer questions that typically require exporting and joining reports today. Day-to-day management tasks: As part of regular admin tasks, navigate Intune data to find specific resources and inspect them to ensure things are configured correctly. Demo In today’s cyber threat landscape, maintaining device compliance is critical to minimizing security risks and ensuring operational continuity. In this demo scenario, the Explorer experience is used to identify and act on non-compliant devices in real time. To enforce compliance, an IT admin plans to mark Windows devices as noncompliant if they haven’t installed patches in the last three months. Given the variety of Windows versions, they want to understand the impact of excluding these devices. Using Copilot, they simply ask the natural language question and get a list of impacted devices without advanced filtering of the versions for each operating system release. The functionality surfaces devices and apps that haven’t received critical patches and seamlessly add them to a remediation group. This streamlined workflow reduces time-to-action and supports proactive compliance enforcement at scale. By integrating directly with Intune policies and device groups, this capability empowers organizations to close vulnerability gaps swiftly. Demo: aka.ms/Intune/CopilotJuly2025-Demo What’s next The addition of the new Explorer experience marks a significant step forward in how organizations can harness the power of Copilot to interact with their Intune data. By enabling IT admins to quickly surface insights, identify compliance gaps, and take action directly from query results, Copilot enables IT admins to streamline their endpoint management workflows to enhance operational agility. To learn more about setup and capabilities, be sure to read our documentation: Explore your Intune data with natural language. We look forward to providing further updates as part of the Copilot in Intune blog series. Make sure to check out the previous blogs if you missed it: Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune deep dive – Part 1: Features available in public preview, and Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune - Pt. 2: Vulnerability Remediation Agent in limited preview. And to learn what a few of the Microsoft MVPs think about Copilot in Intune, feel free to get perspectives from Andrew Taylor here, Ugur Koc here, and Mattias Melkers here and here. If you have any questions or want to share how you’re using Copilot in Intune, leave a comment below or reach out to us on X @IntuneSuppTeam or @MSIntune. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn.Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune - Pt. 2: Vulnerability Remediation Agent in limited preview
By: Julia Idaewor - Product Manager 2 | Microsoft Intune The threat landscape continues to evolve rapidly, with attackers constantly advancing their techniques to exploit zero-day vulnerabilities—leaving organizations at greater risk. In 2024, more than 40,000 vulnerabilities were disclosed, marking a 38% increase from 2023. For IT and security teams, evaluating the impact of thousands of vulnerabilities and deciding which to address first is a complex and resource-intensive task. It often involves manual analysis, siloed tools, and competing priorities. Microsoft Intune is bringing the power of AI directly to IT teams with the introduction of Security Copilot agents. The new Vulnerability Remediation Agent for Security Copilot is now in limited public preview. The agent helps reduce the burden of managing an ever-growing list of vulnerabilities by leveraging rich data from Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management to detect and prioritize vulnerabilities across managed devices. It also delivers a comprehensive Copilot-assisted impact analysis, and step-by-step remediation guidance directly in the Intune admin center along with a comprehensive list of exposed devices that can be exported for actionable responses, enabling faster, more confident action. As part of the upcoming enhanced AI experience in Intune, the agent exemplifies how Microsoft is embedding Copilot into its workflows turning raw data into actionable insights and empowering security teams to stay ahead of evolving risks. Getting started You can get the Vulnerability Remediation agent up and running in just a few steps. To set up the agent navigate to the Endpoint security in the Intune admin center, review set up details and start the agent. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management to surface a prioritized list of top vulnerabilities based on risk and impact. The agent delivers these insights directly to the Intune admin center, giving admins clear visibility into the most critical threats across their device estate. directly to the Intune admin center, giving admins clear visibility into the most critical threats across their device estate. The Vulnerability Remediation Agent dashboard in the Intune admin center provides a comprehensive view, including an Impact score for each suggestion, number of exposed devices, remediation status, last applied time for tracking actions, and an agent activity log for historical context. By removing silos between IT and security teams and surfacing vulnerability data and actionable insights directly in Intune, the agent helps increase transparency, streamline workflows, and boost operational efficiency across the board. The Vulnerability Remediation agent provides IT pros with actionable insights from Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management in the form of a prioritized list of suggestions. When admins open a suggestion, they can view a comprehensive, AI-assisted vulnerability impact analysis designed to equip admins with the most critical insights needed to assess high-impact vulnerabilities and the actionable steps to take in Intune to resolve them. Each suggestion highlights the recommended action to take, the most critical vulnerabilities, presence of active exploits, step-by-step recommended remediation steps, affected systems, and organizational exposure. To streamline next steps, the agent also surfaces a comprehensive list of exposed devices, which are easily added to either new or existing Microsoft Entra device groups for remediation. After reviewing and completing the recommended steps, admins can select “Mark as applied” to instantly update the status to “Applied”. This action serves as an attestation that remediation is now completed—providing teams with traceability. The agent does not take any action on the devices, ensuring that full control remains with your IT team. Demo The Vulnerability Remediation Agent empowers IT teams to proactively strengthen their endpoint security posture. By surfacing prioritized insights and delivering clear, actionable guidance within Intune, the agent helps admins quickly assess and remediate high-impact vulnerabilities. From insight to action, it’s never been easier to stay ahead of threats while bridging the traditional gap between IT and security teams. With AI-driven support, organizations can enforce best practices, respond faster, and build resilient, future-ready endpoint security strategies. The new Vulnerability Remediation Agent with Copilot in Intune transforms how IT teams manage vulnerabilities connecting insights from Microsoft Defender directly to action in Intune. Instead of relying on manual escalations across teams, the agent continuously scans for vulnerabilities, prioritizes them based on risk, and recommends remediations aligned with Defender guidance. IT admins can now review and approve these fixes directly within Intune, streamlining the path from detection to deployment. This reduces delays, increases control, and accelerates response - empowering teams to remediate confidently and efficiently. What’s next The launch of the Vulnerability Remediation Agent in preview paves the crucial foundation for our ultimate vision: achieving end-to-end automation for the entire vulnerability remediation lifecycle—dramatically reducing risk exposure and accelerating response times. By combining Copilot-assisted guidance with device ecosystem data, this agent represents a significant leap forward in streamlining operational efficiency and transforming how organizations not only focus on high-impact vulnerabilities but also understanding the right actions to take to protect their endpoints. As we continue to innovate, our commitment is to empower organizations with the tools and insights they need to build resilient, future-ready security infrastructures. The Vulnerability Remediation Agent is currently in a limited public preview and available to only a select group of customers. To learn more about setup and capabilities, be sure to explore our documentation on the Vulnerability Remediation Agent. We look forward to providing further updates as part of the Copilot in Intune blog series. Make sure to check out the previous blog if you missed it: Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune deep dive – Part 1: Features available in public preview. If you have any questions or want to share how you’re using Copilot in Intune, leave a comment below or reach out to us on X @IntuneSuppTeam or @MSIntune. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn.Blocking Personal Outlook and Gmail Accounts on Corporate Device
Hello Community, In my organization, we use the Microsoft 365 environment. We have a hybrid infrastructure, but we aim to deploy as many policies as possible through Microsoft 365 (Intune, Purview, Defender, etc.). One of our goals is to limit the use of corporate devices for personal purposes. We use Outlook as our corporate email service, and we would like to block employees from signing into their personal email accounts (either via web or desktop application). Additionally, we would like to block access to other email services, such as Gmail, both via web and desktop apps. Could you provide guidance on how to achieve this? I would greatly appreciate any help or suggestions. Thank you very much! Juan RojasSecure Score Improvement Recommended actions information sheet
Hello All I am starting a project to Improve our Secure score following the "Recommended Actions" section in the M365 Defender portal. Now each action comes with its own set of General information and remediation options. Rather than get the actions on each of the 208 recommendations by clicking through all the tabs and recording every step required to complete the recommendation , does anyone know if Microsoft has an Excel sheet with all the relevant Secure Score Improvement actions/information in one place? Will make running this project so much easier! Thanks in advance ! Kind Regards ChristoInsider Builds
I have been an avid Microsoft user for many years with only a couple of small issues every now and again. The 6 weeks have been unbelievably stressful and disheartening. I thought trying samples of New Insider builds and enlisting in Azure for some up to date training for myself to help with what I wanted to roll out for my business. This has been the worst experience i have ever been apart of. I now have multiple computers and hardware in disarray but more importantly the loss of time and patience is paramount . I have come to realise the repetitive responses and requests for data collection on feedback or issues is one-sided The amount of user data submissions is not the issue though. It is the assistance from Microsoft regarding issue via portals, help-desk etc. The inclusion of many backend functions for the purpose of better user experience is heavily flawed. Unless end-user inadvertently has or encounters issues in there OS life is good. Heavily automated program tiggers sit through all OS builds for example. One drive. Regardless whether this is declined or removed it will always be running in the background. If you system had been compromised this is a perfect place for root-kit other Malware to spread. Xcopy: A Microsoft background function which has the ability clone and copy 99% of drivers of operating info structure. Can be controlled by ghost script directives or embedded dll to aid malware. Anti-virus or defender find difficulties identifying or distinguishing authentic and re-pro-ducted data. In time this type of incursion can mimic a vast amount of OS functionality. Microsoft OS validity. I have trailed numerous builds with all sharing this characteristic. Invalid or expired software and driver certificates & TPM flaws even after a full clean reset and TPM turned off in bios. Inevitably this can introduce compromised software without end-user knowledge. The impact leads to unauthorised access in many elements of the OS platform especially data access and embedded .dll which can run inline or above elevated authorisation. A lot of this is undetectable. Once embedded in OS and bios this is impossible to clean without expert assistance and can be very costly. For the most part the inclusion of new AI functionality across the OS platform is very welcomed. Unfortunately there are a large amount of bugs to be ironed out especially in the platform navigation. Advice provided via OS AI can be mis-leading or incorrect. .
