Defender

When we talk about Microsoft 365 security, we are talking about two things: - Securing Microsoft 365 the platform, such as Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365 Copilot; ensuring they are hardened and monitored in proportion to risk appetite. - Us...

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 sco...

Defender for Cloud Apps (MDA) is such a hidden gem. When talking with Microsoft 365 E5 customers, it's amazing how few of them really grab MDA and squeeze all they can out of it. It's often classified as a cloud access security broker (CASB) but that's an over...

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) i...

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 End...

Exchange Online Protection (EOP) and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (MDO) are the email and collaboration security services native to Microsoft 365. EOP is included at all levels of licensing for Exchange Online, with MDO bringing additional security capabi...

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 impre...

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 e...

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,...

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...