Your Sentinel AMA Logs & Queries Are Public by Default — AMPLS Architectures to Fix That
When you deploy Microsoft Sentinel, security log ingestion travels over public Azure Data Collection Endpoints by default. The connection is encrypted, and the data arrives correctly — but the endpoint is publicly reachable, and so is the workspace itself, queryable from any browser on any network. For many organisations, that trade-off is fine. For others — regulated industries, healthcare, financial services, critical infrastructure — it is the exact problem they need to solve. Azure Monitor Private Link Scope (AMPLS) is how you solve it. What AMPLS Actually Does AMPLS is a single Azure resource that wraps your monitoring pipeline and controls two settings: Where logs are allowed to go (ingestion mode: Open or PrivateOnly) Where analysts are allowed to query from (query mode: Open or PrivateOnly) Change those two settings and you fundamentally change the security posture — not as a policy recommendation, but as a hard platform enforcement. Set ingestion to PrivateOnly and the public endpoint stops working. It does not fall back gracefully. It returns an error. That is the point. It is not a firewall rule someone can bypass or a policy someone can override. Control is baked in at the infrastructure level. Three Patterns — One Spectrum There is no universally correct answer. The right architecture depends on your organisation's risk appetite, existing network infrastructure, and how much operational complexity your team can realistically manage. These three patterns cover the full range: Architecture 1 — Open / Public (Basic) No AMPLS. Logs travel to public Data Collection Endpoints over the internet. The workspace is open to queries from anywhere. This is the default — operational in minutes with zero network setup. Cloud service connectors (Microsoft 365, Defender, third-party) work immediately because they are server-side/API/Graph pulls and are unaffected by AMPLS. Azure Monitor Agents and Azure Arc agents handle ingestion from cloud or on-prem machines via public network. Simplicity: 9/10 | Security: 6/10 Good for: Dev environments, teams getting started, low-sensitivity workloads Architecture 2 — Hybrid: Private Ingestion, Open Queries (Recommended for most) AMPLS is in place. Ingestion is locked to PrivateOnly — logs from virtual machines travel through a Private Endpoint inside your own network, never touching a public route. On-premises or hybrid machines connect through Azure Arc over VPN or a dedicated circuit and feed into the same private pipeline. Query access stays open, so analysts can work from anywhere without needing a VPN/Jumpbox to reach the Sentinel portal — the investigation workflow stays flexible, but the log ingestion path is fully ring-fenced. You can also split ingestion mode per DCE if you need some sources public and some private. This is the architecture most organisations land on as their steady state. Simplicity: 6/10 | Security: 8/10 Good for: Organisations with mixed cloud and on-premises estates that need private ingestion without restricting analyst access Architecture 3 — Fully Private (Maximum Control) Infrastructure is essentially identical to Architecture 2 — AMPLS, Private Endpoints, Private DNS zones, VPN or dedicated circuit, Azure Arc for on-premises machines. The single difference: query mode is also set to PrivateOnly. Analysts can only reach Sentinel from inside the private network. VPN or Jumpbox required to access the portal. Both the pipe that carries logs in and the channel analysts use to read them are fully contained within the defined boundary. This is the right choice when your organisation needs to demonstrate — not just claim — that security data never moves outside a defined network perimeter. Simplicity: 2/10 | Security: 10/10 Good for: Organisations with strict data boundary requirements (regulated industries, audit, compliance mandates) Quick Reference — Which Pattern Fits? Scenario Architecture Getting started / low-sensitivity workloads Arch 1 — No network setup, public endpoints accepted Private log ingestion, analysts work anywhere Arch 2 — AMPLS PrivateOnly ingestion, query mode open Both ingestion and queries must be fully private Arch 3 — Same as Arch 2 + query mode set to PrivateOnly One thing all three share: Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and Defender connectors work in every pattern — they are server-side pulls by Sentinel and are not affected by your network posture. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions regarding the information provided.Modernize security operations to secure agentic AI—Microsoft Sentinel at Ignite 2025
Security is a core focus at Microsoft Ignite this year, with the Security Forum on November 17, deep dive technical sessions, theater talks, and hands-on labs designed for security leaders and practitioners. Join us in San Francisco, November 17–21, or online, November 18–20, to learn what’s new and what’s next across SecOps, data, cloud, and AI—and how to get more from the Microsoft capabilities you already use. This year, Microsoft Sentinel takes center stage with sessions and labs designed to help you unify data, automate response, and leverage AI-powered insights for faster, more effective threat detection. Featured sessions: BRK235: Power agentic defense with Microsoft Sentinel Explore Microsoft Sentinel’s platform architecture, graph intelligence, and agentic workflows to automate, investigate, and respond with speed and precision. BRK246: Blueprint for building the SOC of the future Learn how to architect a modern SOC that anticipates and prevents threats using predictive shielding, agentic AI, and graph-powered reasoning. LAB543: Perform threat hunting in Microsoft Sentinel Dive deep into advanced threat hunting, KQL queries, and proactive investigation workflows to sharpen your security operations. Explore and filter the full security catalog by topic, format, and role: aka.ms/Ignite/SecuritySessions. Why attend: Ignite is your opportunity to see the latest innovations in Microsoft Sentinel, connect with experts, and gain hands-on experience. Sessions will also touch on future directions for agentic AI and unified SOC operations, as outlined in Microsoft’s broader security roadmap. Security Forum (November 17): Kick off with an immersive, in‑person pre‑day focused on strategic security discussions and real‑world guidance from Microsoft leaders and industry experts. Select Security Forum during registration. Connect with peers and security leaders through these signature security experiences: Security Leaders Dinner—CISOs and VPs connect with Microsoft leaders. CISO Roundtable—Gain practical insights on secure AI adoption. Secure the Night Party—Network in a relaxed, fun setting. Register for Microsoft Ignite >
Unified SecOps XDR
Hi, I am reaching out to community to seek understanding regarding Unified SecOps XDR portal for Multi-tenant Multi-workspace. Our organization already has a Azure lighthouse setup. My question is if M365 lighthouse license also required for the Multi-tenant Multi-workspace in unified SecOps XDR portal?
GITHUB - AI Sentinel attack simulation
The recent support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) with Claude Desktop has opened the door for some really useful testing capability with Sentinel and emerging threats. I'm happy to share with the community a GitHub project that demonstrates the use of MCP against current exploits to generate simulated attack data that can be used with testing migrated ASIM alert rules. MCP allows for up-to-date exploits to be queried... ... and with AI prompting, simulated attack events can be created against our Sentinel test environments. Which results in a simulated attack based on the exploit being referenced. This is really useful for testing the migration of our Sentinel alert rules to ASIM! The full code and details about the project are available here: https://laurierhodes.info/node/175
Unified Security Operation Sentinel Vs Defender Tables
I have a question regarding the Unified SOC portal. In the session below, they highlighted one advantage: the ability to use Defender and Sentinel Tables together. However, both the SignInLogs and DeviceLogonEvents tables are already accessible in Sentinel through the Defender connector. Am I missing something, or did they use an incorrect example to demonstrate an advantage that Sentinel already provides? https://www.youtube.com/live/ndAKk8l5VMo?si=ZvUh21DaknXRYgXr&t=1223
Unified Sentinel and playbooks
Hi all It's been a few weeks now since the unified Sentinel experience dropper publicly and I've been running that since then. It was alot of bells, whistles and hype build since the Ignite event but I feel like...meh, now what. What happened to playbooks? What happened to all the automations we had that enriched events into the the audit logs in Sentinel for correlation? These are either gone or not working as intended anymore. Before the "unification" we had an incident come in from our firewalls with a blocked URL which was enriched from externa threat intelligence sources and could be closed within minutes by an operator after scrolling the audit log. Now it seems the idea is for the operator to click around in the Defender portal and view the different pages for similar information, not to mentioning the seemingly nesessity for the Microsoft Intelligence platform, before the operator can determine the posture of an incident. It feels like we took a step back. Peace /FredrikWhat's New: Tags column is now available in Azure Sentinel incidents page!
Hello everyone, We are happy to share with you a small but important improvement we added to our incidents blade – a new tag column is now available as part of the Incidents list! Tags are an integral part of the triaging process so we are now exposing them in a new column of the incident list. This improvement allows users to get informed about the tags that are related to the incidents without having to pivot to the incident preview page or full details. Every second counts, right?Announcing General Availability of PIM Enabled Azure Lighthouse Delegations
I am excited to share today’s general availability announcement of PIM Enabled Azure Lighthouse Delegations. With Azure Lighthouse, service providers can deliver managed services using comprehensive and robust tooling built into the Azure platform. The addition of PIM enabled delegations takes Azure Lighthouse’s granular access to the next level, by assigning service providers the exact level of access needed, per resource, for the exact amount of time needed to complete a task. This has been a top ask from customers, and we’re thrilled to deliver this powerful capability to our customers! Learn more in the announcement here: Azure Lighthouse PIM Enabled Delegations - Microsoft Community Hub.
Microsoft sentinel custom parsers
Dear All, There are charges as per the Microsoft website for creating custom coloumns during parsing. Please let me know the following:- What is the charge exactly? How much i will charge if i do parsing and create a single custom coloumns? What is i do the parsing and use the already existing coloumns for example "Account", is there any charges for it? Kindly share any supporting documents or links from Microsoft for support. Regards Sammy. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-sentinel/latest-costing-billing-changes/m-p/3679568
