SQL Server 2012, Windows Server 2012, and 2012 R2 End of Extended support are approaching per the Lifecycle Policy
But you can migrate your VMs to Azure to have Extended Support:
With the new feature Idle Timeout, you can protect your data from unauthorized access. This setting automatically times-out inactive users, making your data more secure and less prone to unauthorized access. You can enable it in 3 simple steps:
Having information about how Teams app is running is important, so this quick post will overview how a snapshot collection of important diagnostic logs for troubleshooting can be done
Important tips!
Once you have enabled the diagnostic logs, those will be created in the downloads folder:
Hope that helps to troubleshoot your Teams deployment!
Microsoft Entra will verify all types of identities and secure, manage, and govern their access to any resource. The new Microsoft Entra product family will:
Protect access to any app or resource for any user across hybrid, multicloud, and beyond;
But, what it is really Microsoft Entra? A unified portal for securing and managing every identity – The admin center for Microsoft Entra facilitates identity and access management, multicloud permissions management, and administration of verifiable credentials, all in one place.
When Entra will take place? In May 31st
And what happens to my AzureAD? Azure AD continues to be the foundational infrastructure for all new products in Microsoft Entra family. Innovation and investment in Azure AD continues, including the popular Application Gallery, Conditional Access, multifactor authentication, passwordless, and more.
Will I still be able to access my Azure AD Admin portal? short answer yes, long answer see below:
So, can I Buy Microsoft Entra? Microsoft Entra is a product family. Products within Microsoft Entra are available for sale but there is no Entra bundle to purchase
This new product family has an impact on licenses or billing? No, but if you’re interested in sing Microsoft Entra Permissions Management will need to obtain a license for the solution. Microsoft Entra Verified ID is a free service but some scenarios, integrated with Azure AD capabilities, may require an Azure AD P1 or P2 license as a pre-requisite.
More info at: Secure access for a connected world—meet Microsoft Entra – Microsoft Security Blog
Hi! I will participate in the Spanish track of the GlobalAzure event, I will talk about security, AzureAD and best practices. If you want to knowmore, check out the agenda: https://globalazure.es/#schedule
As you probably have seen in my previous posts, security keys are here to stay. They can be used as a separate authentication method beyond secondary authentication. There are multiple manufacturers that help us in our passwordless journey, for that reason, to the realization of this post, I used a IDMelon security key that also supports FIDO2
The main difference here with other security key, is that IDMelon uses is own security authenticator app which I will review during this post.
How it works
First of all, you need to download the app to your smartphone, which can be done in a very simply steps and then plug the security key and install the software.
Once you have done this, you can pair your smartphone and the key:
And you’re ready to go:
So, once you have done, you’re ready to go to https://aka.ms/setupmfa and configure the security key for your user account. I am not going to cover the process because it has been done in previous post, and the process is straightforward (PassWordless Authentication with Fido 2 Keys – Albandrod’s Memory (albandrodsmemory.com) PassWordless Authentication with Fido 2 Keys – Part 2 – Albandrod’s Memory (albandrodsmemory.com)
At first glance, what it takes my attention to, it was the push notification, I was expecting the typical push notification from authenticator, but in the IDMelon security key, it was provided by the application that you have installed in the smartphone earlier.
If you look deeper into this application, you can check the current plan that you have with the security key, and most important, the activity log of the security key, which I think is great!
Now, if we look into the AAD Sign in we are able to review the sign in information regarding the security Key:
To conclude, I found that IDMelon keys are a great product, because not only provides a password less journey to the users, also provides a simply way to manage the activity of the security token and also the signin process.
Thanks to IDMelon for providing this token to test out their solution
till nex time!
This history began with a new dev project, we needed to be included in a DevOps Project inside the customer organization.
We were first invited to the Teams group to collaborate, upload the documentation and so on, so our users were first created in the AAD of the customer, till here, no problem.
But then, the customer created the DevOps project, and he invited us to collaborate in the project, we received the mail, but when we tried to access, we were receiving the following error message:
We were pretty sure, that we had access to the project, we were checking with the customer the access, and we were having access, we waited some time to replicate the permissions change, but nothing, so where was the problem?
The error page shows that we do not have access, so after digging a while with the problem, I realized that when I tried to navigate to the organization URL, in Edge was showing the error message that could lead us to something:
So, the problem is that guests are not allowed to access to the organization (TF909091), so how we can solve that problem?
Pretty simple, we need to ask the customer, to go to the organization settings and modify the security policies:
Also, to check if in the policies of the project, the check was allowed:
After doing that, we were able to access to the DevOps project, and start working
Problem and mystery solved!
Currently, we could say that Legacy Authentication is one of the most compromising sign-in, luckily for us, older protocols have been replacing with modern authentication services, taking the advantage that MA supports MFA, while Legacy Authentication refers to all protocols that use Basic Authentication, and only requires one method of authentication.
So, it is important thar for security reasons we need to disable legacy authentication in our environments, why? Because enabling MFA isn’t effective if legacy protocols are not blocked. For example, the following options are considered legacy authentication protocols:
How can we monitor the usage of legacy authentication in Azure AD?
Thanks to Log Analytics, Insights and workbooks, we are able to monitor the use of those protocols, for instance:
And check the non-interactive sign-ins (be careful with ADConnect sync accounts):
What we can do to avoid this?
The best way to block or report legacy authentication for users is use Conditional Access policies (Does my organization need Azure AD Conditional Access? – Albandrod’s Memory (albandrodsmemory.com) & Enabling zero trust security in your environment – Albandrod’s Memory (albandrodsmemory.com)
But the best way is creating a CA policy:
My final advice
Legacy authentication must be disabled to protect our environments, but first, start small and analyse the impact in your organization.
Till next time!
This is a second part of my blog about reviewing Fido2 Keys from Feitian (PassWordless Authentication with Fido 2 Keys – Albandrod’s Memory (albandrodsmemory.com))
In this case, I am testing out the K33 and K44 products
The initial setup of the tenant is covered in my previous post, so I will skip the details of how to do it.
To configure the K33 key you will need to download the app “BioPass FIDO2 Manager” from the Windows Store:
And connect your K33 key via USB to the laptop (otherwise won’t be possible to configure), the configure your preferred PIN, and finally configure your fingerprints. The process to the K44 is similar, but in this case, I am using and Ipad, and the app to download is “iePassManager”
Once the two keys are configured, you’re ready to setup them in AzureAD MFA (https://aka.ms/setupmfa)
K33 process
I have explained the process of how to initially configure the K33 key, but I strongly recommend to follow the steps mentioned in K33_Microsoft_Services_Guide.pdf (ftsafe.com) to pair the key with your laptop.
Once the key has been paired, the process to configure it is simple, the only thing that you must take into account is that even it is Bluetooth Key, you must configure it as an USB key (but remember, it must be paired first with the device).
Authentication with K33
K44 Registration Process
Once again, it is needed to set up the PIN for the Key, in my case, it has been done with the Ipad, but the registration process, is easy as the video shows:
The sign in process is very similar as we’ve seen before, so I do not want to cover this, but as you can observe, the registration and use of Fido2 Keys is pretty simple.
Inclusion, MFA keys and particularly, Fido2 Keys from Feitian are great!! But now, something that you must consider when implementing Fido2 keys in your environment:
There’s no way to enforce PIN policy in Azure AD: Every user can set up their own PIN to use their key. There is no centralized way to manage PINs, but Windows Hello for Business blocks simple PIN codes by default. The bad news is, if you add the key directly to your Azure AD account, these settings are overridden ☹
Feitian offers multiple options for connecting your key, so you’re sure to find one that works for you. Among the available connections are USB-A, USB-C, NFC, Bluetooth, PIN, biometrics, and more.
Biometrics requires app installation: you need to download the manufacturers’ application that enables fingerprint scanning, which is additional software that you must consider to install
Again, I want to thanks Feitian for providing the security keys to test out the use cases
Till next time!
Have you ever tried to create an AzureAD application to give SSO access to an OnPrem application? I had to do it with an SAP application, the process it is straightforward, but what about giving permission to end users?
You can give nominal permission to each user who needs to access to the app or even group, but you must be aware about group limitations:
Group-based assignment is supported only for security groups. Nested group memberships are not supported for group-based assignment to applications at this time.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/users-groups-roles/groups-saasapps
My Customer had a complex role based user permission model, so it was impossible for them for using AD/AAD groups. The workaround it is not being granular giving user permissions, it is to grant Everyone access to the app registration. To do this, we must select the “User assignment required” option in the “Properties” blade on the enterprise side of the app registration to no, which allows all logged in users to have access to the service.
Doing this, we rely on the permission given to the app to access
Easy solution, problem solved, till next time!
Albandrod's Memory 