New blog post | Quick Wins to Strengthen Your Azure AD Security
Every organization strives to reduce the attack surface of their infrastructure to make it secure and reliable. As team members of the Microsoft Global Compromise Recovery Security Practice (CRSP), we’ve seen time and time again that by improving the security posture to make compromise more difficult than average, low-skill attackers usually give up quickly and move to the next target. With the changing cybersecurity landscapes, Identity is the new security perimeter and we often hear that a compromised user was the cause of a catastrophic cyber-attack. While talking about identities, Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), part of the Microsoft Entra product family, is a critical identity system leveraged by most of the organizations and it serves a single point for authentication and authorization of users against applications, resources and much more. It’s at the heart of an organization's zero trust strategy. In this blog we discuss some Quick Wins to reduce the attack surface of Azure AD. From a technician's standpoint, these tasks are immediate and require minimal testing to get them rolled out in production. Quick Wins to Strengthen Your Azure AD Security - Microsoft Community HubKerberos and the End of RC4: Protocol Hardening and Preparing for CVE‑2026‑20833
CVE-2026-20833 addresses the continued use of the RC4‑HMAC algorithm within the Kerberos protocol in Active Directory environments. Although RC4 has been retained for many years for compatibility with legacy systems, it is now considered cryptographically weak and unsuitable for modern authentication scenarios. As part of the security evolution of Kerberos, Microsoft has initiated a process of progressive protocol hardening, whose objective is to eliminate RC4 as an implicit fallback, establishing AES128 and AES256 as the default and recommended algorithms. This change should not be treated as optional or merely preventive. It represents a structural change in Kerberos behavior that will be progressively enforced through Windows security updates, culminating in a model where RC4 will no longer be implicitly accepted by the KDC. If Active Directory environments maintain service accounts, applications, or systems dependent on RC4, authentication failures may occur after the application of the updates planned for 2026, especially during the enforcement phases introduced starting in April and finalized in July 2026. For this reason, it is essential that organizations proactively identify and eliminate RC4 dependencies, ensuring that accounts, services, and applications are properly configured to use AES128 or AES256 before the definitive changes to Kerberos protocol behavior take effect. Official Microsoft References CVE-2026-25177 - Security Update Guide - Microsoft - Active Directory Domain Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Microsoft Support – How to manage Kerberos KDC usage of RC4 for service account ticket issuance changes related to CVE-2026-20833 (KB 5073381) Microsoft Learn – Detect and Remediate RC4 Usage in Kerberos AskDS – What is going on with RC4 in Kerberos? Beyond RC4 for Windows authentication | Microsoft Windows Server Blog So, you think you’re ready for enforcing AES for Kerberos? | Microsoft Community Hub Risk Associated with the Vulnerability When RC4 is used in Kerberos tickets, an authenticated attacker can request Service Tickets (TGS) for valid SPNs, capture these tickets, and perform offline brute-force attacks, particularly Kerberoasting scenarios, with the goal of recovering service account passwords. Compared to AES, RC4 allows significantly faster cracking, especially for older accounts or accounts with weak passwords. Technical Overview of the Exploitation In simplified terms, the exploitation flow occurs as follows: The attacker requests a TGS for a valid SPN. The KDC issues the ticket using RC4, when that algorithm is still accepted. The ticket is captured and analyzed offline. The service account password is recovered. The compromised account is used for lateral movement or privilege escalation. Official Timeline Defined by Microsoft Important clarification on enforcement behavior Explicit account encryption type configurations continue to be honored even during enforcement mode. The Kerberos hardening associated with CVE‑2026‑20833 focuses on changing the default behavior of the KDC, enforcing AES-only encryption for TGS ticket issuance when no explicit configuration exists. This approach follows the same enforcement model previously applied to Kerberos session keys in earlier security updates (for example, KB5021131 related to CVE‑2022‑37966), representing another step in the progressive removal of RC4 as an implicit fallback. January 2026 – Audit Phase Starting in January 2026, Microsoft initiated the Audit Phase related to changes in RC4 usage within Kerberos, as described in the official guidance associated with CVE-2026-20833. The primary objective of this phase is to allow organizations to identify existing RC4 dependencies before enforcement changes are applied in later phases. During this phase, no functional breakage is expected, as RC4 is still permitted by the KDC. However, additional auditing mechanisms were introduced, providing greater visibility into how Kerberos tickets are issued in the environment. Analysis is primarily based on the following events recorded in the Security Log of Domain Controllers: Event ID 4768 – Kerberos Authentication Service (AS request / Ticket Granting Ticket) Event ID 4769 – Kerberos Service Ticket Operations (Ticket Granting Service – TGS) Additional events related to the KDCSVC service These events allow identification of: the account that requested authentication the requested service or SPN the source host of the request the encryption algorithm used for the ticket and session key This information is critical for detecting scenarios where RC4 is still being implicitly used, enabling operations teams to plan remediation ahead of the enforcement phase. If these events are not being logged on Domain Controllers, it is necessary to verify whether Kerberos auditing is properly enabled. For Kerberos authentication events to be recorded in the Security Log, the corresponding audit policies must be configured. The minimum recommended configuration is to enable Success auditing for the following subcategories: Kerberos Authentication Service Kerberos Service Ticket Operations Verification can be performed directly on a Domain Controller using the following commands: auditpol /get /subcategory:"Kerberos Service Ticket Operations" auditpol /get /subcategory:"Kerberos Authentication Service" In enterprise environments, the recommended approach is to apply this configuration via Group Policy, ensuring consistency across all Domain Controllers. The corresponding policy can be found at: Computer Configuration - Policies - Windows Settings - Security Settings - Advanced Audit Policy Configuration - Audit Policies - Account Logon Once enabled, these audits record events 4768 and 4769 in the Domain Controllers’ Security Log, allowing analysis tools—such as inventory scripts or SIEM/Log Analytics queries—to accurately identify where RC4 is still present in the Kerberos authentication flow. April 2026 – Enforcement with Manual Rollback With the April 2026 update, the KDC begins operating in AES-only mode (0x18) when the msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes attribute is not defined. This means RC4 is no longer accepted as an implicit fallback. During this phase, applications, accounts, or computers that still implicitly depend on RC4 may start failing. Manual rollback remains possible via explicit configuration of the attribute in Active Directory. July 2026 – Final Enforcement Starting in July 2026, audit mode and rollback options are removed. RC4 will only function if explicitly configured—a practice that is strongly discouraged. This represents the point of no return in the hardening process. Official Monitoring Approach Microsoft provides official scripts in the repository: https://github.com/microsoft/Kerberos-Crypto/tree/main/scripts The two primary scripts used in this analysis are: Get-KerbEncryptionUsage.ps1 The Get-KerbEncryptionUsage.ps1 script, provided by Microsoft in the Kerberos‑Crypto repository, is designed to identify how Kerberos tickets are issued in the environment by analyzing authentication events recorded on Domain Controllers. Data collection is primarily based on: Event ID 4768 – Kerberos Authentication Service (AS‑REQ / TGT issuance) Event ID 4769 – Kerberos Service Ticket Operations (TGS issuance) From these events, the script extracts and consolidates several relevant fields for authentication flow analysis: Time – when the authentication occurred Requestor – IP address or host that initiated the request Source – account that requested the ticket Target – requested service or SPN Type – operation type (AS or TGS) Ticket – algorithm used to encrypt the ticket SessionKey – algorithm used to protect the session key Based on these fields, it becomes possible to objectively identify which algorithms are being used in the environment, both for ticket issuance and session establishment. This visibility is essential for detecting RC4 dependencies in the Kerberos authentication flow, enabling precise identification of which clients, services, or accounts still rely on this legacy algorithm. Example usage: .\Get-KerbEncryptionUsage.ps1 -Encryption RC4 -Searchscope AllKdcs | Export-Csv -Path .\KerbUsage_RC4_All_ThisDC.csv -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8 Data Consolidation and Analysis In enterprise environments, where event volumes may be high, it is recommended to consolidate script results into analytical tools such as Power BI to facilitate visualization and investigation. The presented image illustrates an example dashboard built from collected results, enabling visibility into: Total events analyzed Number of Domain Controllers involved Number of requesting clients (Requestors) Most frequently involved services or SPNs (Targets) Temporal distribution of events RC4 usage scenarios (Ticket, SessionKey, or both) This type of visualization enables rapid identification of RC4 usage patterns, remediation prioritization, and progress tracking as dependencies are eliminated. Additionally, dashboards help answer key operational questions, such as: Which services still depend on RC4 Which clients are negotiating RC4 for sessions Which Domain Controllers are issuing these tickets Whether RC4 usage is decreasing over time This combined automated collection + analytical visualization approach is the recommended strategy to prepare environments for the Microsoft changes related to CVE‑2026‑20833 and the progressive removal of RC4 in Kerberos. Visualizing Results with Power BI To facilitate analysis and monitoring of RC4 usage in Kerberos, it is recommended to consolidate script results into a Power BI analytical dashboard. 1. Install Power BI Desktop Download and install Power BI Desktop from the official Microsoft website 2. Execute data collection After running the Get-KerbEncryptionUsage.ps1 script, save the generated CSV file to the following directory: C:\Temp\Kerberos_KDC_usage_of_RC4_Logs\KerbEncryptionUsage_RC4.csv 3. Open the dashboard in Power BI Open the file RC4-KerbEncryptionUsage-Dashboards.pbix using Power BI Desktop. If you are interested, please leave a comment on this post with your email address, and I will be happy to share with you. 4. Update the data source If the CSV file is located in a different directory, it will be necessary to adjust the data source path in Power BI. As illustrated, the dashboard uses a parameter named CsvFilePath, which defines the path to the collected CSV file. To adjust it: Open Transform Data in Power BI. Locate the CsvFilePath parameter in the list of Queries. Update the value to the directory where the CSV file was saved. Click Refresh Preview or Refresh to update the data. Click Home → Close & Apply. This approach allows rapid identification of RC4 dependencies, prioritization of remediation actions, and tracking of progress throughout the elimination process. List-AccountKeys.ps1 This script is used to identify which long-term keys are present on user, computer, and service accounts, enabling verification of whether RC4 is still required or whether AES128/AES256 keys are already available. Interpreting Observed Scenarios Microsoft recommends analyzing RC4 usage by jointly considering two key fields present in Kerberos events: Ticket Encryption Type Session Encryption Type Each combination represents a distinct Kerberos behavior, indicating the source of the issue, risk level, and remediation point in the environment. In addition to events 4768 and 4769, updates released starting January 13, 2026, introduce new Kdcsvc events in the System Event Log that assist in identifying RC4 dependencies ahead of enforcement. These events include: Event ID 201 – RC4 usage detected because the client advertises only RC4 and the service does not have msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes defined. Event ID 202 – RC4 usage detected because the service account does not have AES keys and the msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes attribute is not defined. Event ID 203 – RC4 usage blocked (enforcement phase) because the client advertises only RC4 and the service does not have msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes defined. Event ID 204 – RC4 usage blocked (enforcement phase) because the service account does not have AES keys and msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes is not defined. Event ID 205 – Detection of explicit enablement of insecure algorithms (such as RC4) in the domain policy DefaultDomainSupportedEncTypes. Event ID 206 – RC4 usage detected because the service accepts only AES, but the client does not advertise AES support. Event ID 207 – RC4 usage detected because the service is configured for AES, but the service account does not have AES keys. Event ID 208 – RC4 usage blocked (enforcement phase) because the service accepts only AES and the client does not advertise AES support. Event ID 209 – RC4 usage blocked (enforcement phase) because the service accepts only AES, but the service account does not have AES keys. https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/topic/how-to-manage-kerberos-kdc-usage-of-rc4-for-service-account-ticket-issuance-changes-related-to-cve-2026-20833-1ebcda33-720a-4da8-93c1-b0496e1910dc They indicate situations where RC4 usage will be blocked in future phases, allowing early detection of configuration issues in clients, services, or accounts. These events are logged under: Log: System Source: Kdcsvc Below are the primary scenarios observed during the analysis of Kerberos authentication behavior, highlighting how RC4 usage manifests across different ticket and session encryption combinations. Each scenario represents a distinct risk profile and indicates specific remediation actions required to ensure compliance with the upcoming enforcement phases. Scenario A – RC4 / RC4 In this scenario, both the Kerberos ticket and the session key are issued using RC4. This is the worst possible scenario from a security and compatibility perspective, as it indicates full and explicit dependence on RC4 in the authentication flow. This condition significantly increases exposure to Kerberoasting attacks, since RC4‑encrypted tickets can be subjected to offline brute-force attacks to recover service account passwords. In addition, environments remaining in this state have a high probability of authentication failure after the April 2026 updates, when RC4 will no longer be accepted as an implicit fallback by the KDC. Events Associated with This Scenario During the Audit Phase, this scenario is typically associated with: Event ID 201 – Kdcsvc Indicates that: the client advertises only RC4 the service does not have msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes defined the Domain Controller does not have DefaultDomainSupportedEncTypes defined This means RC4 is being used implicitly. This event indicates that the authentication will fail during the enforcement phase. Event ID 202 – Kdcsvc Indicates that: the service account does not have AES keys the service does not have msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes defined This typically occurs when: legacy accounts have never had their passwords reset only RC4 keys exist in Active Directory Possible Causes Common causes include: the originating client (Requestor) advertises only RC4 the target service (Target) is not explicitly configured to support AES the account has only legacy RC4 keys the msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes attribute is not defined Recommended Actions To remediate this scenario: Correctly identify the object involved in the authentication flow, typically: a service account (SPN) a computer account or a Domain Controller computer object Verify whether the object has AES keys available using analysis tools or scripts such as List-AccountKeys.ps1. If AES keys are not present, reset the account password, forcing generation of modern cryptographic keys (AES128 and AES256). Explicitly define the msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes attribute to enable AES support. Recommended value for modern environments: 0x18 (AES128 + AES256) = 24 As illustrated below, this configuration can be applied directly to the msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes attribute in Active Directory. AES can also be enabled via Active Directory Users and Computers by explicitly selecting: This account supports Kerberos AES 128 bit encryption This account supports Kerberos AES 256 bit encryption These options ensure that new Kerberos tickets are issued using AES algorithms instead of RC4. Temporary RC4 Usage (Controlled Rollback) In transitional scenarios—during migration or troubleshooting—it may be acceptable to temporarily use: 0x1C (RC4 + AES) = 28 This configuration allows the object to accept both RC4 and AES simultaneously, functioning as a controlled rollback while legacy dependencies are identified and corrected. However, the final objective must be to fully eliminate RC4 before the final enforcement phase in July 2026, ensuring the environment operates exclusively with AES128 and AES256. Scenario B – AES / RC4 In this case, the ticket is protected with AES, but the session is still negotiated using RC4. This typically indicates a client limitation, legacy configuration, or restricted advertisement of supported algorithms. Events Associated with This Scenario During the Audit Phase, this scenario may generate: Event ID 206 Indicates that: the service accepts only AES the client does not advertise AES in the Advertised Etypes In this case, the client is the issue. Recommended Action Investigate the Requestor Validate operating system, client type, and advertised algorithms Review legacy GPOs, hardening configurations, or settings that still force RC4 For Linux clients or third‑party applications, review krb5.conf, keytabs, and Kerberos libraries Scenario C – RC4 / AES Here, the session already uses AES, but the ticket is still issued using RC4. This indicates an implicit RC4 dependency on the Target or KDC side, and the environment may fail once enforcement begins. Events Associated with This Scenario This scenario may generate: Event ID 205 Indicates that the domain has explicit insecure algorithm configuration in: DefaultDomainSupportedEncTypes This means RC4 is explicitly allowed at the domain level. Recommended Action Correct the Target object Explicitly define msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes with 0x18 = 24 Revalidate new ticket issuance to confirm full migration to AES / AES Conclusion CVE‑2026‑20833 represents a structural change in Kerberos behavior within Active Directory environments. Proper monitoring is essential before April 2026, and the msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes attribute becomes the primary control point for service accounts, computer accounts, and Domain Controllers. July 2026 represents the final enforcement point, after which there will be no implicit rollback to RC4.
MFA 14 days grace period
is there any other options apart from below two ? As mentioned, for the 14 day grace period to apply to users when registering for MFA, there are two ways to achieve this. One way would be to enable Security Defaults which would enable MFA for the entire tenant. This option does not need additional licenses and can be enabled from the AAD portal. For more information on SD, please refer to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/fundamentals/concept-fundamentals-security-defaults. The second option would be to enable the AAD MFA Registration Policy. To do this, you would require Identity Protection, which is included within the AAD Premium P2 licenses. This policy will apply to Conditional Access Policies. For more information on this, please refer to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/identity-protection/howto-identity-protection-configure-mfa-policy. The GitHub Azure Docs forum that discusses this is within the following site https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/azure-docs/issues/43034.
File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) using Defender for Cloud to comply with PCI DSS requirement
In this post, we discuss how File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) can be implemented using Microsoft Defender for Cloud which is one of the requirements of PCI DSS. What is FIM? FIM, also known as a change detection solution, is one of the requirements for PCI DSS which verifies whether an application, operating system, or registry has not been compromised. FIM is very useful when the server gets compromised and the attacker starts installing unauthorized applications or malicious code, malware, spyware, and changes OS and application files. Microsoft Defender for Cloud can be the savior here as it provides FIM for Azure VM and non-Azure Servers. How FIM helps in becoming PCI DSS compliant PCI DSS Requirement 11.5 describes FIM and the details given below are from the official PCI web page pcisecuritystandards.org. PCI DSS Requirements Testing Procedures Guidance 11.5: Deploy a change-detection mechanism (for example, file-integrity monitoring tools) to alert personnel to unauthorized modification (including changes, additions, and deletions) of critical system files, configuration files, or content files; and configure the software to perform critical file comparisons at least weekly. Note: For change-detection purposes, critical files are usually those that do not regularly change, but the modification of which could indicate a system compromise or risk of compromise. Change-detection mechanisms such as file-integrity monitoring products usually come pre-configured with critical files for the related operating system. Other critical files, such as those for custom applications, must be evaluated and defined by the entity (that is, the merchant or service provider). 11.5.a: Verify the use of a change-detection mechanism by observing system settings and monitored files, as well as reviewing results from monitoring activities. Examples of files that should be monitored: • System executables • Application executables • Configuration and parameter files • Centrally stored, historical or archived, log and audit files • Additional critical files determined by entity (for example, through risk assessment or other means). 11.5.b: Verify the mechanism is configured to alert personnel to unauthorized modification (including changes, additions, and deletions) of critical files, and to perform critical file comparisons at least weekly. Change-detection solutions such as file-integrity monitoring (FIM) tools check for changes, additions, and deletions to critical files, and notify when such changes are detected. If not implemented properly and the output of the change-detection solution monitored, a malicious individual could add, remove, or alter configuration file contents, operating system programs, or application executables. Unauthorized changes, if undetected, could render existing security controls ineffective and/or result in cardholder data being stolen with no perceptible impact to normal processing. How to achieve FIM using Defender for Cloud Microsoft Defender for Cloud (previously Azure Security Center) comes with two plans. Plan one is free and the other one is paid. If we use the paid plan of Defender for Cloud then we will get workload protections features (also known as advanced features). FIM is one of the premium features of the paid version of Defender for Cloud. The technology behind FIM here in Azure are Log Analytics agent, Log Analytics workspace, and Azure Change Tracking. Log Analytics agent uploads data to Log Analytics workspace of the current state of the items. FIM uses Azure Change Tracking to track and identified the changes in those servers. Now we will see in detail how the PCI DSS requirement 11.5 can be achieved using Defender for Cloud. Enable FIM Login to Azure portal (portal.azure.com) and go to Defender for Cloud->Workload protections->File integration monitoring. Choose the correct workspace name and click on Enable button. The server should be connected to the Log Analytics workspace. In the below image, we can see 5 servers are connected to the selected workspace. Click on the File Integrity Monitoring button. FIM will be enabled for these 5 servers and will start tracking changes in Windows files, registry, and Linux files. We can modify these settings (add/remove change tracking for specific registry value, add/remove change tracking for specific Windows/Linux file path) as per our needs. This is the FIM dashboard where we can see all the detected changes. When any changes will happen we can see it here. Right now everything is zero. It will take some time to reflect on the changes for the first time. Now we have to do some registry and files changes so FIM can detect them and show them to the dashboard. For example, add a new registry value. We add a new value to the registry named FIMTEST, FIMTEST1, FIMTEST3, and FIMTEST4. Another example, install Wireshark on the server. The installation wizard changes files in Program Files and will be detected by FIM. FIM has detected the both registry's new value and file changes on a certain location. FIM dashboard is showing the changes as shown in the below image. Here, Value Before is blank and Value After has data (FIMTEST). It means FIMTEST is a new entry to the registry and it could be a malicious entry by a bad actor and should be reviewed. Here, both Value Before and Value After having data but the data is not the same. It means the existing registry value has been modified. It could be modified by malicious applications or bad actors. We can check specific changes using the Log Analytics query. For example, we are looking for all the changes under the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. Below query shows the multiple new entries that we added previously. ConfigurationChange | where RegistryKey == @"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" If we want the alert should be triggered whenever any such events occurred then we can create an Alert that is also one of the items in requirements 11.5. Click on the New alert rule and follow the wizard. The triggered alert will be shown in Alets's dashboard of Azure Monitor. It's saying the registry value has changed. SecMon team should have deeper look at the alerts and investigate if it's malicious and unauthorized. we can see the details of the alert including the cafeteria of the alert triggered. We can see the query behind the alert. There are many more scenarios for alerting, below are a few more queries that we use for more alerting. Source: MS Docs ConfigurationChange | where ConfigChangeType == "Files" and FileSystemPath contains " c:\windows\system32\drivers\" ConfigurationChange | where FieldsChanged contains "FileContentChecksum" and FileSystemPath == "c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts" ConfigurationChange | where ConfigChangeType == "WindowsServices" and SvcName contains "w3svc" and SvcState == "Stopped" ConfigurationChange | where ConfigChangeType == "Daemons" and SvcName contains "ssh" and SvcState!= "Running" ConfigurationChange | where ConfigChangeType == "Software" and ChangeCategory == "Added" ConfigurationData | where SoftwareName contains "Monitoring Agent" and CurrentVersion!= "8.0.11081.0" Conclusion We can see all the requirements like identifying and tracking the changes on the registry, file, and services are tracked and in case of any suspicious activity, an alert will be triggered, and hence, PCI DSS requirement 11.5 can be easily achieved by Defender for Cloud's FIM. Hope this was helpful, contact me on Twitter @sakaldeep for any queries.
Azure Guest Account - Invitation email is not receiving for invited user
Hi, We are trying to create guest accounts in Azure using Microsoft Graph API (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/invitation-post?view=graph-rest-1.0&tabs=http). But, we have observed that the invited user did not receive any email invitation which should happen automatically. Sample POST request that we are using: { "invitedUserEmailAddress": "Email address", "inviteRedirectUrl": "http://localhost" } Could you please help us in this regards. Thank you in advance.
