Defender-for-Endpoint on Ru Campbell MVP

[Updated Feb 2024] Ultimate Comparison of Defender for Endpoint Features by OS

Fri, 16 Feb 2024 17:13:38 +0000

Finally, it’s time for a refresh. It’s been a while! Due to personal circumstances, I haven’t been able to keep the Ultimate Comparison of MDE by OS updated. I’ve had time to dive into the changes since v5 and it’s really been amazing to see MDE grow in scope.

What is MDE and why do we need an ‘ultimate comparison’?

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) is a massive stack of endpoint protection and endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities. It integrates with the broader Microsoft Defender XDR and is available for almost any OS you’ll find in an enterprise. This cross-platform nature of MDE makes it difficult to understand and track what features and capabilities are available on each OS. It’s not always intuitive, and you may be in for some surprises. Hence by I began the Ultimate Comparison of Defender for Endpoint Features by OS up to date to keep you aware of what you’re getting and what you need to go start implementing if you haven’t already.

Entra Self Service Password Reset - Common Microsoft 365 Security Mistakes Series

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 11:32:34 +0000

It’s a trope in IT circles: users forget their passwords. The greater your scale, the more time this can occupy with tickets, service desk calls, and so on. If you use Microsoft Entra ID (previously Azure Active Directory), self service password reset (SSPR) is a capability that can help reduce this overhead. SSPR offers a user-driven admin-less approach, where users verify they are authorised to reset forgotten passwords then can do so.

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management - Common Microsoft 365 Security Mistakes Series

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 10:57:52 +0000

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management (MDVM) is an often overlooked service that can be licensed standalone or is included in other Microsoft Defender licenses. In my experience, I’ve never seen it licensed standalone, but customers with Defender for Endpoint (MDE) P2, Defender for Servers (MDS) P1, and Defender for Business (MDB) benefit from it’s core capabilities. In addition to the core capabilities, add-on capabilities are available in the standalone license, Defender for Servers P2, or as an upgrade to the P1 licenses.

Microsoft Improves and Simplifies Defender for Endpoint Management Capabilities

Mon, 10 Jul 2023 20:47:03 +0000

In one of the biggest changes to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) in its product history, you no longer need a separate management engine to configure endpoint settings.

In this blog, we’ll look at what that change is, why it was necessary, initial impressions, and what you might want to do next.

Historic management architecture needed simplifying

MDE (and it’s Windows client, Microsoft Defender Antivirus (MDAV)) always stood out from the crowd of endpoint protection platforms as being, well, a bit weird in terms of management architecture. With most platforms, you get a central admin console which pushes out endpoint settings. Think scan schedules, quarantine rules, exclusions, CPU throttling, etc. MDE/MDAV, on the other hand, instead relied on an external management tool such as Intune (MDM), Configuration Manager, or Group Policy.

[Feb 2023] Ultimate Comparison of Defender for Endpoint Features by OS

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 15:46:12 +0000

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) is a massive stack of endpoint protection and endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities. It integrates with Microsoft 365 Defender (the broader XDR platform) and is available for almost any OS you’ll find in an enterprise. This cross-platform nature of MDE makes it difficult to understand and track what features and capabilities are available on each OS. It’s not always intuitive, and you may be in for some surprises. I try to keep this Ultimate Comparison of Defender for Endpoint Features by OS up to date to keep you aware of what you’re getting and what you need to go start implementing if you haven’t already.

Ultimate Comparison of Defender for Endpoint Features by OS [Updated August 2022]

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 07:32:32 +0000

This is the updated “matrix” of OS supported for the almost 80 features, services, and important components that make up Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. This follows up on my March 2022 release of the comparison.

What’s new?

Now available in Excel format, which was the biggest request :)
Added the new Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management capabilities (add-on license required)
Added macOS tamper protection support
Added macOS network and web protection
Added iOS and Android’s mobile network protection
Added Linux cloud-delivered protection support
Added Windows troubleshooting mode
Added macOS, iOS, and Android support for network indicators of compromise
Updated host firewall reporting supported OSs
Updated attack surface reduction (ASR) rule supported Windows and Windows Server versions
Updated block at first sight (BAFS) supported OSs (thanks Polle Vanhoof + Thomas Verheyden)
Updated Windows Server support for indicators of compromise (thanks Polle Vanhoof + Thomas Verheyden)
Removed preview references for the unified agent for Windows Server 2012 R2 and 2016

Obligatory disclaimers:

Updated March 2022: Ultimate Comparison of Defender for Endpoint Features by Operating System

Tue, 29 Mar 2022 07:27:18 +0000

It’s been about 5 months since I last updated my comparison of Defender for Endpoint features by OS. This is a “matrix” of the tons of features, services, and important components that make up Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.

Three months later, it’s overdue an update. So here it is :) I’ve also decided to rename it to The Ultimate Comparison of MDE Features by OS… because renaming’s what we do, right?