RunAs Radio Active Directory in 2025 with Liz Tesch
4 snips
May 14, 2025 In this conversation, Liz Tesch, a Senior Cloud Solution Architect on Microsoft's Incident Response team, shares insights on modernizing Active Directory for today's cybersecurity landscape. She explains the outdated practices of managing AD like it's 1999 and highlights the importance of reducing privilege levels to thwart attacks. Liz discusses the need for tools like Mimikatz awareness, auditing domain admins, and leveraging free resources such as Local Administrator Password Solution. She also emphasizes integrating security measures like Privileged Identity Management to bolster defenses against evolving threats.
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Incident Recovery Is Proactive And Tactical
- Meerkat (Microsoft incident recovery) focuses on compromise recovery and proactive work.
- Liz's team both responds to incidents and helps customers harden systems beforehand.
Rethink Century-Old AD Design
- Active Directory design taught in 2000 (location-based OUs) is often still used despite obsolete WAN reasons.
- Liz Tesch urges admins to rethink AD structure because modern bandwidth and cloud change priorities.
Managing AD During The Cloud Surge
- Liz recalls being an IT manager during the cloud and mobile surge which changed security needs.
- She watched SaaS and public Wi‑Fi adoption create a perfect storm of security exposures.