Microsoft Ignite 2025: Transforming Phishing Response with Agentic Innovation
Phishing attacks remain one of the most persistent and damaging threats to organizations worldwide. Security teams are under constant pressure to investigate a growing number of user reported phishing emails daily, ensuring accurate verdicts and timely responses. As threats grow in volume and sophistication, SOC teams are forced to spend valuable time triaging and investigating, often at the expense of strategic defense and proactive threat hunting. At Microsoft Ignite 2025 we are delivering innovation that showcases our continued commitment to infuse AI agents, and agentic workflows into the core of our email security solution and SOC operations to automate repetitive tasks, accelerate investigations, and provide transparent, actionable insights for every reported phishing email. In addition, we continue to invest in our ecosystem partnerships to empower customers with seamless integrations, as they adopt layered security solutions to comply with regulatory requirements, enhance detection, and ensure robust protection. Today I’m excited to announce: General Availability of the Security Alert Triage Agent (previously named Phishing Triage Agent) Agentic Email Grading System in Microsoft Defender Cisco and VIPRE Security Group join the Microsoft Defender ICES ecosystem Note: The Phishing Triage Agent has since been expanded and is now called the Security Alert Triage Agent. Learn more at aka.ms/SATA The Security Alert Triage Agent is now generally available In March 2025, we introduced the Security Alert Triage Agent, designed to autonomously handle user-submitted phishing reports at scale. The agent classifies incoming alerts, resolves false positives, and escalates only the malicious cases that require human expertise. Today, we’re announcing its general availability. We will also be extending the agent to triage alerts for identity and cloud alerts. The Security Alert Triage Agent automates repetitive tasks, accelerates investigations, and every decision is transparent, allowing security teams to focus on what matters most—investigating real threats and strengthening the overall security posture. Early results prove how it is transforming analyst work: Identified 6.5X more malicious alerts Improved verdict accuracy by 77% Agent supported analysts spent 53% more time investigating real threats Agentic email grading: Advanced analysis of phishing email submissions When customers report suspicious messages to Microsoft, they expect clarity, speed, and actionable insights to protect their environment. They expect a response they can trust, understand easily, and take additional investigation and response action for the organization. Previously, when customers reported messages to Microsoft, our response depended largely on manual human grader reviews, creating delays and inconsistent verdicts. Customers often waited several hours for a response, and sometimes it lacked clarity on how a verdict was reached. Today, we are excited to announce that we integrated an agentic grading system into the Microsoft Defender submission analysis and response workflow when customers report phishing messages to Microsoft. Image 2: Agentic Email Grading: Advanced analysis of phishing email submissions The agentic grading system brings a new level of speed and transparency to phishing analysis. It uses large language models (LLMs) orchestrated within an agentic workflow to analyze phishing emails, assess the full content of a submitted email, and communicate context and related metadata. This system combines advanced AI with existing machine learning models and human review for additional levels of accuracy and transparency for decision making. Every verdict comes with higher quality, clear verdicts, and context-rich explanations tailored to each phishing email submission. Additionally, it establishes a feedback mechanism that enhances continuous learning and self-healing, thereby strengthening and optimizing protection over time. By reducing reliance on manual reviews, users will experience lower wait times, faster responses and higher-quality results. It will enable security teams to respond promptly and act confidently against phishing threats. Over time we plan to expand beyond phishing verdicts to include spam, scam, bulk, and clean classifications, making the process more comprehensive. The system will continue to evolve through feedback and adapt to emerging attack patterns. How to view agentic submission responses in Microsoft Defender When you report a suspicious email—whether as an admin or an end user—you can now see how Microsoft Defender’s new agentic grading system evaluates your submission. To view agentic grading system responses, follow the steps below: Report the suspicious email Submit the email through the admin submission or user-reported submission process. Sign in to Microsoft Defender Go to https://security.microsoft.com. Navigate to Submissions From the left menu, select: Investigation & response > Actions & submissions > Submissions. Choose the correct tab Emails for admin submissions User reported for user submissions Open the submission details Click the email submission you want to review. A flyout panel will display Result details. Look for the Agentic AI note If the verdict was generated by Agentic AI, you’ll see: “AI-generated content may be incorrect. Check it for accuracy.” Image 3: AI generated explainable verdicts Expanding the Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES) ecosystem In June, we introduced the Microsoft Defender ICES vendor ecosystem, a unified framework that enables seamless integration of Microsoft’s Defender’s email security solution with trusted third-party vendors. Today we are excited to announce two new partners: Cisco and VIPRE Security Group. The addition of these partners to our ecosystem reinforces our ongoing commitment to support customers in their choice to strategically layer their email security solutions. Organizations benefit from a unified quarantine experience, and a deep integration across the various SOC experiences including threat explorer, advanced hunting, and the email entity page, while providing clear insight into detection efficacy of each solution. As we continue to innovate, our commitment remains steadfast: empowering defenders with intelligent, transparent, and integrated security solutions that adapt to the evolving threat landscape. By infusing agentic AI into every layer of Microsoft Defender, expanding our ecosystem of trusted partners, and delivering faster, more actionable insights, we’re helping organizations build resilience and stay ahead of attackers. Our strategy is rooted in delivering real value making security simpler, more effective, and adapted to the needs of every customer. Learn More: Want to know what else is new in Microsoft Defender at Ignite 2025 check out the blog here. For info on how to complete admin phish submissions, please see For end user reported phish submissions, you need to have it configured for reporting messages to Microsoft. Set it up today. Join us at Microsoft Ignite Join us at Microsoft Ignite to see these advancements in action and discover how intelligent, agentic defense is becoming accessible to every organization. Don’t miss our featured sessions: AI vs AI: Protect email and collaboration tools with Microsoft Defender on Thursday, November 20 th . Learn More. Microsoft Defender: Building the agentic SOC with guest Allie Mellen on Wednesday, November 19 th . Learn more. Empowering the SOC: Security Copilot and the rise of Agentic Defense on Friday, November 21 st . Learn more.
Strengthening calendar security through enhanced remediation
In today’s evolving threat landscape, phishing attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, often leveraging meeting invites to bypass traditional defenses. While Security Operations (SOC) teams rely on Microsoft Defender’s remediation actions to remove malicious emails, a hidden risk persists: calendar entries created by Outlook during email delivery. These entries can remain active even after the email is deleted, leaving users exposed to harmful content. This update addresses that gap. Remediation supports cleaning up calendar entries SOC teams currently use remediation actions such as Move to Junk, Delete, Soft Delete, and Hard Delete to quickly eliminate email threats from user inboxes. However, meeting invite emails introduce an additional challenge. Even after the email is removed, Outlook automatically creates a calendar entry during delivery, which remains accessible to users. For example, consider a phishing email sent as a meeting invite. Despite the admin removing the email from the user’s inbox, the user can still interact with the same malicious content via the calendar entry. This residual entry may contain harmful links or phishing content, creating a security gap. With this update, we’re taking the first step toward closing that gap. Hard Delete will now also remove the associated calendar entry for any meeting invite email. This ensures threats are fully eradicated—not just from the inbox but also from the calendar—reducing the risk of user interaction with malicious content. This change applies to Hard Delete actions taken from any surface, including Explorer, Advanced Hunting, and API. Note: 1) Deleted calendar entries can be restored by resending the meeting invite. 2) This action does not remove calendar entries manually added by users via .ics files. Ability to Block URL domains via submission/TABL actions from Explorer SOC teams can currently add senders and URLs to the TABL block list when submitting false negatives to Microsoft. However, phishing campaigns often use variations of URLs under the same parent domain, making full URL blocking less effective. With this update, TABL options for URL domains are now dynamically surfaced, enabling SOC teams to block entire domains without leaving their workflow. This enhancement simplifies remediation and strengthens defenses against domain-based phishing attacks. These updates strengthen SOC remediation workflows by closing critical security gaps and ensuring threats are fully neutralized across all user touchpoints. By extending remediation to calendar entries and enabling domain-level URL blocking, we deliver comprehensive protection that reduces risk, streamlines operations, and safeguards user experiences. At Microsoft, our priority is your security, and we remain committed to empowering SOC teams with tools that make defense smarter and more effective. Learn more: Remediate malicious email that was delivered in Office 365 - Microsoft Defender for Office 365 | Microsoft LearnYou may be right after all! Disputing Submission Responses in Microsoft Defender for Office 365
Introduction As a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) specializing in SIEM, XDR, and Cloud Security, I have witnessed the rapid evolution of cybersecurity technologies, especially those designed to protect organizations from sophisticated threats targeting email and collaboration tools. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 introduced an LLM-based engine to help better classify phishing emails that, these days, are mostly written using AI anyways about a year ago. Today, I'm excited to spotlight 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. Understanding the Challenge While the automated and human-driven analyses are robust in Defender for Office 365, there are occasions where the response—be it a verdict of "benign" or "malicious"— doesn’t fully align with the security team's context or threat intelligence. If you are a Microsoft 365 organization with Exchange Online mailboxes, you’re probably familiar with how admins can use the Submissions page in the Microsoft Defender portal to submit messages, URLs, and attachments to Microsoft for analysis. As a recent enhancement, now all the admin submissions use LLM based response for better explainability. In the past, disputing such verdicts required separate support channels, using Community support, or manual email processes, often delaying resolution and impacting the speed of cyber operations. Introducing the Dispute Submission Response Feature With the new dispute submission response feature, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 bridges a critical gap in the incident response workflow. Now, when a security analyst or administrator receives a verdict on a submitted item, they have the option to dispute the response directly within the Microsoft 365 Defender portal. This feature streamlines feedback, allowing teams to quickly flag disagreements and provide additional context for review at the speed of operations. How It Works Upon submission of a suspicious item, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 provides a response indicating its assessment—malicious, benign, or other categorizations. If the security team disagrees with the verdict, they can select the "Dispute" option and submit their rationale, including supporting evidence and threat intelligence. The disputed case is escalated directly to Microsoft’s threat research team for further review, and the team is notified of progress and outcomes. This direct feedback loop not only empowers security teams to advocate for their organization's unique context, but also enables Microsoft to continually refine detection algorithms and verdict accuracy based on real-world input, because security is a team sport. Benefits for Security Operations Faster Resolution: Streamlined dispute submission eliminates the need for external support tickets and escalations, reducing turnaround time for critical cases. Greater Transparency: The feature fosters a collaborative relationship between customers and Microsoft, ensuring that verdicts are not final judgments but points in an ongoing dialogue. Continuous Improvement: Feedback from disputes enhances Microsoft’s threat intelligence and improves detection for all Defender for Office 365 users. Empowerment: Security teams gain a stronger voice in the protection of their environment, reinforcing trust in automated defenses. MVP Insights: Real-World Impact Having worked with global enterprises, I’ve seen how nuanced and context-specific threats can be. Sometimes, what appears benign to one organization may be a targeted attack for another, a slight modification to a URL may catch one email, but not others, as slight changes are made as billions of emails are sent. We are only as good as the consortium. The ability to dispute submission responses creates a vital safety net, ensuring that security teams are not forced to accept verdicts that could expose them to risk. It’s a welcome step toward adaptive, user-driven security operations. Conclusion The dispute submission response feature in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is one of the most exciting features for me, because it focuses on enabling organizations striving for agility and accuracy in threat management. By enabling direct, contextual feedback, Microsoft empowers security teams to play an active role in shaping their defenses. As an MVP, I encourage all users to leverage this feature, provide detailed feedback, and help drive the future of secure collaboration in the cloud. You may be right after all. _________ This blog has been generously and expertly authored by Microsoft Security MVP, Mona Ghadiri with support of the Microsoft Defender for Office 365 product team. Mona Ghadiri Microsoft Security MVP Learn More and Meet the Author 1) December 16th Ask the Experts Webinar: Microsoft Defender for Office 365 | Ask the Experts: Tips and Tricks (REGISTER HERE) DECEMBER 16, 8 AM US Pacific You’ve watched the latest Microsoft Defender for Office 365 best practices videos and read the blog posts by the esteemed Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs). Now bring your toughest questions or unique situations straight to the experts. In this interactive panel discussion, Microsoft MVPs will answer your real-world scenarios, clarify best practices, and highlight practical tips surfaced in the recent series. We’ll kick off with a who’s who and recent blog/video series recap, then dedicate most of the time to your questions across migration, SOC optimization, fine-tuning configuration, Teams protection, and even Microsoft community engagement. Come ready with your questions (or pre-submit here) for the expert Security MVPs on camera, or the Microsoft Defender for Office 365 product team in the chat! REGISTER NOW for 12/16. 2) Additional MVP Tips and Tricks Blogs and Videos in this Four-Part Series: 1. Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Migration & Onboarding by Purav Desai 2. Safeguarding Microsoft Teams with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 by Pierre Thoor 3. (This blog post) You may be right after all! Disputing Submission Responses in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 by Mona Ghadiri 4. Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Fine-Tuning | Real-world Defender for Office 365 tuning that closes real attack paths by Joe Stocker Learn and Engage with the Microsoft Security Community Log in and follow this Microsoft Defender for Office 365 blog and follow/post in the Microsoft Defender for Office 365 discussion space. Follow = Click the heart in the upper right when you're logged in 🤍 Learn more about the Microsoft MVP Program. Join the Microsoft Security Community and be notified of upcoming events, product feedback surveys, and more. Get early access to Microsoft Security products and provide feedback to engineers by joining the Microsoft Customer Connection Community. Join the Microsoft Security Community LinkedInSafeguarding Microsoft Teams with Microsoft Defender for Office 365
As organizations rely more on Microsoft Teams for daily collaboration, securing this platform has become a top priority. Threat actors are increasingly targeting Teams chats and channels with phishing links and malicious files, making it critical for IT admins and security professionals to extend protection beyond email. Enter Microsoft Defender for Office 365, now armed with dedicated Teams protection capabilities. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 enables users to report suspicious messages, brings time-of-click scanning of URLs and files into Teams conversations, and provides rich alerts and hunting insights for SecOps teams. As a collaborative piece between Pierre Thoor, a Microsoft Security Most Valuable Professional (MVP), and the Defender for Office 365 Product Engineering Team, the below guides with accompanying videos emphasize a proactive, user-driven approach to threat detection and response, turning everyday Teams interactions into actionable security signals for SecOps. See something, say something: Reporting suspicious messages in Microsoft Teams Your fastest sensor isn’t AI – it’s your people. Report this message in Microsoft Teams lets anyone flag a suspicious conversation in two clicks and routes a triageable submission to your security team in the Microsoft Defender portal. Why this matters: Speed to signal: Catch threats at the conversation layer, not just in email. Complete context: Original message, participants, URLs, and verdicts in one place. Habit-forming: A simple, repeatable action employees remember under pressure. How to report (desktop, web, and mobile) In Desktop/Web Hover the message → … More options → Report this message Select Security concern → (optional) add a short note → Report In Mobile (iOS/Android) app Long-press the message → Report message Select Security concern → (optional) add a short note → Report *Tip: Short notes like “Unexpected MFA reset link” help analysts triage faster. Where reports go (for security teams) In the Microsoft Defender portal, navigate to: Investigation & response → Actions and submissions → Submissions → User reported. Open an item to view the Teams message entity (sender/domain, Teams message ID, extracted URLs, verdict) and take action – mark as phish/clean, pivot to Explorer or Advanced Hunting, or copy indicators. Quick setup check Defender portal → Settings → Email & collaboration → User reported settings: enable Monitor reported messages in Microsoft Teams. Licensing: Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 (included in Microsoft 365 E5). What good looks like (mini playbook) User reports the message. Security triages the submission and captures the URL/domain and other indicators. Block or allow as appropriate via the Tenant Allow/Block List (TABL). Hunt for related activity or clicks (see Video 3). Close the loop: thank the reporter and share the outcome to reinforce the behavior. Common gotchas Reporting is disabled in the Teams messaging policy – verify before rollout. Some users assume “Report” notifies the sender – clarify that it routes to the Security team, not the sender. Call to action: Enable reporting for your users and add this line to your awareness site: “If it feels phishy, report – don’t click.” Think before you click - Safe Links catches threats at click-time Links can change after delivery. Safe Links waits until click-time, evaluates the destination, and shows an in-app warning page in Teams. Pair it with the Tenant Allow/Block List (TABL) to tune quickly across the tenant. Why this matters Prevents delayed redirects: Avoids “clean-at-send” methods. Consistent protection in Teams: Familiar warning UX reduces risky clicks. Rapid tuning: Block newly observed domains in seconds; no advanced transport rules required. What you’ll see in the video Policy check (Teams in scope) Defender portal → Email & collaboration → Policies & rules → Threat policies → Safe Links → ensure Apply Safe Links to Microsoft Teams is enabled for target users or groups OR that you use Standard/Strict Preset Policy. Warning page at click-time Post a benign test URL in Teams and click it to show the Safe Links warning experience. Block it as you spot it (Allow/Block) Defender portal → Threat policies → Tenant Allow/Block List → URLs → Add (domain or URL). Re-click in Teams – now blocked at click-time. Optional telemetry (Advanced Hunting) Confirm outcomes and adoption: UrlClickEvents | where Timestamp > ago(24h) and Workload == "Teams" | summarize Clicks=count(), Users=dcount(AccountUpn) by ActionType | order by Clicks desc Deployment tips Start with a pilot group that includes IT + power users; expand after validation. Create a review cadence for TABL (e.g., monthly) and expire temporary blocks. Troubleshooting No warning page? Verify policy scope includes the user and the Teams workload. Block not taking effect? Give TABL a short sync window, then re-test; confirm you blocked the correct domain/URL pattern. “Hunt the chat”: Advanced hunting for Teams threats Overview With Advanced Hunting you can quickly reconstruct activity in Microsoft Teams – who sent the message, who clicked the link, and what protections kicked in. This section shows how the four Teams-relevant tables work together, so you can move from signal to action quickly. New: message warnings for malicious URLs (internal and external) Teams now shows a warning banner on messages that contain URLs flagged as spam, phishing, or malware. Warnings appear in internal and external chats/channels, and can be added after delivery (up to ~48 hours) if a URL’s reputation changes. This complements Safe Links (time-of-click) and doesn’t replace ZAP; when ZAP removes a message, that action takes precedence. Public preview began September 2025; GA November 2025, enabled by default at GA and manageable in Teams admin center → Messaging settings. See Message Center: https://admin.cloud.microsoft/?#/MessageCenter/:/messages/MC1150984 The four tables you’ll use MessageEvents – delivery context (sender, thread, internal vs. external). MessagePostDeliveryEvents – post-delivery actions, including Phish ZAP and Malware ZAP. MessageUrlInfo – URLs extracted from Teams messages. UrlClickEvents – time-of-click outcomes for links, including those clicked in Teams. What you’ll learn in the video Surface active external domains in your tenant’s Teams chats. Identify who clicked risky links and the click outcomes (via Safe Links telemetry). See where message warnings appear in the chat UI. Pivot to an incident and block indicators fast via the Tenant Allow/Block List (TABL). A couple hunts to try right now 1) Malicious verdicts in Teams (last 24 hours) Find messages that already carry a Spam/Phish/Malware verdict – your fastest triage queue. MessageEvents | where Timestamp > ago(1d) | where ThreatTypes has "Phish" or ThreatTypes has "Malware" or ThreatTypes has "Spam" | project Timestamp, SenderDisplayName, SenderEmailAddress, RecipientDetails, IsOwnedThread, ThreadType, IsExternalThread, ReportId Use it for: a quick sweep + pivot to incident/entities, then TABL block if needed. 2) “IT helpdesk” imposters in external DMs (last 5 days) Surface social-engineering lures that impersonate support. MessageEvents | where Timestamp > ago(5d) | where IsExternalThread == true | where (RecipientDetails has "help" and RecipientDetails has "desk") or (RecipientDetails has "it" and RecipientDetails has "support") or (RecipientDetails has "working" and RecipientDetails has "home") or (SenderDisplayName has "help" and SenderDisplayName has "desk") or (SenderDisplayName has "it" and SenderDisplayName has "support") or (SenderDisplayName has "working" and SenderDisplayName has "home") | project Timestamp, SenderDisplayName, SenderEmailAddress, RecipientDetails, IsOwnedThread, ThreadType, ReportId Use it for: first-contact scams (external tenant posing as IT). Pair with Safe Links telemetry to see who clicked. Tip: has is token-aware and generally faster/cleaner than contains for word matches. Keep both hunts detection-ready by ensuring the final projection includes Timestamp and ReportId. 3) BONUS! External DMs with links (last 7 days) MessageEvents | where Timestamp > ago(7d) and IsExternalThread == true | join kind=inner (MessageUrlInfo) on TeamsMessageId | summarize Links=dcount(Url), Senders=dcount(SenderEmailAddress) by UrlDomain | top 10 by Links desc 4) Who clicked (Teams workload) – exposure view: UrlClickEvents | where Timestamp > ago(7d) and Workload == "Teams" | project Timestamp, AccountUpn, Url, ActionType | order by Timestamp desc “From Hunt to Action”: Respond & contain Finding a risky link in Teams is only half the job. This walkthrough shows how to go from detection to containment – block the domain, clean up delivered messages, and cut attacker access. Why this matters Speed: Shrink time from “we saw it” to “it’s blocked”. Consistency: Turns ad-hoc hunting into a repeatable response flow. Coverage: Pair URL blocking with identity and device containment. What you’ll see in the video Turn a hunt into an alert In Advanced Hunting, run a short query (below) and choose Create detection rule to schedule it. Alerts auto-create incidents you can triage. Block at click-time (Safe Links + TABL) In the incident, open the URL entity and add the URL/domain to the Tenant Allow/Block List (TABL) so future Teams clicks are blocked by Safe Links. Post-delivery cleanup (ZAP) If a malicious message slipped through, ZAP can remove or mark it after delivery. You’ll see evidence on the incident timeline. Contain accounts and devices Revoke user sessions in Entra ID to invalidate active tokens. Reset the password (and require strong, unique credentials), then enforce MFA for the account. Review MFA methods and remove anything suspicious; review app consents and revoke illicit grants. If endpoints are onboarded, isolate the device in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to stop outbound connections while you investigate. The Microsoft Learn guide, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-office-365/responding-to-a-compromised-email-account, for compromised accounts recommends session revocation, password reset, MFA enforcement, reviewing OAuth app consents and admin roles, and checking mail forwarding/rules – steps that complement the Teams response you see here. The hunt This KQL surfaces rare external domains in Teams and any user clicks. let lookback = 1d; // External Teams messages let externalMsgs = MessageEvents | where Timestamp > ago(lookback) and IsExternalThread == true | project MsgTime = Timestamp, TeamsMessageId, SenderEmailAddress, ME_ReportId = ReportId; // URLs found in Teams messages let urlsInMsgs = MessageUrlInfo | where Timestamp > ago(lookback) | project MUI_Time = Timestamp, TeamsMessageId, Url, UrlDomain, MUI_ReportId = ReportId; // Clicks coming from Teams let clicks = UrlClickEvents | where Timestamp > ago(lookback) and Workload == "Teams" | project ClickTime = Timestamp, Url, Clicker = AccountUpn, ClickAction = ActionType, UCE_ReportId = ReportId; // Define “rare” domains in the period let rareDomains = urlsInMsgs | summarize msgCount = dcount(TeamsMessageId) by UrlDomain | where msgCount < 3; rareDomains | join kind=inner (urlsInMsgs) on UrlDomain | join kind=leftouter (externalMsgs) on TeamsMessageId | join kind=leftouter (clicks) on Url | project Timestamp = coalesce(ClickTime, MUI_Time, MsgTime), UrlDomain, Url, SenderEmailAddress, Clicker, ClickTime, ClickAction, TeamsMessageId, ReportId = coalesce(UCE_ReportId, MUI_ReportId, ME_ReportId) After verifying results, select Create detection rule, set a schedule (e.g., hourly), and map entities so incidents include the right artifacts. What good looks like (response playbook) Alert fires → open incident; confirm scope and entities. Block URL/domain via TABL to stop future clicks. Confirm ZAP removed or marked delivered messages. Revoke sessions and reset password; enforce MFA. Review MFA methods and remove unknown devices/methods. Audit app consents (revoke illicit grants) and verify the user holds no unexpected admin roles. If email abuse is suspected, check for forwarding or malicious Inbox rules. Isolate device if execution is suspected; collect artifacts and un-isolate after remediation. FAQs Does the block remove the message? No – TABL blocks at click-time. Post-delivery removal is handled by ZAP when detections apply. Will revoking sessions disrupt users? It forces sign-in again (expected). Communicate this in your response template. What if the attacker used consent phishing? Revoke the offending enterprise app consent and review publisher verification status. Call to action: Save the query, create the detection, and attach this playbook to your incident template. The goal every time: find → block → clean up → contain Securing Microsoft Teams is most effective when technology and people work together. By enabling user reporting, leveraging real-time protections, and empowering security teams to act quickly, organizations can turn everyday collaboration into a strong defense against threats. ## Please take two minutes to take this survey to let us know what you think of this blog (series), video, and community content. Questions or comments on this blog "Microsoft Defender for Office 365 – A Four-Part Guide to Secure Collaboration" for the author or other readers? Please log in and post your response below! _____________ This blog has been generously and expertly authored by Microsoft Security MVP, Pierre Thoor with support of the Microsoft Defender for Office 365 product team. Pierre Thoor Microsoft Security MVP | Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Champ Learn More and Meet the Author 1) December 16th Ask the Experts Webinar: Microsoft Defender for Office 365 | Ask the Experts: Tips and Tricks (REGISTER HERE) DECEMBER 16, 8 AM US Pacific You’ve watched the latest Microsoft Defender for Office 365 best practices videos and read the blog posts by the esteemed Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs), now bring your toughest questions or unique situations straight to the experts. In this interactive panel discussion, Microsoft MVPs will answer your real world scenarios, clarify best practices, and highlight practical tips surfaced in the recent series. We’ll kick off with a who’s who and recent blog/video series recap, then dedicate most of the time to your questions across migration, SOC optimization, fine-tuning configuration, Teams protection, and even Microsoft community engagement. Come ready with your questions (or pre-submit here) for the expert Security MVPs on camera, or the Microsoft Defender for Office 365 product team in the chat! REGISTER NOW for 12/16. 2) Additional MVP-Authored Blogs in this Four- Part Series: Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Migration & Onboarding by Purav Desai (This post) Safeguarding Microsoft Teams with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 You may be right after all! Disputing Submission Responses in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 by Mona Ghadiri Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Fine-Tuning by Joe Stocker Learn and Engage with the Microsoft Security Community Log in and follow this Microsoft Defender for Office 365 blog and follow/post in the Microsoft Defender for Office discussion space. Follow = Click the heart in the upper right when you're logged in 🤍 Learn more about the Microsoft MVP Program. Join the Microsoft Security Community and be notified of upcoming events, product feedback surveys, and more. Get early access to Microsoft Security products and provide feedback to engineers by joining the Microsoft Customer Connection Community. Join the Microsoft Security Community LinkedInMicrosoft Defender EOP
We have been experiencing an issue since last week where we are unable to view the details of quarantined emails. Could you please confirm if this is related to a known backend service issue, or if there are any specific troubleshooting steps we should perform on our end? Any guidance or updates would be greatly appreciated.Auto-Remediation of Malicious Messages in Automated Investigation and Response (AIR) is GA
We are excited to announce the GA release of auto-remediation of malicious messages through automated investigation and response (AIR) expanding this powerful tool and deliver on full end to end automation of key SOC scenarios. AIR works to triage, investigate and remediate and respond to high-impact, high-volume security alerts providing tenant level analysis to increase customer protection and optimize SOC teams. With this enhancement, customers will be able to configure AIR to automatically execute remediations for messages within malicious entity clusters saving SOC teams time and further expediting remediation by removing the need to for SOC teams to approve these actions! To highlight the key user submission scenario, in addition to AIR completing triage, investigation, remediation identification, and end user feedback responses, customers may now configure AIR to take this a step even further to automatically execute on identified remediations. Auto-Remediation Action When AIR recognizes a malicious file or URL, it creates a cluster around the malicious file or URL grouping all messages that contain that file or URL into the respective cluster. The automated investigation then checks the location of the messages within the cluster and if it finds messages within user’s mailboxes, AIR will produce a remediation action. With the auto-remediation enhancement, if the customer has configured the cluster type to auto-remediate, this action will automatically be executed without the need for SecOps approval - removing identified threats at machine speed! Auto-remediated clusters showing in action center history with decided by stating automation: Configuration Auto-remediation will be controlled by a configuration within Settings > Email & Collaboration > MDO automation settings. Within the message clusters section, organizations may specify which types of message clusters they would like to be auto-remediated: Similar files: When the automated investigation recognizes a malicious file, it creates a cluster around the malicious file grouping all messages that contain that file into the cluster. Selecting this checkbox will opt the organization into auto-remediation for these malicious file clusters. Similar URLs: When the automated investigation recognizes a malicious URL, it creates a cluster around the malicious URL grouping all messages that contain the URL into the cluster. Selecting this checkbox will opt the organization into auto-remediation for these malicious URL clusters. The next configuration is for the remediation action, designating soft delete as soft delete is currently the only action supported through AIR. Auto-remediation of malicious entity clusters configuration found in settings>Email & collaboration>MDO automation settings: Note: Customers interested in auto-remediation must turn it on through the MDO automation settings page as it will not be on by default. Auto-Remediation Action Logging The Defender portal provides several ways for customers to review remediation actions to stay cognizant of the actions executed. These include within the investigation, action center, email entity as well as threat explorer and advanced hunting. Should customers disagree with the action executed, the ability to move the messages back to mailboxes is available as well based on configuration and timing. Auto-remediated messages showing in Threat Explorer Additional actions as Automated Remediation: automated: Auto-remediated messages showing in Advanced Hunting with ActionType as Automated Remediation and ActionTrigger as Automation: Learn More Register for the deep dive webinar on Microsoft Defender for Office 365 automated investigation and response (AIR) on June 25, 2025, at 8:00am PDT / 3:00pm UTC. Learn more about the feature enhancements, as well as how AIR can help optimize SOC teams and accelerate threat response. To learn more about the auto-remediation in AIR, please visit Automated remediation in AIR - Microsoft Defender for Office 365 | Microsoft Learn. To learn more about investigations in MDO, please visit the following pages: Automated investigation and response in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 - Office 365 | Microsoft Learn View the results of an automated investigation in Microsoft 365 - Office 365 | Microsoft Learn How automated investigation and response works in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 - Office 365 | Microsoft Learn Automatic user notifications for user reported phishing results in AIR - Microsoft Defender for Office 365 | Microsoft Learn
Automated Investigation and Response
Upgraded to Defender for 365 P2 based on the idea of setting automated responses to certain alerts. That's how it was described. Now I'm trying to enable and configure it. The documentation has bounced me around 20 different articles for XDR, Defender Enterprise, Defender for Business... I do not see anywhere to configure the automation in Defender. One doc points me here for making sure it's enabled. when I open this, and go down to Automation, it's simply an empty list of device groups. We don't use Device groups - we don't use Defender Endpoint. Has anyone configured this in a non-XDR environment? What I'm encountering and what was advertised seem very different...
