From “No” to “Now”: A 7-Layer Strategy for Enterprise AI Safety
The “block” posture on Generative AI has failed. In a global enterprise, banning these tools doesn't stop usage; it simply pushes intellectual property into unmanaged channels and creates a massive visibility gap in corporate telemetry. The priority has now shifted from stopping AI to hardening the environment so that innovation can run at velocity without compromising data sovereignty. Traditional security perimeters are ineffective against the “slow bleed” of AI leakage - where data moves through prompts, clipboards, and autonomous agents rather than bulk file transfers. To secure this environment, a 7-layer defense-in-depth model is required to treat the conversation itself as the new perimeter. 1. Identity: The Only Verifiable Perimeter Identity is the primary control plane. Access to AI services must be treated with the same rigor as administrative access to core infrastructure. The strategy centers on enforcing device-bound Conditional Access, where access is strictly contingent on device health. To solve the "Account Leak" problem, the deployment of Tenant Restrictions v2 (TRv2) is essential to prevent users from signing into personal tenants using corporate-managed devices. For enhanced coverage, Universal Tenant Restrictions (UTR) via Global Secure Access (GSA) allows for consistent enforcement at the cloud edge. While TRv2 authentication-plane is GA, data-plane protection is GA for the Microsoft 365 admin center and remains in preview for other workloads such as SharePoint and Teams. 2. Eliminating the Visibility Gap (Shadow AI) You can’t secure what you can't see. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (MDCA) serves to discover and govern the enterprise AI footprint, while Purview DSPM for AI (formerly AI Hub) monitors Copilot and third-party interactions. By categorizing tools using MDCA risk scores and compliance attributes, organizations can apply automated sanctioning decisions and enforce session controls for high-risk endpoints. 3. Data Hygiene: Hardening the “Work IQ” AI acts as a mirror of internal permissions. In a "flat" environment, AI acts like a search engine for your over-shared data. Hardening the foundation requires automated sensitivity labeling in Purview Information Protection. Identifying PII and proprietary code before assigning AI licenses ensures that labels travel with the data, preventing labeled content from being exfiltrated via prompts or unauthorized sharing. 4. Session Governance: Solving the “Clipboard Leak” The most common leak in 2025 is not a file upload; it’s a simple copy-paste action or a USB transfer. Deploying Conditional Access App Control (CAAC) via MDCA session policies allows sanctioned apps to function while specifically blocking cut/copy/paste. This is complemented by Endpoint DLP, which extends governance to the physical device level, preventing sensitive data from being moved to unmanaged USB storage or printers during an AI-assisted workflow. Purview Information Protection with IRM rounds this out by enforcing encryption and usage rights on the files themselves. When a user tries to print a "Do Not Print" document, Purview triggers an alert that flows into Microsoft Sentinel. This gives the SOC visibility into actual policy violations instead of them having to hunt through generic activity logs. 5. The “Agentic” Era: Agent 365 & Sharing Controls Now that we're moving from "Chat" to "Agents", Agent 365 and Entra Agent ID provide the necessary identity and control plane for autonomous entities. A quick tip: in large-scale tenants, default settings often present a governance risk. A critical first step is navigating to the Microsoft 365 admin center (Copilot > Agents) to disable the default “Anyone in organization” sharing option. Restricting agent creation and sharing to a validated security group is essential to prevent unvetted agent sprawl and ensure that only compliant agents are discoverable. 6. The Human Layer: “Safe Harbors” over Bans Security fails when it creates more friction than the risk it seeks to mitigate. Instead of an outright ban, investment in AI skilling-teaching users context minimization (redacting specifics before interacting with a model) - is the better path. Providing a sanctioned, enterprise-grade "Safe Harbor" like M365 Copilot offers a superior tool that naturally cuts down the use of Shadow AI. 7. Continuous Ops: Monitoring & Regulatory Audit Security is not a “set and forget” project, particularly with the EU AI Act on the horizon. Correlating AI interactions and DLP alerts in Microsoft Sentinel using Purview Audit (specifically the CopilotInteraction logs) data allows for real-time responses. Automated SOAR playbooks can then trigger protective actions - such as revoking an Agent ID - if an entity attempts to access sensitive HR or financial data. Final Thoughts Securing AI at scale is an architectural shift. By layering Identity, Session Governance, and Agentic Identity, AI moves from being a fragmented risk to a governed tool that actually works for the modern workplace.Passed AZ-500 Exam
I have passed my exam. Initially, I found AZ-500 exam preparation difficult but later I got https://www.p2pexams.com/products/az-500 material from P2PExams. It was a great help for me. This AZ-500 exam study material was well-designed by professionals. It helped me understand all key concepts related to an actual exam. On the exam day. I easily attempted all the questions and got brilliant results on the exam. I especially thank P2PExams. It was really a great resource.New Blog Post | How to Query HaveIBeenPwned Using a Microsoft Sentinel Playbook
How to Query HaveIBeenPwned Using a Microsoft Sentinel Playbook - Azure Cloud & AI Domain Blog (azurecloudai.blog) I’ve known Troy Hunt for a number of years and his contributions to the security and privacy industry have been hugely valuable and much appreciated by the masses. HaveIBeenPwned is a great resource developed and maintained by Troy. It provides the ability to query against its database to expose domains or user accounts that have been caught up in any of the number of reported industry data breaches. Wouldn’t it be nice, then, to have this data available for your Microsoft Sentinel investigations? Fortunately, Troy provides an API for his service. I’ve provided a Microsoft Sentinel Playbook that takes email addresses associated with an Incident and submits them through the API and returns a quick note to the Comments tab in the Incident as to whether or not the email address(es) has been compromised.
Scheduling attack simulations
I'm starting to use the Defender attack simulation feature. I have approx. 3000 users to target. Leadership don't want to send 3000 tests every month rather divide the people up across 12 months sending smaller monthly batches. The issue of not being enough tests for each individual is there a way to automate the sending of these to even batches of people across 12 months rather than having to set these up manually?
Is it possible to allow MFA registration only in a work profile on a managed phone
Hello, I'm currently rolling out MDM via Endpoint Manager and also enforcing compliance policies using conditional access. I would like to allow MFA registration only in work profiles, so that users can only register MFA (for Passwordless sign in) on the Microsoft Authenticator app in their work profile. Does anyone have experience with this, or is this currently even possible? BrS
User app registration - exploitable for BEC?
Hello. Recently dealt with a case of BEC. I'm not trained in forensics, but doing my best. Appears the hacker used an application called eM Client for their attack, getting access to a user's mailbox and hijacking a thread. I can see the login from two weeks ago (the incident was only noticed a couple days ago, however) - from a European country that SHOULD have been blocked by Conditional Access. Come to find out, the tenant conditional access was unassigned from everyone. We're not sure how - we re-enabled it, and audited changes, but the only change that appears was us re-enabling it. Which I thought indicates it was never configured right, except we've got a ticket documenting a change to Conditional Access a couple days after the hack that ALSO does not appear in the logs. So... it's likely it was changed, yet I have no record of that change (atleast, not through Entra > Monitoring > Auditing). If anyone knows any other ways of checking this, please advise - but I can't seem to even access our Diagnostic settings, the page tells me I need an Azure Active Directory subscription (I'm on Entra ID P1, which includes AAD.... this might be related to being global admin, and not Security Admin - we don't use that role in this relationship) ANYWAY, my amateur forensic skills have found that the attacker used an app called eM Client to get access. I'm not sure yet how they obtained the password, and got past MFA... But quick research shows this application (esp it's pro version) is known for use in BEC. The app was registered in Entra, and granted certain read permissions in Entra ID for shared mailboxes, presumably to find a decent thread to hijack. I'm not 100% sure yet there was any actual exploit done using this app, but it's popularity amongst hackers implies it does SOMETHING useful (i think remember that it authenticates using Exchange Web Services instead of Exchange Online, or something similar? Will update when I have the chance to check). We're in the process of improving our Secure Score, and this incident makes me think user's ability to register apps should be locked down. Checked Secure Score for this, and while there ARE recommendations around apps, disabling user app registration is NOT one of them. Just curious about people's thoughts. I just barely understand App Registration in Entra, but if this is a known attack vector, I would think disabling app registration would be a security recommendation?RSS feeds to security blogs?
Hello, After the update of blogs here i no longer see any RSS feeds or links. Where can those RSS feed be found now? It was the only newsfeed where blogs could be aggregated. perhaps im just blind :) but i cant find the new RSS feeds. Thank you! Previously (before this weeks update) the links to those RSS feed was as follows: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=MicrosoftSecurityandCompliance https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=Identity https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=CoreInfrastructureandSecurityBlog https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=AzureNetworkSecurityBlog https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=IdentityStandards https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=MicrosoftThreatProtectionBlog https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=MicrosoftDefenderCloudBlog https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=MicrosoftDefenderATPBlog https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=MicrosoftDefenderIoTBlog https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=DefenderExternalAttackSurfaceMgmtBlog https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=Vulnerability-Management https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=DefenderThreatIntelligence https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=MicrosoftSecurityExperts https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=Microsoft-Security-Baselines https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=MicrosoftSentinelBlog https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/gxcuf89792/rss/board?board.id=MicrosoftDefenderforOffice365Blog
Secure score Drops Down temporarily due MS set exclusion attribute to system
Hello, One of client encounter problem, when secure score drops down from ~85% to 64%. Last month there was one drop. Now its repeats two days in a row. Drop encounters at 3 AM (+3h time zone) when all our exclusion attributes automatically set to System. And restores ~ 11AM same day, when attributes were automatically set back to administrator which made exclusions. This is important to us and client because we have agreement to keep secure score at 80%+.New Blog | eDiscovery launches a modern, intuitive user experience
By ninachen This month, we have launched a redesigned Microsoft Purview eDiscovery product experience in public preview. This improved user experience revolutionizes your data search, review and export tasks within eDiscovery. Our new user-friendly and feature-rich eDiscovery experience is not just about finding and preserving data, it's about doing it with unprecedented efficiency and ease. The modern user experience of eDiscovery addresses some long-standing customer requests, such as enhanced search capabilities with MessageID, Sensitive Information Types (SITs) and sensitivity labels. It also introduces innovative features like draft query with Copilot and search using audit log. These changes, driven by customer feedback and our commitment to innovation, offer tangible value by saving time and reducing costs in the eDiscovery process. The new eDiscovery experience is exclusively available in the Microsoft Purview portal. The new Microsoft Purview portal is a unified platform that streamlines data governance, data security, and data compliance across your entire data estate. It offers a more intuitive experience, allowing users to easily navigate and manage their compliance needs. Read the full post here: eDiscovery launches a modern, intuitive user experience
