Portable Azure topology and documentation snapshots with OSIRIS JSON
Ciao everyone, I’m working on https://github.com/osirisjson/osiris, a vendor-neutral specification for describing infrastructure resources and their relationships as portable point-in-time snapshots. To proof that the specification could work in real-scenarios I already built an initial https://osirisjson.org/en/docs/producers/hyperscalers/microsoft-azure in Go. You run on-premise and it connects through the Azure CLI, reads Azure subscriptions and emits an OSIRIS JSON document that can be used for documentation, topology diagrams, audits, configuration drift analysis, CMDB/IPAM/DCIM workflows, or controlled AI/context workflows without giving those platforms/tools direct access to Azure. The producer currently covers several Azure areas, including networking, compute, storage, identity, databases, containers, integration, observability, backup, automation, management groups, and cross-resource dependency edges such as Private Endpoint to PaaS targets, App Service to Application Insights / Log Analytics, AKS to subnets and node pools, and backup vault relationships. It supports two output purposes: documentation: minimal high-level projection for diagrams, inventory dashboards, and architectural documentation audit: deeper projection with readable properties and extensions after sensitive-field redaction This is not intended to replace Azure tooling, Azure Resource Graph, IaC, Azure Policy, or any existing governance/control-plane workflow. OSIRIS JSON is simply a read-only external producer that generates a vendor-neutral snapshot of the observed Azure environment. I would really appreciate feedback from Azure architects, cloud engineers, and governance practitioners on the mapping model: Which Azure resources and relationships are the most important for documentation and topology generation? Are the current connection types useful for real-world architecture views? What should be prioritized in next releases? Would a documentation/audit split be useful in enterprise environments? You find the current Azure producer documentation here: https://osirisjson.org/en/docs/producers/hyperscalers/microsoft-azure I would really appreciate any feedback, suggestions, edge cases, or ideas from people who operate, document, audit, or govern Azure environments and I also welcome anyone who want to participate on development. Ciao from Italy, Tia
Microsoft Leads a New Era of Software Supply Chain Transparency
Today, Microsoft announces the general availability of Microsoft’s Signing Transparency (MST) – a first-of-its-kind capability that brings unprecedented visibility and trust to our software supply chain. With this release, Microsoft is leading the industry by recording the build of critical cloud services into a publicly readable and verifiable SCITT standard (Supply Chain Integrity, Transparency, and Trust) compliant blockchain ledger. This means every production software build for in scope services like Azure Attestation and Azure Managed HSM (Hardware Security Module), Azure confidential ledger, Microsoft Signing Transparency itself (and others over time) – is now logged in an immutable, tamper-evident record. Only builds that are in the MST ledger are deployed to production; this gives customers confidence that the supply chain for these critical services can be audited at anytime. Notably, the MST ledger is fully open source and built to align with the emerging IETF SCITT standard. By embracing SCITT’s principles and open protocols, Microsoft ensures that MST not only secures our own ecosystem but also contributes to a broader industry movement toward standardized supply chain transparency. The open-source MST ledger serves as a verifiable trust anchor that any organization or researcher can inspect, audit, or even integrate with their own tooling. MST itself meets the highest levels of transparency, backed by a tamper-proof confidential ledger, open-source, and independently verified. Specifically, we are making the foundation of our trust model transparent and accessible to everyone – reinforcing that trust must be earned through proof, not just promises. This launch marks a major milestone in our commitment to Zero Trust principles, extending “never trust, always verify” all the way into the build itself. Building on a public preview introduced late last year, MST’s general availability delivers verifiable transparency at the software level. It transforms traditional code signing with an additive trust layer that is accessible via an open verification model. Every new software update is accompanied by a publicly auditable proof of integrity, enabling security teams to proactively confirm that each update is authentic and unaltered. To help organizations get the most out of this capability, we are also introducing a free tool to explore the contents – Ledger Explorer – an offline tool that allows security teams to examine MST ledger entries, verify cryptographic proofs, and even validate the ledger’s integrity independently. This tool, combined with MST’s open design, ensures that every Microsoft customer – and the broader community – can hold us accountable in real time for the software we run on their behalf. Key Benefits of Microsoft’s Signing Transparency (MST) Verified Code Integrity – Every software release is cryptographically logged in MST’s ledgers. This makes each build tamper-evident and traceable. If an attacker attempts to inject malicious code or sign an unauthorized update, it will be evident through the well-defined validation step built into the SCITT standard. Organizations gain the assurance that code integrity can be independently confirmed at any time. Independent Verification & Zero Trust – MST enables customers and auditors to verify software authenticity on their own, without having to solely rely on vendor attestations. For each update, Microsoft provides a transparency “receipt” (proof of logging) that you can use to prove the update was officially published and unaltered. This fosters a “don’t just trust, verify” approach, empowering security teams to double-check everything running in their environment aligns with what Microsoft intended. Audit-Trail & Compliance – The transparency ledger creates a permanent, auditable timeline of code deployments. Every entry is a record of what was released and when, backed by cryptographic proofs. This simplifies compliance reporting and accelerates forensic analysis. In the event of an incident, you can quickly audit the ledger to see if any unexpected code was introduced. For highly regulated industries, MST offers concrete evidence of software integrity and policy compliance over time. Leadership & Open Standards – We are delivering real transparency now, encouraging a future where all critical software is released with verifiable integrity. MST’s open source implementation and SCITT-compliant design exemplify our commitment to openness and collaboration. We believe widespread adoption of these standards will strengthen supply chain security for everyone, making trust verification a universal practice. Next Steps Microsoft’s Signing Transparency is more than a new security feature and shapes the advances in trust technology. As threats grow more sophisticated, we must evolve the way we assure our customers about the software they depend on. With MST now generally available, we are leading by example: proving that it is possible to open up the traditionally opaque process of software deployment and turn it into a source of strength and trust, i.e., empowering each person with verifiable transparency. We invite the industry to join us on this journey and get started by reading the documentation and exploring Ledger Explorer today! Together, by embracing transparency and open standards, we can turn “trust but verify” from a slogan into an everyday reality for digital infrastructure.New Exchange Online Mailbox Auditing Signal: Visibility into IPM to Non-IPM Copy Activity
Background: IPM vs. Non-IPM Subtree Every Exchange Online mailbox is organized into two parts: IPM subtree (Interpersonal Message subtree) — the visible, user-facing part of a mailbox, designed for messages exchanged between human recipients. This includes Inbox, Sent Items, Deleted Items, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Notes, and any custom folders a user creates. Exchange mailbox auditing has always focused on activity within this area. Non-IPM subtree — a hidden folder structure used by Exchange and Microsoft services for system-level storage, such as the Recoverable Items folder. Users cannot see or directly interact with this area from most mail clients (like Outlook). For more details, see IPM Subtree | Microsoft Learn. The Audit Gap This Addresses A known audit evasion technique involves copying mail items from a user's visible IPM folders into a hidden folder in the non-IPM subtree and then accessing the data from there for exfiltration. This technique has been observed in security investigations against Exchange Online. This worked as an evasion method because: Copy operations are not enabled for auditing by default Activity in the non-IPM subtree was not audited By staging data in the non-IPM subtree before exfiltration, this activity previously left no trace in the mailbox audit log. What's New Exchange Online now logs a MailItemsAccessed event whenever a mail item is copied from the IPM subtree to the non-IPM subtree. A new AccessType value — CopyFromIPM — has been introduced to distinguish these records from existing MailItemsAccessed events, making them straightforward to query for: AccessType Description Bind Existing — individual item access Sync Existing — bulk sync access CopyFromIPM New - an item in the IPM subtree was accessed to copy its content to the non-IPM subtree How to Query for These Records Use the following PowerShell command to search for CopyFromIPM activity in your tenant: Search-UnifiedAuditLog -StartDate 4/1/2026 -EndDate 4/15/2026 -FreeText "CopyFromIPM" Understanding the CopyFromIPM Audit Record When a CopyFromIPM event is logged, it is recorded as a MailItemsAccessed operation in the Unified Audit Log. Each record captures an individual mail item that was copied from the IPM subtree to the non-IPM subtree during the operation. When an entire folder is copied, the ItemId that is captured is the Id of the folder; individual records are not captured for each item in the folder. Feedback If you have any feedback about this change, you can reach out to ExchangeMailboxAudit-Support group. We are always happy to hear from you and assist in any way we can.Microsoft Purview enables developers with strong data security across AI apps and agents
Today, developers are at the center of a new wave of innovation—building AI applications and agents that are deeply connected to enterprise data. But with this opportunity comes a new and complex set of security challenges. AI systems operate across cloud platforms, third-party services, and even local and on-premises development environments, interacting dynamically with sensitive data such as customer records, financial information, and intellectual property. Traditional security approaches weren’t designed for this level of scale, autonomy, or fluid data movement—leaving developers to navigate fragmented tools, unclear policies, and the risk of unintentionally exposing sensitive information. At the same time, expectations are rising. Organizations need to ensure that AI applications and agents are compliant, auditable, and secure by default on an enterprise-level—not retrofitted after deployment. But for developers, adding security often means additional complexity, custom integrations, and slower time to market. This tension between speed and control has become one of the biggest barriers to moving AI from experimentation into production. Microsoft Purview is designed to help with this challenge by embedding data security and compliance controls across the development cycle. Purview provides a consistent way to govern how data is accessed, used, and shared—without requiring developers to become security experts. The result is a simpler path to building AI systems that are secure, compliant, and enterprise-ready by design. Extending data security and compliance to local agents and claws Local and endpoint agents, built in platforms such as GitHub Copilot CLI and OpenClaw, introduce a new class of data security challenges as they operate outside traditional control planes and directly on user machines. Unlike cloud systems, these agents can access local files, credentials, terminals, and enterprise apps simultaneously—often moving data across tools and environments. This expands data risks, from sensitive data being unintentionally stored, copied, or shared, to API keys and tokens being exposed, and autonomous workflows triggering data movement without explicit user intent. At the same time, many existing security controls were designed for browser or cloud-based activity, leaving a growing blind spot at the endpoint where agents are increasingly running. The result is a widening gap between how developers build agents to operate locally in the users machines, and how organizations can detect, govern, and protect the data those agents interact with. Microsoft Security and Windows are integrating management and security capabilities directly into the local agents’ development workflow, enabling security as an architectural guarantee rather than an implementation choice. At Build, we are thrilled to be extending Purview visibility and protection capabilities to local agents developed on GitHub Copilot CLI, Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, and OpenClaw - in Public Preview. Unlike traditional cloud applications, these agents operate closer to the data and often create new risks for data exposure. Purview addresses this challenge across all types of agent interactions with a clear, simplified set of scenarios: ▪ Observability: Visibility on Purview Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) across agent inventory, as well as into how local agents interact with sensitive data—across prompts, responses, and actions. ▪ Runtime data protection: Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) controls enforced directly into the agent execution flow, inspecting prompts and tool calls in real time to prevent sensitive data exfiltration. ▪ Agentic risk detection: Risky or anomalous agent behaviors detected through Insider Risk Management (IRM) signals, helping teams detect unsafe interactions early. ▪ Audit: Comprehensive, end-to-end logging of all local agent interactions—capturing prompts, responses, data access, and actions for data context. For example, a developer is using a local coding agent to generate code and accidentally includes sensitive credentials in a prompt. AI observability in DSPM surfaces the interaction and shows what data the agent accessed. DLP detects the sensitive data in real time and blocks it from being sent or processed (or sensitive files from being accessed and exfiltrated). At the same time, agentic risk detection flags the session as high risk based on the behavior pattern. All of this activity is captured in audit logs, enabling the security team to investigate and take action quickly. Developers and security teams gain visibility into agent activity and data interactions, while policies prevent sensitive data leakage. This ensures consistent security outcomes across both cloud and endpoint environments, without disrupting developer workflows. Strengthening visibility and controls for Foundry agents Foundry gives developers a central place to build and manage AI agents, but it also creates a need for data security context directly in that workflow—especially as prompts, model interactions, and downstream actions increasingly involve sensitive enterprise data. At Build, we are excited to announce the expansion of the Foundry integration with Purview. This includes Purview DLP runtime controls for prompt processing in Foundry, in Public Preview. As agents and applications built on Foundry increasingly interact with sensitive data, Purview ensures those interactions are governed by trusted controls, identifying Sensitive Information Types (SITs) in real time to detect and protect confidential data embedded in prompts. For example, if a user includes customer PII or financial data in a prompt, Purview can automatically identify the sensitive content and block that prompt from being processed by the model. This ensures that all Foundry apps and agents, regardless of how they’re built or deployed, inherit consistent data protection – allowing organizations to reduce risk of inadvertent data exposure, centralize compliance enforcement across AI workloads, and confidently scale AI adoption knowing sensitive data is protected by design. We’re also building up on the Purview coverage for Foundry shared at the last Microsoft Ignite by announcing Purview insights embedded directly into the Foundry Control Plane, in General Availability, bringing rich data security context to the plane where developers already work. Purview surfaces crucial signals—such as SITs detected in the agentic interactions, % of agentic interactions involving sensitive data, and spread of high-risk users — so Foundry admins can know how AI apps and agents are built in their environment. This shift enables developers to make faster, better decisions in the moment, reducing rework and closing security gaps early on. For customers, the value is clear: stronger security by design and at enterprise scale, accelerated development cycles, and reduced risk of data leaks or compliance issues—without slowing down innovation. Innovating for developers everywhere, at the pace of AI growth Microsoft is also expanding Purview’s reach across the broader developer ecosystem. New integrations help organizations apply consistent oversight to AI tools and platforms developers already use, without adding separate compliance workflows. GitHub Copilot is a critical productivity layer for developers, accelerating how code is written and shipped—making it equally important that developer interactions with GitHub Copilot are governed and secured with the same rigor as enterprise data. Microsoft Purview now extends data governance and compliance capabilities to GitHub Copilot interactions, in Public Preview, enabling GitHub Enterprise customers with Entra SSO to stream audit logs directly into Purview. This brings centralized visibility for AI activity, allowing security and compliance teams to analyze GitHub Copilot agent session activity alongside other AI workloads. With this native integration into GitHub workflows, Purview audits Copilot activity across repositories, pull requests, and developer sessions—ensuring AI-generated code aligns with enterprise data policies, compliance requirements, and secure development standards. By integrating Purview into existing workflows, organizations can govern GitHub AI usage without building parallel pipelines—reducing complexity while ensuring consistent compliance coverage across their entire data estate. Today’s AI agents aren’t built in just one ecosystem—they span custom apps, third-party platforms, and open-source frameworks. Without consistent controls, this creates blind spots where sensitive data can be exposed outside enterprise guardrails. That’s why extending Purview protection beyond Microsoft environments is critical: it ensures developers can apply the same data security, DLP policies, and compliance controls to any agent, anywhere—so innovation can scale without increasing risk. Developers already use Microsoft Purview APIs to embed data protection into enterprise workflows. Today, we’re introducing the Microsoft Purview SDK for .NET — a simple, drop-in toolkit that brings Purview capabilities directly into any application, in Public Preview. Instead of weeks spent wiring APIs, authentication, and error handling, developers can add content scanning, DLP checks, and sensitivity labeling in just a few lines of code. The SDK handles the heavy lifting — including auth, retries, caching, and telemetry — so teams can focus on building experiences. For AI apps and agents built outside of the Microsoft AI platforms, SDK adds built-in support and can evaluate prompts and responses in real time against DLP and content policies — helping prevent data exposure at runtime without custom logic. Designed for both real-time and asynchronous patterns, and for authenticated or anonymous flows, the SDK also feeds activity back into Purview to give security teams centralized visibility and control. The bottom line is- the Microsoft Purview SDK enables developers to build AI apps and agents that are secure and compliant by default — cutting integration time from weeks to days while ensuring data protection scales with AI. The SDK will be available in public preview within the next month. Together, these announcements represent a significant step forward in how developers build secure AI systems. Microsoft Purview is no longer just a data security and compliance solution—it is a first-class layer of the development process by protecting data across AI applications and agents, and enables a bridge between developers and security teams. As AI becomes more agentic, distributed, and deeply connected to enterprise data, the need for built-in security will only grow. With Purview, developers no longer must choose between speed and security—they can build both into every application from the start Getting connected with Microsoft Purview and learn more Learn more about Microsoft Purview on our website and Microsoft Learn. Explore Agent 365. Try Microsoft Purview data security. Learn more about Microsoft Purview SDK.
We never really knew if our Azure followed CAF or Well-Architected — so we built something
For years we ran Azure environments professionally and CAF and WAF reviews were always the same story. A consultant every 12-18 months, a thick PDF, good intentions — and then nothing until the next one. The problem wasn't that we didn't care. It was that there was no lightweight way to track it continuously. Defender had some parts of CIS. WAF had the assessment tool. CAF had... a whitepaper and a spreadsheet we kept meaning to update. We couldn't answer basic questions like: are we getting better or worse? Which subscriptions are drifting? What would an auditor actually see if they looked at our CAF posture today? Eventually we got frustrated enough to build Anubion — it connects agentlessly to your Azure tenant and runs continuous checks across CIS, CAF, and WAF in one place, with findings prioritised and evidence stored over time. Happy to share more if anyone's interested. But also genuinely curious — how are other teams handling CAF and WAF tracking between formal assessments? If anyone is curious about their scores, you can sign up for at 14 day free trial. The setup is short and you only need a read-only service principal. Check out https://anubion.io/#request-accessWhy UK Enterprise Cybersecurity Is Failing in 2026 (And What Leaders Must Change)
Enterprise cybersecurity in large organisations has always been an asymmetric game. But with the rise of AI‑enabled cyber attacks, that imbalance has widened dramatically - particularly for UK and EMEA enterprises operating complex cloud, SaaS, and identity‑driven environments. Microsoft Threat Intelligence and Microsoft Defender Security Research have publicly reported a clear shift in how attackers operate: AI is now embedded across the entire attack lifecycle. Threat actors use AI to accelerate reconnaissance, generate highly targeted phishing at scale, automate infrastructure, and adapt tactics in real time - dramatically reducing the time required to move from initial access to business impact. In recent months, Microsoft has documented AI‑enabled phishing campaigns abusing legitimate authentication mechanisms, including OAuth and device‑code flows, to compromise enterprise accounts at scale. These attacks rely on automation, dynamic code generation, and highly personalised lures - not on exploiting traditional vulnerabilities or stealing passwords. The Reality Gap: Adaptive Attackers vs. Static Enterprise Defences Meanwhile, many UK enterprises still rely on legacy cybersecurity controls designed for a very different threat model - one rooted in a far more predictable world. This creates a dangerous "Resilience Gap." Here is why your current stack is failing- and the C-Suite strategy required to fix it. 1. The Failure of Traditional Antivirus in the AI Era Traditional antivirus (AV) relies on static signatures and hashes. It assumes malicious code remains identical across different targets. AI has rendered this assumption obsolete. Modern malware now uses automated mutation to generate unique code variants at execution time, and adapts behaviour based on its environment. Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed threat actors using AI‑assisted tooling to rapidly rewrite payload components, ensuring that every deployment looks subtly different. In this model, there is no reliable signature to detect. By the time a pattern exists, the attacker has already moved on. Signature‑based detection is not just slow - it is structurally misaligned with AI‑driven attacks. The Risk: If your security relies on "recognising" a threat, you are already breached. By the time a signature exists, the attacker has evolved. The C-Suite Pivot: Shift investment from artifact detection to EDR/XDR (Extended Detection and Response). We must prioritise behavioural analytics and machine learning models that identify intent rather than file names. 2. Why Perimeter Firewalls Fail in a Cloud-First World Many UK enterprise still rely on firewalls enforcing static allow/deny rules based on IP addresses and ports. This model worked when applications were predictable and networks clearly segmented. Today, enterprise traffic is encrypted, cloud‑hosted, API‑driven, and deeply integrated with SaaS and identity services. AI‑assisted phishing campaigns abusing OAuth and device‑code flows demonstrate this clearly. From a network perspective, everything looks legitimate: HTTPS traffic to trusted identity providers. No suspicious port. No malicious domain. Yet the attacker successfully compromises identity. The Risk: Traditional firewalls are "blind" to identity-based breaches in cloud environments. The C-Suite Pivot: Move to Identity-First Security. Treat Identity as the new Control Plane, integrating signals like user risk, device health, and geolocation into every access decision. 3. The Critical Weakness of Single-Factor Authentication Despite clear NCSC guidance, single-factor passwords remain a common vulnerability in legacy applications and VPNs. AI-driven credential abuse has changed the economics of these attacks. Threat actors now deploy adaptive phishing campaigns that evolve in real-time. Microsoft has observed attackers using AI to hyper-target high-value UK identities- specifically CEOs, Finance Directors, and Procurement leads. The Risk: Static passwords are now the primary weak link in UK supply chain security. The C-Suite Pivot: Mandate Phishing‑resistant MFA (Passkeys or hardware security keys). Implement Conditional Access policies that evaluate risk dynamically at the moment of access, not just at login. Legacy Security vs. AI‑Era Reality 4. The Inherent Risk of VPN-Centric Security VPNs were built on a flawed assumption: that anyone "inside" the network is trustworthy. In 2026, this logic is a liability. AI-assisted attackers now use automation to map internal networks and identify escalation paths the moment they gain VPN access. Furthermore, Microsoft has tracked nation-state actors using AI to create synthetic employee identities- complete with fake resumes and deepfake communication. In these scenarios, VPN access isn't "hacked"; it is legally granted to a fraudster. The Risk: A compromised VPN gives an attacker the "keys to the kingdom." The C-Suite Pivot: Transition to Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA). Access must be explicit, scoped to the specific application, and continuously re‑evaluated using behavioural signals. 5. Data: The High-Velocity Target Sensitive data sitting unencrypted in legacy databases or backups is a ticking time bomb. In the AI era, data discovery is no longer a slow, manual process for a hacker. Attackers now use AI to instantly analyse your directory structures, classify your files, and prioritise high-value data for theft. Unencrypted data significantly increases your "blast radius," turning a containable incident into a catastrophic board-level crisis. The Risk: Beyond the technical breach, unencrypted data leads to massive UK GDPR fines and irreparable brand damage. The C-Suite Pivot: Adopt Data-Centric Security. Implement encryption by default, classify data while adding sensitivity labels and start board-level discussions regarding post‑quantum cryptography (PQC) to future-proof your most sensitive assets. 6. The Failure of Static IDS Traditional Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) rely on known indicators of compromise - assuming attackers reuse the same tools and techniques. AI‑driven attacks deliberately avoid that assumption. Threat actors are now using Large Language Models (LLMs) to weaponize newly disclosed vulnerabilities within hours. While your team waits for a "known pattern" to be updated in your system, the attacker is already using a custom, AI-generated exploit. The Risk: Your team is defending against yesterday's news while the attacker is moving at machine speed. The C-Suite Pivot: Invest in Adaptive Threat Detection. Move toward Graph‑based XDR platforms that correlate signals across email, endpoint, and cloud to automate investigation and response before the damage spreads. From Static Security to Continuous Security Closing Thought: Security Is a Journey, Not a Destination For UK enterprises, the shift toward adaptive cybersecurity is no longer optional - it is increasingly driven by regulatory expectation, board oversight, and accountability for operational resilience. Recent UK cyber resilience reforms and evolving regulatory frameworks signal a clear direction of travel: cybersecurity is now a board‑level responsibility, not a back‑office technical concern. Directors and executive leaders are expected to demonstrate effective governance, risk ownership, and preparedness for cyber disruption - particularly as AI reshapes the threat landscape. AI is not a future cybersecurity problem. It is a current force multiplier for attackers, exposing the limits of legacy enterprise security architectures faster than many organisations are willing to admit. The uncomfortable truth for boards in 2026 is that no enterprise is 100% secure. Intrusions are inevitable. Credentials will be compromised. Controls will be tested. The difference between a resilient enterprise and a vulnerable one is not the absence of incidents, but how risk is managed when they occur. In mature organisations, this means assuming breach and designing for containment: Access controls that limit blast radius Least privilege and conditional access restricting attackers to the smallest possible scope if an identity is compromised Data‑centric security using automated classification and encryption, ensuring that even when access is misused, sensitive data cannot be freely exfiltrated As a Senior Enterprise Cybersecurity Architect, I see this moment as a unique opportunity. AI adoption does not have to repeat the mistakes of earlier technology waves, where innovation moved fast and security followed years later. We now have a rare chance to embed security from day one - designing identity controls, data boundaries, automated monitoring, and governance before AI systems become business‑critical. When security is built in upfront, enterprises don’t just reduce risk - they gain the confidence to move faster and unlock AI’s value safely. Security is no longer a “department”. In the age of AI, it is a continuous business function - essential to preserving trust and maintaining operational continuity as attackers move at machine speed. References: Inside an AI‑enabled device code phishing campaign | Microsoft Security Blog AI as tradecraft: How threat actors operationalize AI | Microsoft Security Blog Detecting and analyzing prompt abuse in AI tools | Microsoft Security Blog Post-Quantum Cryptography | CSRC Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2025 | Microsoft https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/government-adopt-passkey-technology-digital-servicesAuthorization and Governance for AI Agents: Runtime Authorization Beyond Identity at Scale
Designing Authorization‑Aware AI Agents at Scale Enforcing Runtime RBAC + ABAC with Approval Injection (JIT) Microsoft Entra Agent Identity enables organizations to govern and manage AI agent identities in Copilot Studio, improving visibility and identity-level control. However, as enterprises deploy multiple autonomous AI agents, identity and OAuth permissions alone cannot answer a more critical question: “Should this action be executed now, by this agent, for this user, under the current business and regulatory context?” This post introduces a reusable Authorization Fabric—combining a Policy Enforcement Point (PEP) and Policy Decision Point (PDP)—implemented as a Microsoft Entra‑protected endpoint using Azure Functions/App Service authentication. Every AI agent (Copilot Studio or AI Foundry/Semantic Kernel) calls this fabric before tool execution, receiving a deterministic runtime decision: ALLOW / DENY / REQUIRE_APPROVAL / MASK Who this is for Anyone building AI agents (Copilot Studio, AI Foundry/Semantic Kernel) that call tools, workflows, or APIs Organizations scaling to multiple agents and needing consistent runtime controls Teams operating in regulated or security‑sensitive environments, where decisions must be deterministic and auditable Why a V2? Identity is necessary—runtime authorization is missing Entra Agent Identity (preview) integrates Copilot Studio agents with Microsoft Entra so that newly created agents automatically get an Entra agent identity, manageable in the Entra admin center, and identity activity is logged in Entra. That solves who the agent is and improves identity governance visibility. But multi-agent deployments introduce a new risk class: Autonomous execution sprawl — many agents, operating with delegated privileges, invoking the same backends independently. OAuth and API permissions answer “can the agent call this API?” They do not answer “should the agent execute this action under business policy, compliance constraints, data boundaries, and approval thresholds?” This is where a runtime authorization decision plane becomes essential. The pattern: Microsoft Entra‑Protected Authorization Fabric (PEP + PDP) Instead of embedding RBAC logic independently inside every agent, use a shared fabric: PEP (Policy Enforcement Point): Gatekeeper invoked before any tool/action PDP (Policy Decision Point): Evaluates RBAC + ABAC + approval policies Decision output: ALLOW / DENY / REQUIRE_APPROVAL / MASK This Authorization Fabric functions as a shared enterprise control plane, decoupling authorization logic from individual agents and enforcing policies consistently across all autonomous execution paths. Architecture (POC reference architecture) Use a single runtime decision plane that sits between agents and tools. What’s important here Every agent (Copilot Studio or AI Foundry/SK) calls the Authorization Fabric API first The fabric is a protected endpoint (Microsoft Entra‑protected endpoint required) Tools (Graph/ERP/CRM/custom APIs) are invoked only after an ALLOW decision (or approval) Trust boundaries enforced by this architecture Agents never call business tools directly without a prior authorization decision The Authorization Fabric validates caller identity via Microsoft Entra Authorization decisions are centralized, consistent, and auditable Approval workflows act as a runtime “break-glass” control for high-impact actions This ensures identity, intent, and execution are independently enforced, rather than implicitly trusted. Runtime flow (Decision → Approval → Execution) Here is the runtime sequence as a simple flow (you can keep your Mermaid diagram too). ```mermaid flowchart TD START(["START"]) --> S1["[1] User Request"] S1 --> S2["[2] Agent Extracts Intent\n(action, resource, attributes)"] S2 --> S3["[3] Call /authorize\n(Entra protected)"] S3 --> S4 subgraph S4["[4] PDP Evaluation"] ABAC["ABAC: Tenant · Region · Data Sensitivity"] RBAC["RBAC: Entitlement Check"] Threshold["Approval Threshold"] ABAC --> RBAC --> Threshold end S4 --> Decision{"[5] Decision?"} Decision -->|"ALLOW"| Exec["Execute Tool / API"] Decision -->|"MASK"| Masked["Execute with Masked Data"] Decision -->|"DENY"| Block["Block Request"] Decision -->|"REQUIRE_APPROVAL"| Approve{"[6] Approval Flow"} Approve -->|"Approved"| Exec Approve -->|"Rejected"| Block Exec --> Audit["[7] Audit & Telemetry"] Masked --> Audit Block --> Audit Audit --> ENDNODE(["END"]) style START fill:#4A90D9,stroke:#333,color:#fff style ENDNODE fill:#4A90D9,stroke:#333,color:#fff style S1 fill:#5B5FC7,stroke:#333,color:#fff style S2 fill:#5B5FC7,stroke:#333,color:#fff style S3 fill:#E8A838,stroke:#333,color:#fff style S4 fill:#FFF3E0,stroke:#E8A838,stroke-width:2px style ABAC fill:#FCE4B2,stroke:#999 style RBAC fill:#FCE4B2,stroke:#999 style Threshold fill:#FCE4B2,stroke:#999 style Decision fill:#fff,stroke:#333 style Exec fill:#2ECC71,stroke:#333,color:#fff style Masked fill:#27AE60,stroke:#333,color:#fff style Block fill:#C0392B,stroke:#333,color:#fff style Approve fill:#F39C12,stroke:#333,color:#fff style Audit fill:#3498DB,stroke:#333,color:#fff ``` Design principle: No tool execution occurs until the Authorization Fabric returns ALLOW or REQUIRE_APPROVAL is satisfied via an approval workflow. Where Power Automate fits (important for readers) In most Copilot Studio implementations, Agents calls Power Automate (agent flows), is the practical integration layer that calls enterprise services and APIs. Copilot Studio supports “agent flows” as a way to extend agent capabilities with low-code workflows. For this pattern, Power Automate typically: acquires/uses the right identity context for the call (depending on your tenant setup), and calls the /authorize endpoint of the Authorization Fabric, returns the decision payload to the agent for branching. Copilot Studio also supports calling REST endpoints directly using the HTTP Request node, including passing headers such as Authorization: Bearer <token>. Protected endpoint only: Securing the Authorization Fabric with Microsoft Entra For this V2 pattern, the Authorization Fabric must be protected using Microsoft Entra‑protected endpoint on Azure Functions/App Service (built‑in auth). Microsoft Learn provides the configuration guidance for enabling Microsoft Entra as the authentication provider for Azure App Service / Azure Functions. Step 1 — Create the Authorization Fabric API (Azure Function) Expose an authorization endpoint: HTTP Step 2 — Enable Microsoft Entra‑protected endpoint on the Function App In Azure Portal: Function App → Authentication Add identity provider → Microsoft Choose Workforce configuration (enterprise tenant) Set Require authentication for all requests This ensures the Authorization Fabric is not callable without a valid Entra token. Step 3 — Optional hardening (recommended) Depending on enterprise posture, layer: IP restrictions / Private endpoints APIM in front of the Function for rate limiting, request normalization, centralized logging (For a POC, keep it minimal—add hardening incrementally.) Externalizing policy (so governance scales) To make this pattern reusable across multiple agents, policies should not be hardcoded inside each agent. Instead, store policy definitions in a central policy store such as Cosmos DB (or equivalent configuration store), and have the PDP load/evaluate policies at runtime. Why this matters: Policy changes apply across all agents instantly (no agent republish) Central governance + versioning + rollback becomes possible Audit and reporting become consistent across environments (For the POC, a single JSON document per policy pack in Cosmos DB is sufficient. For production, add versioning and staged rollout.) Store one PolicyPack JSON document per environment (dev/test/prod). Include version, effectiveFrom, priority for safe rollout/rollback. Minimal decision contract (standard request / response) To keep the fabric reusable across agents, standardize the request payload. Request payload (example) Decision response (deterministic) Example scenario (1 minute to understand) Scenario: A user asks a Finance agent to create a Purchase Order for 70,000. Even if the user has API permission and the agent can technically call the ERP API, runtime policy should return: REQUIRE_APPROVAL (threshold exceeded) trigger an approval workflow execute only after approval is granted This is the difference between API access and authorized business execution. Sample Policy Model (RBAC + ABAC + Approval) This POC policy model intentionally stays simple while demonstrating both coarse and fine-grained governance. 1) Coarse‑grained RBAC (roles → actions) FinanceAnalyst CreatePO up to 50,000 ViewVendor FinanceManager CreatePO up to 100,000 and/or approve higher spend 2) Fine‑grained ABAC (conditions at runtime) ABAC evaluates context such as region, classification, tenant boundary, and risk: 3) Approval injection (Agent‑level JIT execution) For higher-risk/high-impact actions, the fabric returns REQUIRE_APPROVAL rather than hard deny (when appropriate): How policies should be evaluated (deterministic order) To ensure predictable and auditable behavior, evaluate in a deterministic order: Tenant isolation & residency (ABAC hard deny first) Classification rules (deny or mask) RBAC entitlement validation Threshold/risk evaluation Approval injection (JIT step-up) This prevents approval workflows from bypassing foundational security boundaries such as tenant isolation or data sovereignty. Copilot Studio integration (enforcing runtime authorization) Copilot Studio can call external REST APIs using the HTTP Request node, including passing headers such as Authorization: Bearer <token> and binding response schema for branching logic. Copilot Studio also supports using flows with agents (“agent flows”) to extend capabilities and orchestrate actions. Option A (Recommended): Copilot Studio → Agent Flow (Power Automate) → Authorization Fabric Why: Flows are a practical place to handle token acquisition patterns, approval orchestration, and standardized logging. Topic flow: Extract user intent + parameters Call an agent flow that: calls /authorize returns decision payload Branch in the topic: If ALLOW → proceed to tool call If REQUIRE_APPROVAL → trigger approval flow; proceed only if approved If DENY → stop and explain policy reason Important: Tool execution must never be reachable through an alternate topic path that bypasses the authorization check. Option B: Direct HTTP Request node to Authorization Fabric Use the Send HTTP request node to call the authorization endpoint and branch using the response schema. This approach is clean, but token acquisition and secure secretless authentication are often simpler when handled via a managed integration layer (flow + connector). AI Foundry / Semantic Kernel integration (tool invocation gate) For Foundry/SK agents, the integration point is before tool execution. Semantic Kernel supports Azure AI agent patterns and tool integration, making it a natural place to enforce a pre-tool authorization check. Pseudo-pattern: Agent extracts intent + context Calls Authorization Fabric Enforces decision Executes tool only when allowed (or after approval) Telemetry & audit (what Security Architects will ask for) Even the best policy engine is incomplete without audit trails. At minimum, log: agentId, userUPN, action, resource decision + reason + policyIds approval outcome (if any) correlationId for downstream tool execution Why it matters: you now have a defensible answer to: “Why did an autonomous agent execute this action?” Security signal bonus: Denials, unusual approval rates, and repeated policy mismatches can also indicate prompt injection attempts, mis-scoped agents, or governance drift. What this enables (and why it scales) With a shared Authorization Fabric: Avoid duplicating authorization logic across agents Standardize decisions across Copilot Studio + Foundry agents Update governance once (policy change) and apply everywhere Make autonomy safer without blocking productivity Closing: Identity gets you who. Runtime authorization gets you whether/when/how. Copilot Studio can automatically create Entra agent identities (preview), improving identity governance and visibility for agents. But safe autonomy requires a runtime decision plane. Securing that plane as an Entra-protected endpoint is foundational for enterprise deployments. In enterprise environments, autonomous execution without runtime authorization is equivalent to privileged access without PIM—powerful, fast, and operationally risky.
Building Secure, Enterprise Ready AI Agents with Purview SDK and Agent Framework
At Microsoft Ignite, we announced the public preview of Purview integration with the Agent Framework SDK—making it easier to build AI agents that are secure, compliant, and enterprise‑ready from day one. AI agents are quickly moving from demos to production. They reason over enterprise data, collaborate with other agents, and take real actions. As that happens, one thing becomes non‑negotiable: Governance has to be built in. That’s where Purview SDK comes in. Agentic AI Changes the Security Model Traditional apps expose risks at the UI or API layer. AI agents are different. Agents can: Process sensitive enterprise data in prompts and responses Collaborate with other agents across workflows Act autonomously on behalf of users Without built‑in controls, even a well‑designed agent can create compliance gaps. Purview SDK brings Microsoft’s enterprise data security and compliance directly into the agent runtime, so governance travels with the agent—not after it. What You Get with Purview SDK + Agent Framework This integration delivers a few key things developers and enterprises care about most: Inline Data Protection Evaluate prompts and responses against Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies in real time. Content can be allowed or blocked automatically. Built‑In Governance Send AI interactions to Purview for audit, eDiscovery, communication compliance, and lifecycle management—without custom plumbing. Enterprise‑Ready by Design Ship agents that meet enterprise security expectations from the start, not as a follow‑up project. All of this is done natively through Agent Framework middleware, so governance feels like part of the platform—not an add‑on. How Enforcement Works (Quickly) When an agent runs: Prompts and responses flow through the Agent Framework pipeline Purview SDK evaluates content against configured policies A decision is returned: allow, redact, or block Governance signals are logged for audit and compliance This same model works for: User‑to‑agent interactions Agent‑to‑agent communication Multi‑agent workflows Try It: Add Purview SDK in Minutes Here’s a minimal Python example using Agent Framework: That’s it! From that point on: Prompts and responses are evaluated against Purview policies setup within the enterprise tenant Sensitive data can be automatically blocked Interactions are logged for governance and audit Designed for Real Agent Systems Most production AI apps aren’t single‑agent systems. Purview SDK supports: Agent‑level enforcement for fine‑grained control Workflow‑level enforcement across orchestration steps Agent‑to‑agent governance to protect data as agents collaborate This makes it a natural fit for enterprise‑scale, multi‑agent architectures. Get Started Today You can start experimenting right away: Try the Purview SDK with Agent Framework Follow the Microsoft Learn docs to configure Purview SDK with Agent Framework. Explore the GitHub samples See examples of policy‑enforced agents in Python and .NET. Secure AI, Without Slowing It Down AI agents are quickly becoming production systems—not experiments. By integrating Purview SDK directly into the Agent Framework, Microsoft is making governance a default capability, not a deployment blocker. Build intelligent agents. Protect sensitive data. Scale with confidence.Security as the core primitive - Securing AI agents and apps
This week at Microsoft Ignite, we shared our vision for Microsoft security -- In the agentic era, security must be ambient and autonomous, like the AI it protects. It must be woven into and around everything we build—from silicon to OS, to agents, apps, data, platforms, and clouds—and throughout everything we do. In this blog, we are going to dive deeper into many of the new innovations we are introducing this week to secure AI agents and apps. As I spend time with our customers and partners, there are four consistent themes that have emerged as core security challenges to secure AI workloads. These are: preventing agent sprawl and access to resources, protecting against data oversharing and data leaks, defending against new AI threats and vulnerabilities, and adhering to evolving regulations. Addressing these challenges holistically requires a coordinated effort across IT, developers, and security leaders, not just within security teams and to enable this, we are introducing several new innovations: Microsoft Agent 365 for IT, Foundry Control Plane in Microsoft Foundry for developers, and the Security Dashboard for AI for security leaders. In addition, we are releasing several new purpose-built capabilities to protect and govern AI apps and agents across Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Entra, and Microsoft Purview. Observability at every layer of the stack To facilitate the organization-wide effort that it takes to secure and govern AI agents and apps – IT, developers, and security leaders need observability (security, management, and monitoring) at every level. IT teams need to enable the development and deployment of any agent in their environment. To ensure the responsible and secure deployment of agents into an organization, IT needs a unified agent registry, the ability to assign an identity to every agent, manage the agent’s access to data and resources, and manage the agent’s entire lifecycle. In addition, IT needs to be able to assign access to common productivity and collaboration tools, such as email and file storage, and be able to observe their entire agent estate for risks such as over-permissioned agents. Development teams need to build and test agents, apply security and compliance controls by default, and ensure AI models are evaluated for safety guardrails and security vulnerabilities. Post deployment, development teams must observe agents to ensure they are staying on task, accessing applications and data sources appropriately, and operating within their cost and performance expectations. Security & compliance teams must ensure overall security of their AI estate, including their AI infrastructure, platforms, data, apps, and agents. They need comprehensive visibility into all their security risks- including agent sprawl and resource access, data oversharing and leaks, AI threats and vulnerabilities, and complying with global regulations. They want to address these risks by extending their existing security investments that they are already invested in and familiar with, rather than using siloed or bolt-on tools. These teams can be most effective in delivering trustworthy AI to their organizations if security is natively integrated into the tools and platforms that they use every day, and if those tools and platforms share consistent security primitives such as agent identities from Entra; data security and compliance controls from Purview; and security posture, detections, and protections from Defender. With the new capabilities being released today, we are delivering observability at every layer of the AI stack, meeting IT, developers, and security teams where they are in the tools they already use to innovate with confidence. For IT Teams - Introducing Microsoft Agent 365, the control plane for agents, now in preview The best infrastructure for managing your agents is the one you already use to manage your users. With Agent 365, organizations can extend familiar tools and policies to confidently deploy and secure agents, without reinventing the wheel. By using the same trusted Microsoft 365 infrastructure, productivity apps, and protections, organizations can now apply consistent and familiar governance and security controls that are purpose-built to protect against agent-specific threats and risks. gement and governance of agents across organizations Microsoft Agent 365 delivers a unified agent Registry, Access Control, Visualization, Interoperability, and Security capabilities for your organization. These capabilities work together to help organizations manage agents and drive business value. The Registry powered by the Entra provides a complete and unified inventory of all the agents deployed and used in your organization including both Microsoft and third-party agents. Access Control allows you to limit the access privileges of your agents to only the resources that they need and protect their access to resources in real time. Visualization gives organizations the ability to see what matters most and gain insights through a unified dashboard, advanced analytics, and role-based reporting. Interop allows agents to access organizational data through Work IQ for added context, and to integrate with Microsoft 365 apps such as Outlook, Word, and Excel so they can create and collaborate alongside users. Security enables the proactive detection of vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, protects against common attacks such as prompt injections, prevents agents from processing or leaking sensitive data, and gives organizations the ability to audit agent interactions, assess compliance readiness and policy violations, and recommend controls for evolving regulatory requirements. Microsoft Agent 365 also includes the Agent 365 SDK, part of Microsoft Agent Framework, which empowers developers and ISVs to build agents on their own AI stack. The SDK enables agents to automatically inherit Microsoft's security and governance protections, such as identity controls, data security policies, and compliance capabilities, without the need for custom integration. For more details on Agent 365, read the blog here. For Developers - Introducing Microsoft Foundry Control Plane to observe, secure and manage agents, now in preview Developers are moving fast to bring agents into production, but operating them at scale introduces new challenges and responsibilities. Agents can access tools, take actions, and make decisions in real time, which means development teams must ensure that every agent behaves safely, securely, and consistently. Today, developers need to work across multiple disparate tools to get a holistic picture of the cybersecurity and safety risks that their agents may have. Once they understand the risk, they then need a unified and simplified way to monitor and manage their entire agent fleet and apply controls and guardrails as needed. Microsoft Foundry provides a unified platform for developers to build, evaluate and deploy AI apps and agents in a responsible way. Today we are excited to announce that Foundry Control Plane is available in preview. This enables developers to observe, secure, and manage their agent fleets with built-in security, and centralized governance controls. With this unified approach, developers can now identify risks and correlate disparate signals across their models, agents, and tools; enforce consistent policies and quality gates; and continuously monitor task adherence and runtime risks. Foundry Control Plane is deeply integrated with Microsoft’s security portfolio to provide a ‘secure by design’ foundation for developers. With Microsoft Entra, developers can ensure an agent identity (Agent ID) and access controls are built into every agent, mitigating the risk of unmanaged agents and over permissioned resources. With Microsoft Defender built in, developers gain contextualized alerts and posture recommendations for agents directly within the Foundry Control Plane. This integration proactively prevents configuration and access risks, while also defending agents from runtime threats in real time. Microsoft Purview’s native integration into Foundry Control Plane makes it easy to enable data security and compliance for every Foundry-built application or agent. This allows Purview to discover data security and compliance risks and apply policies to prevent user prompts and AI responses from safety and policy violations. In addition, agent interactions can be logged and searched for compliance and legal audits. This integration of the shared security capabilities, including identity and access, data security and compliance, and threat protection and posture ensures that security is not an afterthought; it’s embedded at every stage of the agent lifecycle, enabling you to start secure and stay secure. For more details, read the blog. For Security Teams - Introducing Security Dashboard for AI - unified risk visibility for CISOs and AI risk leaders, coming soon AI proliferation in the enterprise, combined with the emergence of AI governance committees and evolving AI regulations, leaves CISOs and AI risk leaders needing a clear view of their AI risks, such as data leaks, model vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and unethical agent actions across their entire AI estate, spanning AI platforms, apps, and agents. 90% of security professionals, including CISOs, report that their responsibilities have expanded to include data governance and AI oversight within the past year. 1 At the same time, 86% of risk managers say disconnected data and systems lead to duplicated efforts and gaps in risk coverage. 2 To address these needs, we are excited to introduce the Security Dashboard for AI. This serves as a unified dashboard that aggregates posture and real-time risk signals from Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Entra, and Microsoft Purview. This unified dashboard allows CISOs and AI risk leaders to discover agents and AI apps, track AI posture and drift, and correlate risk signals to investigate and act across their entire AI ecosystem. For example, you can see your full AI inventory and get visibility into a quarantined agent, flagged for high data risk due to oversharing sensitive information in Purview. The dashboard then correlates that signal with identity insights from Entra and threat protection alerts from Defender to provide a complete picture of exposure. From there, you can delegate tasks to the appropriate teams to enforce policies and remediate issues quickly. With the Security Dashboard for AI, CISOs and risk leaders gain a clear, consolidated view of AI risks across agents, apps, and platforms—eliminating fragmented visibility, disconnected posture insights, and governance gaps as AI adoption scales. Best of all, there’s nothing new to buy. If you’re already using Microsoft security products to secure AI, you’re already a Security Dashboard for AI customer. Figure 5: Security Dashboard for AI provides CISOs and AI risk leaders with a unified view of their AI risk by bringing together their AI inventory, AI risk, and security recommendations to strengthen overall posture Together, these innovations deliver observability and security across IT, development, and security teams, powered by Microsoft’s shared security capabilities. With Microsoft Agent 365, IT teams can manage and secure agents alongside users. Foundry Control Plane gives developers unified governance and lifecycle controls for agent fleets. Security Dashboard for AI provides CISOs and AI risk leaders with a consolidated view of AI risks across platforms, apps, and agents. Added innovation to secure and govern your AI workloads In addition to the IT, developer, and security leader-focused innovations outlined above, we continue to accelerate our pace of innovation in Microsoft Entra, Microsoft Purview, and Microsoft Defender to address the most pressing needs for securing and governing your AI workloads. These needs are: Manage agent sprawl and resource access e.g. managing agent identity, access to resources, and permissions lifecycle at scale Prevent data oversharing and leaks e.g. protecting sensitive information shared in prompts, responses, and agent interactions Defend against shadow AI, new threats, and vulnerabilities e.g. managing unsanctioned applications, preventing prompt injection attacks, and detecting AI supply chain vulnerabilities Enable AI governance for regulatory compliance e.g. ensuring AI development, operations, and usage comply with evolving global regulations and frameworks Manage agent sprawl and resource access 76% of business leaders expect employees to manage agents within the next 2–3 years. 3 Widespread adoption of agents is driving the need for visibility and control, which includes the need for a unified registry, agent identities, lifecycle governance, and secure access to resources. Today, Microsoft Entra provides robust identity protection and secure access for applications and users. However, organizations lack a unified way to manage, govern, and protect agents in the same way they manage their users. Organizations need a purpose-built identity and access framework for agents. Introducing Microsoft Entra Agent ID, now in preview Microsoft Entra Agent ID offers enterprise-grade capabilities that enable organizations to prevent agent sprawl and protect agent identities and their access to resources. These new purpose-built capabilities enable organizations to: Register and manage agents: Get a complete inventory of the agent fleet and ensure all new agents are created with an identity built-in and are automatically protected by organization policies to accelerate adoption. Govern agent identities and lifecycle: Keep the agent fleet under control with lifecycle management and IT-defined guardrails for both agents and people who create and manage them. Protect agent access to resources: Reduce risk of breaches, block risky agents, and prevent agent access to malicious resources with conditional access and traffic inspection. Agents built in Microsoft Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, and Security Copilot get an Entra Agent ID built-in at creation. Developers can also adopt Entra Agent ID for agents they build through Microsoft Agent Framework, Microsoft Agent 365 SDK, or Microsoft Entra Agent ID SDK. Read the Microsoft Entra blog to learn more. Prevent data oversharing and leaks Data security is more complex than ever. Information Security Media Group (ISMG) reports that 80% of leaders cite leakage of sensitive data as their top concern. 4 In addition to data security and compliance risks of generative AI (GenAI) apps, agents introduces new data risks such as unsupervised data access, highlighting the need to protect all types of corporate data, whether it is accessed by employees or agents. To mitigate these risks, we are introducing new Microsoft Purview data security and compliance capabilities for Microsoft 365 Copilot and for agents and AI apps built with Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry, providing unified protection, visibility, and control for users, AI Apps, and Agents. New Microsoft Purview controls safeguard Microsoft 365 Copilot with real-time protection and bulk remediation of oversharing risks Microsoft Purview and Microsoft 365 Copilot deliver a fully integrated solution for protecting sensitive data in AI workflows. Based on ongoing customer feedback, we’re introducing new capabilities to deliver real-time protection for sensitive data in M365 Copilot and accelerated remediation of oversharing risks: Data risk assessments: Previously, admins could monitor oversharing risks such as SharePoint sites with unprotected sensitive data. Now, they can perform item-level investigations and bulk remediation for overshared files in SharePoint and OneDrive to quickly reduce oversharing exposure. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for M365 Copilot: DLP previously excluded files with sensitivity labels from Copilot processing. Now in preview, DLP also prevents prompts that include sensitive data from being processed in M365 Copilot, Copilot Chat, and Copilot agents, and prevents Copilot from using sensitive data in prompts for web grounding. Priority cleanup for M365 Copilot assets: Many organizations have org-wide policies to retain or delete data. Priority cleanup, now generally available, lets admins delete assets that are frequently processed by Copilot, such as meeting transcripts and recordings, on an independent schedule from the org-wide policies while maintaining regulatory compliance. On-demand classification for meeting transcripts: Purview can now detect sensitive information in meeting transcripts on-demand. This enables data security admins to apply DLP policies and enforce Priority cleanup based on the sensitive information detected. & bulk remediation Read the full Data Security blog to learn more. Introducing new Microsoft Purview data security capabilities for agents and apps built with Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry, now in preview Microsoft Purview now extends the same data security and compliance for users and Copilots to agents and apps. These new capabilities are: Enhanced Data Security Posture Management: A centralized DSPM dashboard that provides observability, risk assessment, and guided remediation across users, AI apps, and agents. Insider Risk Management (IRM) for Agents: Uniquely designed for agents, using dedicated behavioral analytics, Purview dynamically assigns risk levels to agents based on their risky handing of sensitive data and enables admins to apply conditional policies based on that risk level. Sensitive data protection with Azure AI Search: Azure AI Search enables fast, AI-driven retrieval across large document collections, essential for building AI Apps. When apps or agents use Azure AI Search to index or retrieve data, Purview sensitivity labels are preserved in the search index, ensuring that any sensitive information remains protected under the organization’s data security & compliance policies. For more information on preventing data oversharing and data leaks - Learn how Purview protects and governs agents in the Data Security and Compliance for Agents blog. Defend against shadow AI, new threats, and vulnerabilities AI workloads are subject to new AI-specific threats like prompt injections attacks, model poisoning, and data exfiltration of AI generated content. Although security admins and SOC analysts have similar tasks when securing agents, the attack methods and surfaces differ significantly. To help customers defend against these novel attacks, we are introducing new capabilities in Microsoft Defender that deliver end-to-end protection, from security posture management to runtime defense. Introducing Security Posture Management for agents, now in preview As organizations adopt AI agents to automate critical workflows, they become high-value targets and potential points of compromise, creating a critical need to ensure agents are hardened, compliant, and resilient by preventing misconfigurations and safeguarding against adversarial manipulation. Security Posture Management for agents in Microsoft Defender now provides an agent inventory for security teams across Microsoft Foundry and Copilot Studio agents. Here, analysts can assess the overall security posture of an agent, easily implement security recommendations, and identify vulnerabilities such as misconfigurations and excessive permissions, all aligned to the MITRE ATT&CK framework. Additionally, the new agent attack path analysis visualizes how an agent’s weak security posture can create broader organizational risk, so you can quickly limit exposure and prevent lateral movement. Introducing Threat Protection for agents, now in preview Attack techniques and attack surfaces for agents are fundamentally different from other assets in your environment. That’s why Defender is delivering purpose-built protections and detections to help defend against them. Defender is introducing runtime protection for Copilot Studio agents that automatically block prompt injection attacks in real time. In addition, we are announcing agent-specific threat detections for Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry agents coming soon. Defender automatically correlates these alerts with Microsoft’s industry-leading threat intelligence and cross-domain security signals to deliver richer, contextualized alerts and security incident views for the SOC analyst. Defender’s risk and threat signals are natively integrated into the new Microsoft Foundry Control Plane, giving development teams full observability and the ability to act directly from within their familiar environment. Finally, security analysts will be able to hunt across all agent telemetry in the Advanced Hunting experience in Defender, and the new Agent 365 SDK extends Defender’s visibility and hunting capabilities to third-party agents, starting with Genspark and Kasisto, giving security teams even more coverage across their AI landscape. To learn more about how you can harden the security posture of your agents and defend against threats, read the Microsoft Defender blog. Enable AI governance for regulatory compliance Global AI regulations like the EU AI Act and NIST AI RMF are evolving rapidly; yet, according to ISMG, 55% of leaders report lacking clarity on current and future AI regulatory requirements. 5 As enterprises adopt AI, they must ensure that their AI innovation aligns with global regulations and standards to avoid costly compliance gaps. Introducing new Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager capabilities to stay ahead of evolving AI regulations, now in preview Today, Purview Compliance Manager provides over 300 pre-built assessments for common industry, regional, and global standards and regulations. However, the pace of change for new AI regulations requires controls to be continuously re-evaluated and updated so that organizations can adapt to ongoing changes in regulations and stay compliant. To address this need, Compliance Manager now includes AI-powered regulatory templates. AI-powered regulatory templates enable real-time ingestion and analysis of global regulatory documents, allowing compliance teams to quickly adapt to changes as they happen. As regulations evolve, the updated regulatory documents can be uploaded to Compliance Manager, and the new requirements are automatically mapped to applicable recommended actions to implement controls across Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Entra, Microsoft Purview, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Foundry. Automated actions by Compliance Manager further streamline governance, reduce manual workload, and strengthen regulatory accountability. Introducing expanded Microsoft Purview compliance capabilities for agents and AI apps now in preview Microsoft Purview now extends its compliance capabilities across agent-generated interactions, ensuring responsible use and regulatory alignment as AI becomes deeply embedded across business processes. New capabilities include expanded coverage for: Audit: Surface agent interactions, lifecycle events, and data usage with Purview Audit. Unified audit logs across user and agent activities, paired with traceability for every agent using an Entra Agent ID, support investigation, anomaly detection, and regulatory reporting. Communication Compliance: Detect prompts sent to agents and agent-generated responses containing inappropriate, unethical, or risky language, including attempts to manipulate agents into bypassing policies, generating risky content, or producing noncompliant outputs. When issues arise, data security admins get full context, including the prompt, the agent’s output, and relevant metadata, so they can investigate and take corrective action Data Lifecycle Management: Apply retention and deletion policies to agent-generated content and communication flows to automate lifecycle controls and reduce regulatory risk. Read about Microsoft Purview data security for agents to learn more. Finally, we are extending our data security, threat protection, and identity access capabilities to third-party apps and agents via the network. Advancing Microsoft Entra Internet Access Secure Web + AI Gateway - extend runtime protections to the network, now in preview Microsoft Entra Internet Access, part of the Microsoft Entra Suite, has new capabilities to secure access to and usage of GenAI at the network level, marking a transition from Secure Web Gateway to Secure Web and AI Gateway. Enterprises can accelerate GenAI adoption while maintaining compliance and reducing risk, empowering employees to experiment with new AI tools safely. The new capabilities include: Prompt injection protection which blocks malicious prompts in real time by extending Azure AI Prompt Shields to the network layer. Network file filtering which extends Microsoft Purview to inspect files in transit and prevents regulated or confidential data from being uploaded to unsanctioned AI services. Shadow AI Detection that provides visibility into unsanctioned AI applications through Cloud Application Analytics and Defender for Cloud Apps risk scoring, empowering security teams to monitor usage trends, apply Conditional Access, or block high-risk apps instantly. Unsanctioned MCP server blocking prevents access to MCP servers from unauthorized agents. With these controls, you can accelerate GenAI adoption while maintaining compliance and reducing risk, so employees can experiment with new AI tools safely. Read the Microsoft Entra blog to learn more. As AI transforms the enterprise, security must evolve to meet new challenges—spanning agent sprawl, data protection, emerging threats, and regulatory compliance. Our approach is to empower IT, developers, and security leaders with purpose-built innovations like Agent 365, Foundry Control Plane, and the Security Dashboard for AI. These solutions bring observability, governance, and protection to every layer of the AI stack, leveraging familiar tools and integrated controls across Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Entra, and Microsoft Purview. The future of security is ambient, autonomous, and deeply woven into the fabric of how we build, deploy, and govern AI systems. Explore additional resources Learn more about Security for AI solutions on our webpage Learn more about Microsoft Agent 365 Learn more about Microsoft Entra Agent ID Get started with Microsoft 365 Copilot Get started with Microsoft Copilot Studio Get started with Microsoft Foundry Get started with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Get started with Microsoft Entra Get started with Microsoft Purview Get started with Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager Sign up for a free Microsoft 365 E5 Security Trial and Microsoft Purview Trial 1 Bedrock Security, 2025 Data Security Confidence Index, published Mar 17, 2025. 2 AuditBoard & Ascend2, Connected Risk Report 2024; as cited by MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring 2025. 3 KPMG AI Quarterly Pulse Survey | Q3 2025. September 2025. n= 130 U.S.-based C-suite and business leaders representing organizations with annual revenue of $1 billion or more 4 First Annual Generative AI study: Business Rewards vs. Security Risks, , Q3 2023, ISMG, N=400 5 First Annual Generative AI study: Business Rewards vs. Security Risks, Q3 2023, ISMG, N=400Cybersecurity: What Every Business Leader Needs to Know Now
As a Senior Cybersecurity Solution Architect, I’ve had the privilege of supporting organisations across the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States—spanning sectors from finance to healthcare—in strengthening their security posture. One thing has become abundantly clear: cybersecurity is no longer the sole domain of IT departments. It is a strategic imperative that demands attention at board-level. This guide distils five key lessons drawn from real-world engagements to help executive leaders navigate today’s evolving threat landscape. These insights are not merely technical—they are cultural, operational, and strategic. If you’re a C-level executive, this article is a call to action: reassess how your organisation approaches cybersecurity before the next breach forces the conversation. In this article, I share five lessons (and quotes) from the field that help demystify how to enhance an organisation’s security posture. 1. Shift the Mindset “This has always been our approach, and we’ve never experienced a breach—so why should we change it?” A significant barrier to effective cybersecurity lies not in the sophistication of attackers, but in the predictability of human behaviour. If you’ve never experienced a breach, it’s tempting to maintain the status quo. However, as threats evolve, so too must your defences. Many cyber threats exploit well-known vulnerabilities that remain unpatched or rely on individuals performing routine tasks in familiar ways. Human nature tends to favour comfort and habit—traits that adversaries are adept at exploiting. Unlike many organisations, attackers readily adopt new technologies to advance their objectives, including AI-powered ransomware to execute increasingly sophisticated attacks. It is therefore imperative to recognise—without delay—that the advent of AI has dramatically reduced both the effort and time required to compromise systems. As the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has stated: “AI lowers the barrier for novice cyber criminals, hackers-for-hire and hacktivists to carry out effective access and information gathering operations. This enhanced access will likely contribute to the global ransomware threat over the next two years.” Similarly, McKinsey & Company observed: “As AI quickly advances cyber threats, organisations seem to be taking a more cautious approach, balancing the benefits and risks of the new technology while trying to keep pace with attackers’ increasing sophistication.” To counter this evolving threat landscape, organisations must proactively leverage AI in their cyber defence strategies. Examples include: Identity and Access Management (IAM): AI enhances IAM by analysing real-time signals across systems to detect risky sign-ins and enforce adaptive access controls. Example: Microsoft Entra Agents for Conditional Access use AI to automate policy recommendations, streamlining access decisions with minimal manual input. Figure 1: Microsoft Entra Agents Threat Detection: AI accelerates detection, response, and recovery, helping organisations stay ahead of sophisticated threats. Example: Microsoft Defender for Cloud’s AI threat protection identifies prompt injection, data poisoning, and wallet attacks in real time. Incident Response: AI facilitates real-time decision-making, removing emotional bias and accelerating containment and recovery during security incidents. Example: Automatic Attack Disruption in Defender XDR, which can automatically contain a breach in progress. AI Security Posture Management AI workloads require continuous discovery, classification, and protection across multi-cloud environments. Example: Microsoft Defender for Cloud’s AI Security Posture Management secures custom AI apps across Azure, AWS, and GCP by detecting misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and compliance gaps. Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) for AI AI interactions must be governed to ensure privacy, compliance, and insider risk mitigation. Example: Microsoft Purview DSPM for AI enables prompt auditing, applies Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies to third-party AI apps like ChatGPT, and supports eDiscovery and lifecycle management. AI Threat Protection Organisations must address emerging AI threat vectors, including prompt injection, data leakage, and model exploitation. Example: Defender for AI (private preview) provides model-level security, including governance, anomaly detection, and lifecycle protection. Embracing innovation, automation, and intelligent defence is the secret sauce for cyber resilience in 2026. 2. Avoid One-Off Purchases – Invest with a Strategy “One MDE and one Sentinel to go, please.” Organisations often approach me intending to purchase a specific cybersecurity product—such as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE)—without a clearly articulated strategic rationale. My immediate question is: what is the broader objective behind this purchase? Is it driven by perceived value or popularity, or does it form part of a well-considered strategy to enhance endpoint security? Cybersecurity investments should be guided by a long-term, holistic strategy that spans multiple years and is periodically reassessed to reflect evolving threats. Strengthening endpoint protection must be integrated into a wider effort to improve the organisation’s overall security posture. This includes ensuring seamless integration between security solutions and avoiding operational silos. For example, deploying robust endpoint protection is of limited value if identities are not safeguarded with multi-factor authentication (MFA), or if storage accounts remain publicly accessible. A cohesive and forward-looking approach ensures that all components of the security architecture work in concert to mitigate risk effectively. Security Adoption Journey (Based on Zero Trust Framework) Assess – Evaluate the threat landscape, attack surface, vulnerabilities, compliance obligations, and critical assets. Align – Link security objectives to broader business goals to ensure strategic coherence. Architect – Design integrated and scalable security solutions, addressing gaps and eliminating operational silos. Activate – Implement tools with robust governance and automation to ensure consistent policy enforcement. Advance – Continuously monitor, test, and refine the security posture to stay ahead of evolving threats. Security tools are not fast food—they work best as part of a long-term plan, not a one-off order. This piecemeal approach runs counter to the modern Zero Trust security model, which assumes no single tool will prevent every breach and instead implements layered defences and integration. 3. Legacy Systems Are Holding You Back “Unfortunately, we are unable to implement phishing-resistant MFA, as our legacy app does not support integration with the required protocols.” A common challenge faced by many organisations I have worked with is the constraint on innovation within their cybersecurity architecture, primarily due to continued reliance on legacy applications—often driven by budgetary or operational necessity. These outdated systems frequently lack compatibility with modern security technologies and may introduce significant vulnerabilities. A notable example is the deployment of phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA)—such as FIDO2 security keys or certificate-based authentication—which requires advanced identity protocols and conditional access policies. These capabilities are available exclusively through Microsoft Entra ID. To address this issue effectively, it is essential to design security frameworks based on the organisation’s future aspirations rather than its current limitations. By adopting a forward-thinking approach, organisations can remain receptive to emerging technologies that align with their strategic cybersecurity objectives. Moreover, this perspective encourages investment in acquiring the necessary talent, thereby reducing reliance on extensive change management and staff retraining. I advise designing for where you want to be in the next 1–3 years—ideally cloud-first and identity-driven—essentially adopting a Zero Trust architecture, rather than being constrained by the limitations of legacy systems. 4. Collaboration Is a Security Imperative “This item will need to be added to the dev team's backlog. Given their current workload, they will do their best to implement GitHub Security in Q3, subject to capacity.” Cybersecurity threats may originate from various parts of an organisation, and one of the principal challenges many face is the fragmented nature of their defence strategies. To effectively mitigate such risks, cybersecurity must be embedded across all departments and functions, rather than being confined to a single team or role. In many organisations, the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) operates in isolation from other C-level executives, which can limit their influence and complicate the implementation of security measures across the enterprise. Furthermore, some teams may lack the requisite expertise to execute essential security practices. For instance, an R&D lead responsible for managing developers may not possess the necessary skills in DevSecOps. To address these challenges, it is vital to ensure that the CISO is empowered to act without political or organisational barriers and is supported in implementing security measures across all business units. When the CISO has backing from the COO and HR, initiatives such as MFA rollout happen faster and more thoroughly. Cross-Functional Security Responsibilities Role Security Responsibilities R&D - Adopt DevSecOps practices - Identify vulnerabilities early - Manage code dependencies - Detect exposed secrets - Embed security in CI/CD pipelines CIO - Ensure visibility over organizational data - Implement Data Loss Prevention (DLP) - Safeguard sensitive data lifecycle - Ensure regulatory compliance CTO - Secure cloud environments (CSPM) - Manage SaaS security posture (SSPM) - Ensure hardware and endpoint protection COO - Protect digital assets - Secure domain management - Mitigate impersonation threats - Safeguard digital marketing channels and customer PII Support & Vendors - Deliver targeted training - Prevent social engineering attacks - Improve awareness of threat vectors HR - Train employees on AI-related threats - Manage insider risks - Secure employee data - Oversee cybersecurity across the employee lifecycle Empowering the CISO to act across departments helps organisations shift towards a security-first culture—embedding cybersecurity into every function, not just IT. 5. Compliance Is Not Security “We’re compliant, so we must be secure.” Many organisations mistakenly equate passing audits—such as ISO 27001 or SOC 2—with being secure. While compliance frameworks help establish a baseline for security, they are not a guarantee of protection. Determined attackers are not deterred by audit checklists; they exploit gaps, misconfigurations, and human error regardless of whether an organisation is certified. Moreover, due to the rapidly evolving nature of the cyber threat landscape, compliance frameworks often struggle to keep pace. By the time a standard is updated, attackers may already be exploiting new techniques that fall outside its scope. This lag creates a false sense of security for organisations that rely solely on regulatory checkboxes. Security is a continuous risk management process—not a one-time certification. It must be embedded into every layer of the enterprise and treated with the same urgency as other core business priorities. Compliance may be the starting line, not the finish line. Effective security goes beyond meeting regulatory requirements—it demands ongoing vigilance, adaptability, and a proactive mindset. Conclusion: Cybersecurity Is a Continuous Discipline Cybersecurity is not a destination—it is a continuous journey. By embracing strategic thinking, cross-functional collaboration, and emerging technologies, organisations can build resilience against today’s threats and tomorrow’s unknowns. The lessons shared throughout this article are not merely technical—they are cultural, operational, and strategic. If there is one key takeaway, it is this: avoid piecemeal fixes and instead adopt an integrated, future-ready security strategy. Due to the rapidly evolving nature of the cyber threat landscape, compliance frameworks alone cannot keep pace. Security must be treated as a dynamic, ongoing process—one that is embedded into every layer of the enterprise and reviewed regularly. Organisations should conduct periodic security posture reviews, leveraging tools such as Microsoft Secure Score or monthly risk reports, and stay informed about emerging threats through threat intelligence feeds and resources like the Microsoft Digital Defence Report, CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), NCSC (UK National Cyber Security Centre), and other open-source intelligence platforms. As Ann Johnson aptly stated in her blog: “The most prepared organisations are those that keep asking the right questions and refining their approach together.” Cyber resilience demands ongoing investment—in people (through training and simulation drills), in processes (via playbooks and frameworks), and in technology (through updates and adoption of AI-driven defences). To reduce cybersecurity risk over time, resilient organisations must continually refine their approach and treat cybersecurity as an ongoing discipline. The time to act is now. Resources: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/report/impact-of-ai-on-cyber-threat Defend against cyber threats with AI solutions from Microsoft - Microsoft Industry Blogs Generative AI Cybersecurity Solutions | Microsoft Security Require phishing-resistant multifactor authentication for Microsoft Entra administrator roles - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn AI is the greatest threat—and defense—in cybersecurity today. Here’s why. Microsoft Entra Agents - Microsoft Entra | Microsoft Learn Smarter identity security starts with AI https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2025/06/12/cyber-resilience-begins-before-the-crisis/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/security-insider/threat-landscape/microsoft-digital-defense-report-2023-critical-cybersecurity-challenges https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2025/06/12/cyber-resilience-begins-before-the-crisis/
