Microsoft Identity CXP team members, Tarek Dawoud and Mark Morowczynski, discuss topics like Conditional Access, phish-resistant MFA, evolving threats in cybersecurity, and the importance of learning KQL. They delve into passwordless authentication, Azure access management, and the significance of continuous security improvements.

If you follow the latest developments in the Entra space, you have no doubt come across Merill Fernando. In this episode Merill joins us for a great discussion as we geek out about Entra and authentication in general. Why is it called Entra (RIP AAD!)? Merill sheds some light on the name change, we talk about AD FS and its relevance today, discuss the deprecation of AzureAD and MSOnline PowerShell modules and introduce some of the great tools and resources he's developed for the community. Merill Fernando is a Principal Program Manager at Microsoft and Senior member of the "Customer Success Team" engaging with Microsoft Entra customers and guiding them through deployments, planning, debugging and driving feedback into the feature teams. Merill has a weekly newsletter on all things Microsoft Entra and is the creator of cmd.ms & idPowerToys.com. You can connect with Merill on Twitter (https://twitter.com/merill) or on YouTube (https://youtube.com/@merillx) Here are some links to Merill's work: * Entra Newsletter - https://entra.news * Merill's site - https://merill.net Here are the links the Identity Architecture Series discussed in the episode: * Azure Active Directory Core Store: Data centers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8ZPjSxNte0 * Azure Active Directory Core Store: Scale units - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcKO44GtHh8 * Azure Active Directory Core Store: Read and write replicas - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeLDtcpKc-U Are you interested in learning from others in the community? Give these folks a follow: * Nathan McNulty - https://twitter.com/NathanMcNulty * Eric Mannon - https://www.linkedin.com/in/emannon * Dr. Nestori Syynimaa - https://twitter.com/DrAzureAD * Rod Trent - https://twitter.com/rodtrent Click the icon below to listen.        

Shortly before Thanksgiving, Nic and I had the great pleasure of talking to John Kindervag. I once read about John that he has "forgotten more about technology than most people learn in their careers" and I'm sure after listening to this episode you'll understand why he is referred to as the Godfather of Zero Trust. In this episode we discuss the origins of Zero Trust and some of the history behind it. John also talks about why trying to control the attack surface is a fool's errand and introduces the concept of a protect surface. With over 25 years of experience as a practitioner and industry analyst, John Kindervag is one of the world’s foremost cybersecurity experts and is known for creating the transformational Zero Trust Model of cybersecurity. At Illumio, John is responsible for driving the adoption of Zero Trust Segmentation through high-touch advocacy and forward-thinking thought leadership. You can connect with John on LinkedIn Click the icon below to listen.        

We recently had a great conversation with Joe Flynn about modern endpoint management and how the way we manage our devices has changed over the years - we reminisce about the old ways and talk the future of Active Directory. We also discuss management friction, current hybrid work trends and scenarios where technologies like Windows 365 just make sense. Joe Flynn is a Director and Distinguished Engineer at Insight. With more than 25+ years in the IT industry, Joe loves that technology is constantly changing and providing new challenges — pushing him to learn and absorb more each day. Joe is passionate about technology and the business outcomes that it can provide. You can connect with Joe on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeflynn2/) Click the icon below to listen.        

It's Cyber Security Awareness month and in this episode, we talk to Shannon Garcia about the realities of the security industry and have an honest discussion about some of the areas where we could be doing more to raise awareness and educate our organizations, customers and stakeholders. Shannon shares some fundamental guidance, and we discuss how we could and should be learning from highly publicized incidents and breaches that occur far too often these days. Shannon Garcia is an experienced Senior Leader with a demonstrated history of working in the computer and cybersecurity industry. Skilled in Cybersecurity, Business Management, Program/Project Management, Business Process Improvement, and Building/Leading High Performing Teams. Shannon is a strong and passionate leader focused on helping businesses improve their security posture by maturing their security capabilities and processes. You can connect with Shannon on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannongarcia/) Be sure to check out Shannon's YouTube channel CyberSec Round Table (https://www.youtube.com/@cybersecroundtable) Click the icon below to listen.        

It's ALWAYS DNS! We've all fallen victim to DNS at some point in our careers. In this episode we are once again joined by Robby Pedrica as we discuss DNS architecture and security - we've been deploying DNS the same way for a long time and perhaps it's time we look at our deployments and consider if they could be more secure. We discuss DNS in large enterprise environments and why monitoring DNS traffic is important, but also look at home use and how DNS can be a valuable privacy tool. Robby recently put together a great blog post on DNS security which is worth a read, you can find [it here - (https://www.xstore.co.za/stuff/2023/06/dns-security-2/) Robby Pedrica is a IT & Network Security Consultant and Owner of XStore. Robby has been in the IT industry for 33 years, and has focused on the data storage, network security and Linux for the last 23 years. Robby have specializes in firewalling across numerous products, storage virtualization solutions and Linux administration with load-balancing, cluster storage environments and databases amongst others. You can connect with Robby on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbypedrica/) Be sure to check out Robby's Blog (https://www.xstore.co.za/stuff/) Click the icon below to listen.        

Same product, new name - RIP Azure AD/long live Entra ID! In this episode we're joined by long-time friend of the show Michael Van Horenbeeck to discuss the recent Entra related announcements and Microsoft's expansion into Security Service Edge (SSE) with two new products – Microsoft Entra Internet Access and Microsoft Entra Private Access. We've all heard the TLAs PIM, PAW, and talk of Tier0 configurations, but what are these and how are these relevant to the modern admin? Should we be evolving the way we manage our environments or is it just a matter of buying new technologies to hopefully keep us ahead of bad actors? Michael shares his thoughts. Michael Van Horenbeeck specializes in a variety of products and services from the Microsoft 365 product stack, more specifically within Enterprise Mobility + Security, Azure Active Directory, Office 365, etc. He is one of the handful experts in the world to hold both the Microsoft Certified Solutions Masters for Messaging certification and the Office Apps & Services MVP award at the same time. Over the last 18 years, he has worked with various technologies and solutions from different vendors, mainly focusing in the area of Security, Messaging, Collaboration and Intelligent Communications. He works with customers around the globe, helping them to design, implement, migrate, consolidate and secure various solutions and services based on Microsoft's M365 offerings. You can also find him speaking at several international conferences such as Microsoft Ignite, TechSummits, Mobile Workplace Conference. Follow Michael on Twitter (https://twitter.com/vanhybrid) also be sure to check out Microsoft 365 Security For IT Pros here (https://m365securitybook.com) Click the icon below to listen.        

In this episode we're joined by long-time friend Robby Pedrica as we talk about Open-source software. We asked Robby about Open-source technologies in the enterprise and discussed the history, ins and outs of using Open-source projects in your environment. Robby Pedrica is a IT & Network Security Consultant and Owner of XStore. Robby has been in the IT industry for 33 years, and has focused on the data storage, network security and Linux for the last 23 years. Robby have specializes in firewalling across numerous products, storage virtualization solutions and Linux administration with load-balancing, cluster storage environments and databases amongst others. You can connect with Robby on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbypedrica/) Be sure to check out Robby's Blog (https://www.xstore.co.za/stuff/) Click the icon below to listen.        

What is insider risk and how does it differ from an insider threat? Did you know that these are not always bad actors or malicious acts? We were curios about insider risk management, insider threat detection and everything that goes along with it, so we asked Zach Luze to unpack this vast topic for us. Zach Luze is the Microsoft Cloud and Data Security Advisory Lead at Kudelski Security. Zach is an experienced information security professional with a passion for data security and insider risk management. You can connect with Zach on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachluze/) Click the icon below to listen.        

If you were to open your Twitter/LinkedIn/Mastodon feed at the moment, it is undoubtedly filled with AI posts - while some of these might be interesting or even somewhat useful, the majority likely include the words "RIP" and some profession or job function. There is so much AI FUD around right now and we wanted to find out if the hype was worth listening to. Is Skynet going to take over and put us all out of a job? We thought we'd ask an expert and that's exactly what we did when we recently talked to AI MVP Akanksha Malik. Akanksha Malik is a Data Consultant, a Microsoft AI MVP and an international speaker. After studying Financial Maths and Actuarial Science at UCC, Ireland, she realised she wanted to work with people as well as numbers. As a consultant, she works with clients to help them solve problems by making more informed decisions with data. Akanksha is a firm believer of diversity and inclusivity. She loves machine learning, and that it is becoming more accessible to everyone. She is an avid advocate for women in STEM and is currently the network director of Women Who Code Melbourne and advisory board member for Tech Diversity Lab. You can follow Akanksha on Twitter (https://twitter.com/akankshamalik96) Be sure to check out some of her projects here: Paths Uncovered - (https://www.pathsuncovered.com) Global AI - The Podcast - (https://twitter.com/GlobalAIPodcast) Women Who Code Melbourne - (https://www.womenwhocode.com/melbourne) Click the icon below to listen.