Enhancing security and compliance with Microsoft Surface and Microsoft 365

by Contributed | Apr 26, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

As frontline workers increasingly interact with workplace applications using mobile devices, tablets, or other mobile form factors, organizations face higher risks of these devices being lost, stolen, or temporarily misplaced. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced new licensing options for organizations with frontline workers to address these potential risks and other security threats, while also helping improve compliance capabilities.

With these offers, organizations using Microsoft Surface devices can better protect their devices and data against attacks or accidents. With security capabilities built into the firmware, operating system, and Microsoft 365, Microsoft has taken a comprehensive chip-to-cloud approach to help organizations deliver more protection for employees using Surface devices with Microsoft 365.

Surface with Microsoft 365 provides unique protection at the front line. To provide a few illustrations of how devices may be vulnerable and how this new level of protection can support organizations and frontline workers, here are a few commonplace examples:

• Scenario 1: The device is stolen while it is momentarily unattended


• Scenario 2: A malicious actor gains access to a device for a short time


• Scenario 3: An employee accidentally visits a malicious website or unknowingly joins an unsecure Wi-Fi signal

Scenario 1: The device is stolen while it is momentarily unattended

A building inspector is on a job site and sets her Surface Pro 7+ down for a second while she checks a plumbing connection. Someone steals the device, hoping to find sensitive information or perhaps intending to sell the device to a highly capable hacker. The following protections built into Surface and in the cloud with Microsoft 365 help prevent a stolen device from compromising sensitive data:

• Data on the hard drive is encrypted. Surface devices ship with BitLocker drive encryption enabled by default, so the data on the hard drive cannot be accessed without credentials or the encryption key. Even if the hard drive is removed from the device and inserted into a new device, it cannot be decrypted.


• USB booting is prevented because the organization used Microsoft Endpoint Manager to proactively turned off the ability to boot from USB through the firmware-level control that the Surface device offers.


• There is zero access to data even if the SSD is removed. If a Surface’s removable SSD is tampered with, the device will shut off power, erasing any residual data in its memory. Since the device is cloud-managed, the organization can remote wipe all the machine’s contents .

Scenario 2: A malicious actor gains access to a device for a short time

A retail employee is helping a customer in the store when they both hear a loud crash. Another customer has knocked over a display accidentally. The employee puts down their Surface Pro X and rushes over to help. Seeing the device was not locked, someone takes the device.  Later, they try to access data stored on the device. With Microsoft’s cloud security, the retail establishment’s data is protected.

• A Zero Trust approach means that even if a device is authenticated, the current user profile can only access data and content they have permissions for. The retail establishment assumes that a breach is always possible and maintains strict controls over data access. Conditional access capabilities in Microsoft 365 prevent data leakage from both internal and external actors.


• Any unusual behavior on the device is automatically detected and remediated with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, which analyzes signals from the device to recognize any abnormal behavior, like an uncommon executable running on the device. As part of the remediation path, the device is automatically quarantined from the network until the situation is resolved.

Scenario 3: An employee accidentally visits a malicious website or unknowingly joins an unsecure Wi-Fi signal

An employee joins a public Wi-Fi network, which creates the potential for a malicious actor to collect sensitive information. Or maybe the employee accidentally clicks a link that installs malicious code on a device. Surface with Microsoft 365 can keep data secure in a few ways:

• Instead of worrying about encrypting data that could be shared on a public network, the organization takes a proactive approach to having a guaranteed secure connection, especially for employees in the field, by equipping frontline workers with LTE-enabled devices. The entire Surface 2-in-1 portfolio (Surface Go 2, Surface Pro 7+, Surface Pro X) has LTE available.


• Any websites, cloud resources, or internal networks not explicitly defined as “trusted” are contained with Microsoft Defender Application Guard. These untrusted sites or files are opened in a virtualized container – essentially a separate PC within the existing PC – to isolate those potentially harmful sites or files from the rest of the device.   

In addition to the ways that Surface with Microsoft 365 can help keep frontline devices secure, with cloud management and Windows Autopilot, Surface devices can also be shipped directly to a worker’s location without IT ever touching the device, saving time and effort. As frontline workers increasingly use devices in public spaces, the need to protect sensitive information at the front line has never been more important.

To learn more about Surface for Business visit Surface.com/Business or connect with your local commercial reseller.

Join us for Industry CMMC Readiness Summit Tomorrow

by Contributed | Apr 26, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Join us tomorrow Tuesday, April 27, 2021 from 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM PDT

This industry-focused CMMC readiness summit, part two in the series, is a 3-hour conference designed to bring together the defense industrial base and the greater government contracting community for new perspectives from leading technology vendors and government officials.  It will include exclusive insights from Suzanne Spaulding, Senior Advisor to the Department of Homeland Security from CSIS, a “titan” cloud security panel that will address the need for transparency of CMMC controls, a DIY vs. managed solution approach, and leading government officials who stand at the forefront of cyber and national security.  It is truly stellar packed with trusted advisors and industry experts who are leading the charge to educate toward early adoption.

PLUS, we’ll also have our trivia again which makes it all worthwhile!

Key Takeaways:

• How we are defending forward in 2021 with supply chain vulnerability and critical infrastructure in mind.


• How cloud adoption can accelerate your CMMC compliance strategy.


• “Who” to ask “what” and “when” for help – with the “why” and “how”: decisively and strategically making the necessary changes to align with CMMC, which is the foundation to defending your business.


• Key differences between soliciting a vendor and doing it yourself.


• What industry software giants advise in managed security tech stacks.


• Updated on key impacts of the Solar Winds and Microsoft Exchange attacks, and how we accelerate our readiness against future attacks of this magnitude.

Register and save a spot for this event here. 

[Guest Blog] Once an innovator, always an innovator

by Contributed | Apr 26, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

This guest blog was written by Ivana Tilca, an Innovation Evangelist & Quality Manager at 3XM Group and Microsoft AI MVP from LATAM. She shares about her career journey, from aspiring to become a computer scientist, her experience at Microsoft, and how Mixed Reality changed her life. 

This story is not just about a passion for technology, but also a story of grit and motivation.

Who am I? My Career Journey

My name is Ivana Tilca, from Latin America. I was born in Salta, Argentina, a city of five hundred thousand inhabitants located in the north of Argentina. As a child, I always felt an attraction for technology, which was not common in my city. At 16, it was clear that the career I wanted to pursue was computer science. In high school, my teachers used to ask me, “What career would you like to pursue when you grow up?”. My answer was always… “I want to study computer science and would like to work or be close to Microsoft.” Imagine the face of my teachers when a female student answered that. Well, why was that my answer? When I was 16 years old, my older brother showed me the movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley,” which tells the story of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, and how they changed the world with technology despite all the rejection and problems they faced. I was deeply inspired by that story and how they overcome obstacles to solve problems and become successful. 

I wanted to impact people’s lives, and I knew I could do it through technology.

My older brother, who was studying computer engineering at the time, suggested that I learn how to program and write code. In university, I started doing research about innovation, leading me to become a Microsoft student partner which gave me the wonderful opportunity to travel to events held in other universities and mentor students. I also competed at the Imagine Cup 2008 in Paris, France.

In 2011, to my excitement and delight, Microsoft Corp came to Brazil to recruit talent. One day, an email arrived inviting me to meet them in Rio de Janeiro and of course I accepted. In 2012, I fulfilled my great dream – I was able to finally experience working in Redmond at the Microsoft headquarters on the Office Web Apps team, and eventually ended up working for Microsoft back in Argentina as Technical Evangelist as well. 

When I became a Manager

Finally, due to personal life situations, I made the difficult decision to leave Microsoft and started working as a developer in a company in the city of Còrdoba, Argentina. Then, I started to lead the quality area of 3XM Group and I put aside programming to focus on management. My passion for technology evolved into a passion for working with an amazing group of people.

I thought that the chapter on innovation had already finished in my life, but it turns out I was wrong.

During all that time I was in contact with who was always my role model, someone I like to call my “mentor”, Guadalupe Casuso Innovation Leader – Principal PM Autonomous Systems at Microsoft. At the beginning of 2019, she told me about a device that would completely transform my life.

How Mixed Reality changed my life

In January 2019, Guadalupe Casuso told me about Azure Kinect. She was testing the device with body tracking and depth. I also learnt a bit more about Microsoft’s vision for AI. At the time of having that conversation, Julia White had just presented at Microsoft Inspire 2019, where the creation of her hologram with real-time translation into another language was being spotlighted for the first time. I was hooked, listening carefully to digest all the details about how they managed to put together her hologram, using Azure Kinect, HoloLens 2, and Azure’s cognitive services.

I was so excited, and right there and then made it my personal goal to learn about this technology that was shown. I began to learn everything I could about this technology that was just emerging in Latin America. I remember that at that time, many people around me did not have much faith or believed that the world of holograms and AI existed. They saw it as something very distant or almost impossible to experience, especially due to the low availability of devices locally. I sought to become as skilled as I could in AI.

In February 2020, I received the Microsoft MVP award for Artificial Intelligence. I remember around the same time, I found Jesse McCulloch, Microsoft Program Manager of the Mixed Reality team on Twitter. He became a great resource for me from that moment on by introducing me the Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK). In 2020, the global pandemic and massive shift to working from home created the perfect excuse for me to finally devote more time to investigations and tests. This gave me the opportunity to participate in events worldwide, including the digital edition of Microsoft Ignite 2020. This visibility helped position me in the field of innovation, leading professionals and leaders from all over the world to contact me to help guide them in projects or research.

Companies worldwide also began to contact me to hire 3XM Group services to develop XR applications, which continues to surprise me. The field of application of XR is very broad – it includes health, safety, training, and there is more much to tapped on too. It really motivates me to keep working on this technology when a lot that companies begin to notice the potential of mixed reality and seek to apply it to positively impact and transform their business.

Finally this year, in 2021, I was given the opportunity to be interviewed live at Microsoft Ignite, and I was also named as Innovation Evangelist in 3XM Group. I fully credit all this to the fact that I regained my passion for innovation and for mixed reality technologies, where there is truly no limit for the imagination.

The future of Mixed Reality.

Extended reality is already here. I welcome you to connect with me on Twitter and share your experiences as well!

#MixedReality #CareerJourneys

Share a video WITH AUDIO on a Mac using Microsoft Teams

by Contributed | Apr 26, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Need to share a video with AUDIO during a Microsoft Teams meeting? What used to only be possible in Windows, is now also possible in MacOS!

In this work from home tip, Jeremy Chapman, from the Microsoft 365 team, will show you how to “Include Computer Sound” while sharing your desktop or app windows using a Mac or PC. At the time of release, this is a Public Preview feature in Microsoft Teams for MacOS, so we’ll also show how to get that enabled if you don’t see the options demonstrated.