Monitoring work from home
My boss has asked me if there is a way to see just how "busy" people who are working from home are. I have this data in Sentinel: Entra sign-in logs Defender for Endpoint logs Office 365 logs Most, if not all, on premise AD login events Netskope (current ZTNA solution) logs I have my known office location IPs so i could just exclude those and look for activity from other IPs however many times people will work in the morning or on the way to work appearing from a non corporate IP, come into the office appearing to come from a corporate IP, and then from home again in the evening. I need a way to query Sentinel looking for people who appear to be working but not coming from Corp IP. If they came from different IPs on the same day including Corp check to see if those non Corp are before and after business hours and exclude those. Anyone know of a good query to achieve this? Or maybe a tool that can extract and generate a report?Defender XDR: Tables not supported for table management
I am trying to extend the table retention of specific tables to allow them to flow to Sentinel Analytics but keep getting the message "This table is not supported for table management" in the Sentinel > Configuration > Tables page. The Sentinel workspace is connected in System > Settings > Microsoft Sentinel. I can see the table type is XDR in the list which seems to be the reason why it can't be managed. Any ideas why this table is not able to be managed.Monthly News-August 2026
Microsoft Defender Monthly news - August 2026 Edition This is our monthly "What's new" blog post, summarizing product updates and various new assets we released over the past month across our Defender products. In this edition, we are looking at all the goodness from July 2026. We are now including news related to Defender for Cloud in the Defender portal. For all other Defender for Cloud news, have a look at the dedicated Defender for Cloud Monthly News here. 🚀 New Virtual Ninja Show episode: Redefining identity security for the modern enterprise One policy engine to govern them all: Securing agentic AI with Microsoft Purview Building a modern detection pipeline with ContentOps Securing local AI agents with Microsoft Defender Microsoft Defender: Extending critical protection for emerging threats in Team Actionable threat insights (find all of them here) Email threat landscape: Q2 2026 trends and insights Enhancing AI security through global AI red teaming Least privilege for AI agents: Identity, access, and tool binding Microsoft Defender (Public Preview) Microsoft Defender now assesses posture risk for AI agents, including enterprise agents and local agents discovered on endpoint devices. Risk levels are based on active risk indicators, such as configuration, access, runtime activity, endpoint and user context, and active alerts. Security teams can use posture risk and recommendations to prioritize risky agents and improve agent security posture. For more information, see AI agent posture risk in Microsoft Defender. (Generally available) The Domain investigation page allows you to investigate an Active Directory domain. It shows Active Directory domain security, including domain properties, deployment health, identity summary, service account breakdown, sensitive entities, active recommendations, group policies, and trust relationships. For more information, see Investigate a domain . (Generally available) With a Microsoft Agent 365 license, Microsoft Defender provides discovery, security posture, threat detection and investigation, and real-time protection for the AI agents in your tenant. Onboarding includes enabling data collection, connecting the Microsoft 365 app connector, and connecting Copilot Studio for real-time protection of Copilot Studio agents. For more information, see Protect AI agents using Microsoft Defender. (Generally available) Improved access to Playbook Generator: Following the GA release of Playbook Generator May 31st, the team focused on streamlining the onboarding experience and reducing friction related to Security Copilot wallet provisioning. Playbook Generator remains included with Microsoft Sentinel and does not consume SCUs for generating, testing, or running playbooks, yet customer feedback highlighted friction around Security Copilot wallet provisioning and initial setup requirements. The team worked on simplifying access and reducing onboarding barriers so organizations can more quickly take advantage of AI-assisted playbook creation, testing, and automation capabilities. For all other Sentinel News, have a look at the "What's new in Microsoft Sentinel blog post - July edition" Identity Security (Generally available) Migration of Defender for Identity sensors from v2.x to v3.x is now generally available. For more information, see Migrate to Defender for Identity sensor v3.x. Migration readiness reasons on the Sensors page: When a server is marked Not ready for migration on the Sensors page, you can now hover over the status to see a tooltip that lists the specific reasons the server doesn't meet the migration prerequisites. For more information, see Troubleshoot "Not ready for migration" status. (Public Preview) Expanded SaaS app support in Password protection. The Password protection page now includes password risks from SaaS apps connected through Defender for Cloud Apps, in addition to Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, and Okta. SaaS apps that support SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM), such as Salesforce and ServiceNow, appear on the Password Hygiene and Password Policies tabs. Each SaaS app requires a Defender for Cloud Apps app connector. For more information, see Investigate identity password protection. Automatic RPC auditing on domain controllers: Defender for Identity now automatically enables RPC auditing on domain controllers when you upgrade to sensor version 3.0.8 or later. You no longer need to apply a tag manually to enable RPC auditing. For more information, see Configure RPC auditing. Microsoft Defender Experts MDR General Availability of Microsoft Defender Experts MDR P2: Microsoft Defender Experts MDR (formerly Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR) is expanding with new third-party and multi-cloud coverage powered by Microsoft Sentinel, with the launch of Defender Experts MDR P2 service. Defender Experts MDR provides a 24/7 managed detection and response service that reduces noise, adds expert context, and drives action. In addition to the Microsoft Defender products, this new service supports key non-Microsoft sources across cloud (AWS), identity (Okta), email (Proofpoint), network (Palo Alto Networks, Cisco, Fortinet, ZScaler), and endpoint (CrowdStrike) that are ingested in Microsoft Sentinel, providing E2E visibility and protection for customers operating heterogenous environments. Defender Experts will continue expanding our scope to other non-Microsoft products to deliver on this promise. For more information, see the Microsoft Defender Experts MDR documentation. Microsoft Security Exposure Management / Defender Vulnerability Management (Private Preview) Codename MDASH - Agentic code scanner is now available in private preview in Microsoft Security Exposure Management. Codename MDASH uses a multi-model agentic AI system to detect code vulnerabilities with greater depth and accuracy than traditional static analysis. Security teams can run scans from Defender CLI or through a GitHub connector, review findings in the Defender portal, and use results to help prioritize code security risks. For more information, see Agentic code security overview. (Private Preview) Codename MDASH - MAI-Augmented scan profile private preview. The MAI-Augmented scan profile is now available in preview as part of Codename MDASH. The MAI-Augmented profile can be used when triggering a scan through the Defender CLI. It includes MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, a new cyber-specialized model that extends the current agentic scanner in addition to the existing required models. Security teams can choose this profile when triggering a scan from Defender CLI or continue using a scan profile based on the existing models. For more information, see Scan with a scan profile. OT data connectors in Microsoft Security Exposure Management: Microsoft Security Exposure Management now supports operational technology (OT) data connectors for Armis, Dragos, and Forescout. OT data connectors bring OT asset and vulnerability data from supported third-party OT platforms into the Defender portal. This helps security teams view OT devices alongside other assets, enrich device inventory with OT context, and investigate vulnerabilities across IT and OT environments. For more information, see OT data connectors. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (Public Preview) AI agent runtime protection includes these enhancements: - Vendor-supported agent event interfaces now work with standard platform and engine update channels, so no Beta channel configuration is required. Agent-native event inspection now supports Codex CLI and the GitHub Copilot app. - Network inspection is now supported for agents that don't expose vendor-supported event interfaces, including OpenClaw and similar Node.js-based Claw agents. For more information, see AI agent runtime protection with Defender for Endpoint. (Generally available) Available from Defender for Endpoint on Linux version 101.26042.0011 and later. The Defender Deployment Tool for Linux simplifies deployment by combining installation, onboarding, upgrades, and uninstallation into a single workflow. The tool automates prerequisite validation, supports custom installation paths, enables deployment of specific Defender versions from preferred update channels, and works seamlessly in environments that use local repositories. In addition to a simplified deployment experience, customers can now gain complete visibility into deployment progress through Device Timeline integration, providing step-by-step installation, upgrade, and onboarding status, Advanced Hunting queries for fleet-wide deployment monitoring, and detailed error reporting, including deployment stage, status, exit code, and failure reason to simplify troubleshooting. These capabilities help administrators quickly identify deployment issues, track onboarding progress, and understand deployment outcomes across their Linux estate. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Unified RBAC is the default permission model for new Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 organizations. Starting July 2026, new Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 organizations use the Microsoft Defender unified role-based access control (Unified RBAC) model by default. For more information, see Configure Unified RBAC for Defender for Office 365 and MC1246006. Microsoft 365 E3 now includes Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 1. For more information about what's included in each plan, see Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 vs. Plan 2 cheat sheet. Prompt injection protection: Defender for Office 365 now detects prompt injection attacks hidden in inbound email. For more information, see Prompt injection protection in Defender for Office 365.Triage vulnerabilities with the Vulnerability Remediation Agent, now in public preview
As automation and AI accelerate the pace of vulnerability discovery, the window between disclosure and exploitation continues to shrink. For IT and security teams, the challenge is no longer just finding vulnerabilities - it's prioritizing the ones that matter and acting on them before they can be exploited. To help organizations close that gap, we're pleased to announce that the Vulnerability Remediation Agent for Security Copilot in Microsoft Intune is now in public preview and rolling out to all customers. Following a successful limited preview, the agent is now broadly available. This release brings agentic vulnerability remediation out of an early-access cohort and into the hands of every eligible organization - an important step in our continued investment in helping admins reduce exposure faster and with greater confidence. View eligibility prerequisites here. How the agent helps you identify and triage vulnerabilities The Vulnerability Remediation Agent uses data from Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management to identify Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) across your Intune-managed Windows devices and apps, then prioritizes them for remediation. Rather than leaving admins to sift through lengthy CVE lists with little context, the agent surfaces a prioritized set of recommendations directly in the Intune admin center - accessible from both the Agents and Endpoint security pages. When the agent runs, it evaluates vulnerability data and ranks threats based on factors such as CVSS scores, exposure impact, and affected device count, so the most critical issues rise to the top. Drilling into any suggestion provides: The count of associated CVEs A Copilot-assisted summarized impact analysis Suggested actions and affected systems Exposed devices and potential impact Step-by-step guidance for remediating the threat using Intune After acting on a recommendation, admins can mark it as applied, allowing the agent to retain a record for tracking remediation actions over time. The result is a meaningful reduction in the time it takes to investigate, prioritize, and remediate - strengthening overall security posture. Introducing agentic identity for the Vulnerability Remediation Agent With this release, the agent now operates under Microsoft Entra agentic identity - a meaningful advancement in how autonomous agents are governed and secured. What it is. Agentic identity is a specialized identity in Microsoft Entra ID that allows the agent to operate securely and independently. During setup, the agent provisions a dedicated agentic identity and a corresponding agentic user in your tenant's Microsoft Entra directory. The agent then runs under the permissions delegated to that agentic user rather than under a human user account. Why it matters. Agentic identity decouples the agent from any one person, ensuring its behavior is strictly bound to the permissions and scope you delegate to it. This delivers clearer accountability, a cleaner audit trail, and enterprise-grade governance for autonomous operations. How it helps. Admins remain firmly in control. After setup, delegate the required read permissions to the agentic user in the Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Defender admin centers, then use the built-in Readiness Check to confirm everything is configured correctly before the agent runs. Learn more in Agent identity. Getting started: Connect → Enable → Run → Remediate → Track One of the design goals behind the Vulnerability Remediation Agent is to make agentic security approachable, not complex. Rather than stitching together signals across multiple tools and admin centers, the agent guides admins through a clear, repeatable flow - from connecting your data to tracking measurable improvement over time. Connect — bring Defender and Intune data together. The agent draws on Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management for CVE intelligence and Microsoft Intune for device and configuration context. With the required Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Intune plugins in place, your vulnerability and management signals work as one. Learn more on what is needed to connect the experience. Enable — turn on the agent. From the Agents node in the Microsoft Intune admin center, set up the agent in a few guided steps. During setup, the agent provisions its Microsoft Entra agentic identity and surfaces the permissions and plugins it needs, so you know exactly what to delegate before the first run. Run — let automated prioritization do the heavy lifting. Once permissions are delegated and the Run Readiness Check passes, you can configure the agent to run on demand or schedule it to run automatically in the background on a cadence you define; scheduling is a unique capability that helps teams stay ahead of emerging risks without requiring constant manual intervention. Each run analyzes your environment and produces a prioritized list of recommendations ranked by CVSS score, exposure impact, and affected device count so the most critical risks rise to the top automatically. Remediate — act with guided, Intune-ready actions. Each recommendation includes a Copilot-assisted impact summary, exposed devices, and step-by-step guidance for remediating the threat using Intune. Admins move directly from insight to action, without leaving the admin center. Track — measure improvement over time. Recommendations can be marked as applied, and the agent retains a record of your remediation actions. The outcome is a streamlined operating model: connect once, enable with confidence, and let the agent drive a continuous cycle of prioritization, remediation, and view progress. For full prerequisites, licensing, plugin, and role requirements, see Vulnerability Remediation Agent overview and set up. The Vulnerability Remediation Agent represents a meaningful step toward a more proactive, AI-assisted security posture, one where admins spend less time sifting through CVE lists and more time acting on what matters most. We invite you to try the public preview today, connect your Defender and Intune data, and experience how agentic remediation can help your team stay ahead of emerging threats. As always, we'd love to hear your feedback as we continue investing in making security in Intune faster, smarter, and more accessible. Share your tips and lessons learned in the comments below or reach out to us on X @IntuneSuppTeam. Join our community! Discuss real-world scenarios, get expert guidance, connect with peers, and influence the future of Microsoft Security products. Learn more at aka.ms/JoinIntuneCommunity.Feature Request: Manual Invocation Mode for Embedded Security Copilot Experiences to reduce cost !
Hello, I see that Copilot for Security in XDR dashboards , if used in embedded mode (I mean whenever you are opening a case to investigate) you get AUTOMATICALLY a summary of the incident , and you are consuming SCU costs. I want a way either globally as a tenant option, or through a pwsh to be able to DISABLE this, or be able to PRESS the AI button AND THEN generate the AI reply (and consume SCU credits ..) Current behavior: Open Incident --> Copilot automatically generates Incident Summary --> SCUs ARE consumed Desired behavior: Open Incident --> No AI execution --> Click "Generate Summary" MANUALLY --> SCUs consumed I am not talking about RBAC controls to assign WHO of my admins can use Security Copilot, I have set that, BUT I want my admin to decide IF they want AI to help them (and consume - pay for that SCU credits-costs) OR NOT !! At the moment I havent found any solution, except to educate my admin to press CANCEL the moment he/she opens such an XDR dashboard ! :) Does anyone knows something ? Regards, Panos
Prompted to sign in to Microsoft Defender Platform on W11/W2025 using Entra
Hi Microsoft Defender XDR community, Since around May 18th, our users on devices that are onboarded to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint are being prompted to sign-in to the following application using Entra on login to Windows. Application Microsoft Defender Platform Application ID cab96880-db5b-4e15-90a7-f3f1d62ffe39 Is anyone aware of a change that requires user sign-in to Entra as a requirement for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint? I have tried raising a support topic on this topic. Regards Chris
Is "Endpoint Security Policies" available to us? (error getting Intune policies)
Question We'd like to use Defender \ Endpoint Security Policies. Is that possible for my tenant's environment? Getting below error on "Defender \ Endpoint Security Policies" page "There seems to be an issue getting your Intune policies" Details of our environment Purpose of defender To protect our server fleet that's running outside of Azure Tenant GCC - Moderate Scoped Region Commercial Azure East US 2 Subscription Microsoft Defender for Servers Plan 1 (No other subscription, etc.) Defender Client OS Windows 2016, 2019, 2022 RHEL8, 9 (No desktops\laptops) Agents installed on each Windows and Linux server Defender is onboarded Arc is onboarded Configured Settings and Errors Defender \ Settings \ Configuration management \ Enforcement scope https://security.microsoft.com/securitysettings/endpoints/configuration_management2 Error at top of page "Intune is not configured to allow Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to manage security configuration settings." Use MDE to enforce security configuration settings from Intune Set to ON Enable configuration management Windows Server devices On tagged devices Windows Server Domain Controller devices On tagged devices Linux devices On tagged devices Security settings management for Microsoft Defender for Cloud onboarded devices. Set to ON Manage Security settings using Configuration Manager Set to OFF Defender \ Settings \ Configuration management \ Intune Permissions https://security.microsoft.com/securitysettings/endpoints/intune_permissions Getting error "Access needed You don't have the right permissions in AAD to view this information (in addition to those you already have in MDE). To adjust your permissions, go to the AAD portal." Defender \ Endpoint Security Policies https://security.microsoft.com/policy-inventory On main page, getting below error There seems to be an issue getting your Intune policies If I try to make a new policy There seems to be an issue loading the policy authoring wizard. Intune \ Endpoint security https://intune.microsoft.com/#view/Microsoft_Intune_Workflows/SecurityManagementMenu Getting Error You don't have access Intune roles | My permissions https://intune.microsoft.com/#view/Microsoft_Intune_DeviceSettings/RolesLandingMenuBlade/~/myPermissions You're an administrator with full permissions to all Microsoft Intune resources. Intune roles | Administrator Licensing https://intune.microsoft.com/#view/Microsoft_Intune_DeviceSettings/RolesLandingMenuBlade/~/administratorLicensing Allow admins without an Intune license to access Intune. Their scope of access is determined by the Intune roles you've assigned them. I've clicked the box "Allow access to unlicensed admins" Alternatives If Defender \ Endpoint Security Policies isn't available, as alternatives, I guess we could use SCCM Antimalware policies to manage Windows servers Deploying a central mdatp_managed.json to manage Linux servers However, it would be greatly preferred to use the Defender \ Endpoint Security Policies feature for Windows and LinuxSentinel - Defender XDR KQL Queries Library
Hello all, I’ve been building something over the past few weeks that I think the security community might find useful. https://goxdr.fyi is a searchable KQL query library for Microsoft Sentinel and Defender XDR. The name comes from a nickname my colleagues gave me (GoX) combined with XDR. I also picked up https://goxdr.fyi as a short and easy to remember domain for it. You can check it out here: https://goxdr.fyi The idea came from my own day to day work as someone working in IAM and SOC operations. I constantly find myself writing and refining KQL queries for threat hunting, detection engineering and incident investigation. Over time I realized I had a growing collection of queries that I kept going back to and I thought why not make these available to others? It currently has 117 queries covering identity security, BEC/AiTM detection, NTLM and LDAP attack hunting, OAuth governance, AI/Copilot security, Sentinel alert trending, SOC performance metrics and more. Some of these queries are ones I wrote from scratch based on real scenarios I encountered in production environments. Others are community queries I tested and validated in my own setup. Only the ones I found genuinely useful and that actually worked against real data made it in. Each query comes with a description explaining what it detects and why it matters, along with severity levels, platform tags (Sentinel, XDR or both) and a copy button so you can paste it directly into Advanced Hunting or use it as the basis for an Analytics Rule. The site is open source, hosted on GitHub Pages and licensed under CC BY 4.0. No sign-up, no paywall, no tracking. The source is available. I’ll keep adding queries as new scenarios come up. If there’s enough interest I’m also considering adding Cortex XQL queries for Palo Alto environments. Suggestions, feedback or ideas for new detections are always welcome. Feel free to reach out. Thanks
Introducing scheduled antivirus scans on Microsoft Defender Linux
Security teams rely on scheduled scans to ensure consistent coverage across devices, detect dormant or missed threats, and meet compliance requirements. However, managing scans on Linux has traditionally required custom scripts and cron-based setups, which can be hard to scale and maintain. That’s why we’re excited to introduce centrally managed scheduled antivirus scans for Linux in Microsoft Defender. With this release, we are bringing built-in, flexible scheduling capabilities directly into Defender - making it easier to manage and standardize scan behavior across Linux environments. What’s new With this capability, customers can now configure scheduled antivirus scans on Linux using security settings management policies in the Microsoft Defender portal for centralized policy enforcement or local Managed JSON configuration that can be deployed via configuration management tools like ansible, puppet and chef. The feature supports a flexible set of scheduling options, including hourly quick scans (interval-based scheduling), daily quick scans at a defined time, and weekly scans with configurable scan type (quick or full). In addition, customers can control how scans run with advanced options such as: Running scans only when the device is idle Reducing CPU impact using low CPU priority Checking for definition updates before scanning Randomizing scans start times Ignoring exclusions during scheduled scans These capabilities allow security teams to balance coverage, performance, and operational needs across large Linux environments. Why this matters From a security perspective, scheduled scans play a critical role in detecting dormant threats, missed detections, and malicious artifacts that may not be caught through real-time protection alone. Without consistent and centrally enforced scheduling, these gaps can increase risk across the environment. With this release, scheduled scans are now: Centrally managed through Defender policies Consistently enforced across devices Aligned with security best practices for regular scanning Integrated into the broader Defender security posture This helps organizations strengthen their overall security posture while reducing operational complexity. Get started To get started, ensure devices are running agent version 101.26032.0000 or later (production ring), and configure scheduled scans using managed JSON or Defender portal policies. Learn more Learn more about how to schedule antivirus scans on Linux To learn more about endpoint protection with Microsoft Defender, check out our website. To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.
