This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
“The tyranny of the default” has been a phrase that has worried many a security professional over the years; the constant struggle to make sure their systems are configured for optimal security, which often requires them to examine each feature individually.
To help security teams keep on top of monitoring where these configurations are, we are happy to report that we are adding a new identity-based security assessment called “Unsecure domain configurations” to the growing list of Microsoft Defender for Identity posture assessments.
Why are we adding this assessment?
Configuring Active directory optimal security has always been top of mind for the Microsoft Defender for Identity team and its research them, recent attacks, such as KrbRelayUp, had repeatedly shown us how certain, often default, settings can be used against their intended purpose and result in an identity compromise.
What configurations are we evaluating first?
We will be evaluating two distinct configurations as part of this assessment
Set ms-DS-MachineAccountQuota to “0” – Limiting the ability of non-privileged users to register devices in domain.
You can learn more about this particular property and how it affects device registration here
This evaluation will be available from launch, today.
Enforce LDAP Signing policy to “Require signing” – Unsigned network traffic is susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks
This evaluation will be available in the next two weeks
This new assessment is part of our existing effort to secure your identity infrastructure alongside existing assessments such as the recommendation to disable the print spooler service on domain controllers
How do I use this security assessment?
This new security assessment will be part of Microsoft Defender for identity list of improvement actions under Secure Score, you can click on the assessment and evaluate the list of affected domains and their configurations.
If you have the appropriate permissions to view the identity posture assessments, you can directly access this assessment on your tenant using this link.
Take appropriate action on the affected domain, you can learn more here
We are working on adding more configurations to this Defender for Identity security posture assessments to help customers proactively secure their environments from exploitation, stay tuned!
For more information about Identity Security Posture assessments and Microsoft secure score, see
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
The world has changed a lot in two years. Even as offices and other workspaces open up again, the flexible nature of hybrid work continues to prove indispensable. We’ve become accustomed to a decentralized workplace where in-person collaboration is complemented with real-time and asynchronous online solutions. Microsoft Loop components extend the capabilities of Microsoft Teams and Outlook, supporting small-group collaboration and flexibility so you can remain in sync—anywhere, anytime.
Last year we shared ways you can get started using Loop components. Loop components are live and can be copied and pasted across Teams and Outlook — staying in sync in all the places they exist. Loop components enable your team to go from unfinished ideas to great outcomes quickly while staying in the flow of their work.
Loop component types include task list, bulleted list, checklist, numbered list, paragraph list, and table.
An image providing an example of the Loop components pop-up menu in Microsoft Teams.
These components are available in Microsoft Teams chat and coming soon to Outlook (and currently available in preview for Office Insiders). Keep reading for some examples of how teams can use Loop components!
Loop task list components are a great way to help teams stay in sync and accomplish tasks in a flexible way. Let’s look at an example:
Jóhanna is leading a team that is planning a product announcement in a couple of weeks. There is a lot that needs to be accomplished, but she has a great team! Although Jóhanna lives in the U.S., her team is spread out across several time zones, making it difficult to find a convenient meeting time for all. Instead, Jóhanna begins a Loop task list component in chat, capturing actions the team needs to complete, and assigning responsibilities and due dates – setting clear expectations for each person. She pins the task list component to the chat for easy reference later.
Tip: Pin a Loop component to a chat by right clicking on the component and choosing “Pin”. It’s now visible at the top of the window so you can quickly reference it later.
Because Loop components are always live and in sync, team members can add new tasks and check off completed tasks when it’s best for them. No matter when and where changes are made, the task list component remains the source of truth for what needs to get done.
Cameron, a team member in the U.S., begins completing tasks after he drops off his kids at school and continues working throughout the day. By the time he leaves to pick up his kids, Cameron has checked off several completed tasks and added a few new tasks assigned to his team member, Pradeep, in India.
Cameron doesn’t have to take time to write a message to Pradeep detailing where he left off. Pradeep simply sees the new tasks as he begins his day several hours later. To complete one of the tasks, Pradeep needs help from Joni who works on a different team. Joni wasn’t involved in the original meeting, but it’s easy to involve her with Loop components and Outlook. Pradeep adds a task and assigns it to Joni, then Pradeep copies and pastes the task list component into an email where he includes some context and asks Joni for her help. Joni reads the email after she returns from lunch and begins helping Pradeep. Typically, an email with a list of tasks would become obsolete quickly as the task list changes. But since this is a Loop component, it stays live and up to date – there is no need for a long chain of emails!
As progress is made by the team members in India, the rest of the team can see the completed tasks wherever they are viewing it. So, when Cameron gets back online the following day, he knows which task to jump into next without needing to bother Pradeep during his evening.
Throughout the week, Jóhanna reviews the status of the project without needing to interrupt her team’s workflow. She sends out an email update with the task list component to her manager early in the week. Because the component in Jóhanna’s email stays up to date throughout the week, there’s no need for her to send additional updates as the project moves forward. Even though the list has been shared many times, Jóhanna does not have to worry about updating multiple sources since the task list component syncs across all the places it lives.
Although organizing the announcement is a lot of work involving various tasks, the Loop task list component enables flexibility so each team member can contribute while maintaining their preferred schedules. It also reduces the number of ad hoc check-ins and interruptions to workflows required since everyone related to the announcement can see the task list component as it’s updated in real time.
Tip: For each Loop component, you can decide which team members can access or edit the component.
An image providing an example of available permission settings for Loop components in Microsoft Teams.
Loop table components are excellent for gathering evolving information from various people all in one place. Here’s one example:
Adele runs a daily stand-up meeting for her Research and Design team. She wants to ensure everyone has a chance to provide input and flag any concerns, but it’s difficult to find a time that works for all team members because of conflicting schedules and varied time zones.
So, Adele begins a Loop table component in a group Teams chat. She includes objectives, notes, and next steps in the table component. Adele loves that each team member can provide input when it’s convenient for them, wherever they are, and it’s all one place – no one needs to compile the information.
Tip: In a table component, use shift+enter to start a new line in the same cell.
Some team members, like Lee, need input from partners they work with. Lee starts an Outlook email to his research partner in another group. He copies and pastes the table component into it. Lee’s partner can provide input directly into the table component in Outlook while Adele, along with other team members, can see the new input immediately in the table component in Teams chat.
In Adele’s weekly meeting with her manager, she shares the table component in the Teams chat. Adele’s manager would like to know the timing of some critical pieces. Adele simply adds a column for timing to the table component in her current chat, and @mentions her team members asking them to add input for the new column. The team members immediately see the new category in their original Teams chat.
Tip: Loop components are saved automatically to your OneDrive, which means you can find them on Office.com in addition to Teams. Try giving your components easy-to-remember titles (the title is also used for the file name) to help you search for and find them quickly.
Adele can stay focused on the information because it’s in one place even though it came from several people across different apps. Her team members appreciate getting to provide their feedback and raise concerns in a way that works best for them, allowing for the team to prioritize their time without missing out on the conversation.
Tip: When editing a Loop component, type a forward-slash “/ “ to insert an @mention, date, or another component.
Here’s a few more quick suggestions of how to use Loop components:
A Loop numbered list component can help you develop consensus about the order of priorities with the rest of the team.
The Loop paragraph component can be used to take notes or construct a report draft that everyone in the Teams channel can collaborate on. Some users find that using a Loop component is preferable to saving a Word document for just a few sentences because Loop components are less formal, and people feel more comfortable making suggestions or changes.
A Loop checklist component can help you brainstorm activities or items needed for group events.
Tip: In the upper right corner you can track who is viewing and editing the component. To understand who can view or edit the component, select the See who has access button.
Microsoft Loop lets you work flexibly
Loop components allow groups to collaborate wherever they are, whether it’s across town or spanning multiple time zones—all with a single click within a Teams chat or Outlook email. When you @mention people, Loop will send that person a Teams notification along with an email. And for peace of mind, every component you create in Teams is automatically saved to a file in OneDrive. You can easily find all your Loop components on Office.com.
We look forward to hearing your feedback to help us make the Microsoft Loop experience even better. To learn more about Loop components, check out these helpful resources:
Continue the conversation by joining us in the Microsoft 365 Tech Community! Whether you have product questions or just want to stay informed with updates on new releases, tools, and blogs, Microsoft 365 Tech Community is your go-to resource to stay connected.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
This post is co-authored by Tony Lorentzen, Senior Vice President and General Manager Intelligent Engagement, Nuance.
Since Microsoft and Nuance joined forces earlier this year, both teams have been clear about our commitment to putting our customers first. Microsoft and Nuance are dedicated to ensuring our products complement each other, accelerate better business outcomes, and continue to deliver value well into the future.
We have never been more confident in our ability to continue offering organizations exceptional AI-powered customer engagement solutions. There’s a good reason why a majority of the Fortune 100 companies worldwide rely on Nuance customer engagement solutions, and we are excited by the significant potential Nuance’s pioneering, industry-specific technology has in the Microsoft ecosystem. Nuance solutions complement and enhance Microsoft’s portfolio, delivering value across every engagement channel. Microsoft’s continued investment in cloud and AI innovation offers massive opportunity to bolster Nuance solutions with new capabilities.
We are investing in Nuance’s proven customer engagement solutions that combine advanced conversational AI with a full spectrum of technologies to achieve market-leading accuracy and containment rates. Nuance has the unique capabilities to enable organizations to automate, personalize, and secure customer interactions, only now with the power of Microsoft behind it. This spans Nuance products and services inclusive of:
Nuance Digital Engagement Platform (NDEP): The powerful functionality of NDEP comes from deep expertise in conversational AI and experience delivering AI-powered innovations in key vertical markets. Nuance digital engagement solutions are vendor-agnostic, offering complete flexibility and investment protection for organizations that: want to integrate best-of-breed virtual assistant or live chat solutions with a third-party customer relationship management (CRM) from any vendor; have a third-party virtual assistant, but need to integrate it with an industry-leading live agent platform; want to add powerful new messaging capabilities to a third-party agent desktop; or need to surface third-party product recommendations, next-best actions, knowledgebase information, tech support, or order management systems to their agents on a unified desktop.
Nuance Conversational Interactive Voice Response (IVR): Nuance has deep roots in delivering powerful IVR solutions and shares Microsoft’s vision for enabling an intelligent, personalized, and secure customer experience through advanced AI. Customers should expect Nuance Conversational IVR to continue to deliver innovations in automation to enable self-service with high containment rates while further increasing the speed, efficiency, and ability of agents to resolve most incoming calls successfully using real-time data and context. Our shared goal is to enable enterprise-grade, secure, conversational applications for the IVR that are capable of handling everything from straightforward customer queries to complex, demanding interactions. And we are committed to flexibly working with our ISV and channel partners to make our market-leading, vertical-specific Natural Language Understanding available to global organizations.
Nuance security and biometrics: One of the most exciting things that Nuance brings to customer experience engagements is its market-leading biometric authentication and fraud prevention solutions. These technologies are helping enterprises make customer interactions not only more enjoyable but also more secure while helping to prevent fraudboth critical to successfully providing the outcomes-driven customer engagement Microsoft and Nuance are committed to delivering together. Cloud-native Nuance Gatekeeper is a differentiator in the market, and we will continue to invest in advancing its capabilities, while exploring its huge potential in the Microsoft ecosystem.
Nuance Mix: Microsoft and Nuance share a vision to provide the most complete and compelling AI-driven customer engagement and contact center portfolio, with secure tools that span no-code, low-code, and pro-code to accelerate transformation. Nuance Mix makes it easier to create sophisticated, human-like engagements that enable customers to self-serve with a chatbot, speak to the IVR in a conversational way as if they were speaking to human agents, and help maximize self-service adoption and containment across any channel.
Learn more about Microsoft and Nuance
Our goal with “Microsoft + Nuance: Better Together” is to deliver lasting business value to the market. Together, with our trailblazing customers and partners, we will bring to market new innovations, while also ensuring our customers’ existing investments are protected and continue to flourish. As we look at adding new capabilities, together, Microsoft and Nuance will ensure clear paths forward providing customers future-proof solutions that continue to deliver outcomes today and tomorrow.
We are excited to share more about how we’ll bring the full power of Microsoft and Nuance to organizations worldwide.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Edge computing gives customers the ability to move cloud-like workloads out of the data center to the very places where data is collected—delivering real-time intelligence, and solving intermittent connectivity issues. Yet as the number of devices making up IoT increases, so do the IoT security risks that companies must address.
A recent study conducted by Microsoft in partnership with Ponemon Institute included a survey of companies that have adopted IoT solutions and 65% of them mentioned that security is a top priority when implementing IoT. Attacks targeting IoT devices put businesses at risk. Impacted devices can be bricked, held for ransom, employed as launch points for further network attacks, or used for malicious purposes. Among many consequences we often see stolen IP and data theft, and compromised regulatory status, all of which can have brand and financial implications on the business.
In keeping with the Microsoft end-to-end security promise and our belief that every IoT device should be secured by design, we are excited to announce General Availability of our Edge Secured-core program for Windows IoT devices. Below, we’ll share how Edge Secured-core addresses vulnerabilities and helps enterprise customers, device manufacturers, and solution builders accelerate the development and deployment of secure, scalable IoT solutions.
Edge Secured-core is a new certification in the Azure Certified Device program for IoT devices running a full operating system such as Linux (in preview) or Windows 10 IoT (available now). Edge Secured-core certified devices meet additional security requirements around device identity, secure boot, operating system hardening, device updates, data protection, and vulnerability disclosures. All of this is designed to help prevent attacks, protect your data, and defend against those attempting to infiltrate your infrastructure.
Building on the expertise Microsoft developed around Secured-core for commercial Windows 10 PCs, Edge Secured-core takes a similar approach for IoT devices. This certification can be used to validate that certified devices include specific security hardware technology, have an operating system with built-in security, and use IoT services such as Microsoft Defender for IoT that continually monitor for threats on the device.
For companies building devices, Edge Secured-core provides a low-cost differentiator that enables customers to easily identify your device that has been configured to meet a higher security standard.
Edge Secured-core drives scalable security
Through the use of Edge Secured-core, companies can trust that IoT devices are built with a foundation of security and can be deployed seamlessly and securely. It also provides enterprises and solution builders with the confidence that the devices they’re purchasing deliver the following security promises:
Hardware-based device identity
Capable of enforcing system integrity
Stays up to date and is remotely manageable
Provides data-at-rest protection
Provides data-in-transit protection
Built-in security agent and hardening
Here are a few specific scenarios where you can see the added value for Edge Secured-core devices compared to devices without it.
Scenario
Device without Edge Secured-core
Edge Secured-core device
Six months after purchasing the device, there’s a vulnerability. The device receives an update and the vulnerability is fixed.
At the discretion of the OEM to supply device updates.
OEMs required to supply device updates for a period of at least 60 months from the date of submission.
A malicious actor attempts to identify vulnerable devices to install malware on.
At the discretion of the OEM to supply device updates and OT to keep device secure.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
We understand that for chief marketing officers (CMOs) everywhere, it feels like a precarious time to be a marketer. COVID-19 has upended supply chains and inflation spikes have accelerated a wave of digital transformation across all aspects of business. Additionally, culture is politically polarized, forcing brands to take a stand or risk alienating customers.
Disruptions to customer engagement are adding similar instability. Customer interactions across digital channels are dramatically increasing at the very same time that marketers’ ability to track and understand those interactions is rapidly decreasing.
This is creating the Marketer’s Dilemma, urging marketers to navigate the trade-offs between optimizing individual channels and investing in cohesive end-to-end customer experiences.
The problem: The digital marketing ecosystem has become less reliable
Although the term “omnichannel” marketing has been trending for more than a decade, marketing channels remain largely siloed operations. Discrete platform partners have offered marketers powerful reach and valuable services spanning adtech, search, social media, and e-commerce. Individually, each has been invaluable in enabling marketers to manage campaigns, engage customers, and track results, especially for companies that lack sophisticated in-house data and the analytical know-how. But partnerships that once offered exciting opportunities are evolving into potential vulnerabilities:
“The services that these advertising platforms provide have been particularly advantageous for less technically advanced companies that may lack the in-house data (an organization’s first-party data and/or operational data) and analytical know-how to conduct independent analyses. On the other hand, they curb the relative advantage of more sophisticated companies who may be limited in the tools and analytical techniques they can use on these platforms. This can disincentivize innovation and concentrate overall ecosystem innovation within the data platforms themselves.”1
Meanwhile, customer demand for greater privacy, transparency, and control of their data, along with the pressure of regulatory compliance, is disrupting marketers’ access to granular customer data to generate relevant insights.
Browser cookies, which once offered the ability to track users and “sidle right up to the creepy line”2 will deprecate in 2023, forcing marketers to pivot to a cookieless future even as consumers live more of their lives online.
Simply put, an over reliance on third-party relationships is putting marketers at risk of losing access to the customer data that their very survival depends on.
Marketers struggle to overcome learned helplessness
Customers expect brands to deliver digital experiences that are personalized, relevant, and consistent across touch points,3 and we can no longer afford to outsource customer relationships to third parties.
The lack of interoperability between platforms, datasets, and views of the customer makes it very challenging for marketers to reclaim ownership of their customer relationships and responsibility for orchestrating consistent experiences across journeys. Advertising platforms are effectively walled gardens and have grown so powerful due to network effects that marketers are effectively locked in. This combination of powerful but limiting capabilities encourages a dependence that leads to a sense of helplessness in marketing teams.
“The current marketing ecosystem is characterized by the concentration of significant first-party user data in a handful of advertising platforms. The data shared with marketers is carefully limited, in part to preserve data privacy. A consequence of this, however, has been that innovation has been constrained to the capacity and capabilities of these advertising platforms.“1
Tasked with delivering short-term key performance indicators (KPIs), teams are incentivized to focus on what they control: leveraging investments with current vendors, maximizing performance of individual channels, and unknowingly perpetuating a cycle that all but ensures a fragmented ecosystem.
Taking ownership of customer relationships and overcoming this dilemma is essential for long-term growth.
The solution
Marketers cannot risk falling short of current goals, nor can they continue to depend on an ecosystem of unreliable third parties and walled gardens. While it won’t be easy, marketers must build the business case, right fit the talent, and execute a strategy to establish data autonomy.
Data autonomy gives organizations the power to own customer relationships, understand customer needs, manage customer experiences, and create raving fans at the scope and scale necessary to succeed in an era where nearly all of business has been digitized.
Data ownership is the key that unlocks the Marketer’s Dilemma. And there are four questions that every marketer must address on the road to data autonomy.
1. Who truly owns your customer relationships?
Direct customer relationships should be a top imperative for every marketer. There is no perfect solution, even for large enterprises, but owning your customer relationships is critical; the value of controlling your own data cannot be understated.
Customer activity online generates enormous amounts of data, which also turns out to be an organization’s most valuable asset. As marketing leaders, how do we gain control and leverage our customer data to manage successful customer relationships? There are three steps worth considering:
Start with the data you currently own or will purchase and leverage solutions like customer data platforms (CDPs) to aggregate and analyze customer data.
“In an ideal world, you want to track the customer decision journey at the individual level, but even at an audience level it can be impactful. We are trying to build that, but a big chunk of our digital advertising goes through walled gardens. We are hoping that a CDP can help provide us with our first-party data and will be able to link with walled gardens.”Marketing Vice President, CPG Company.1
Next, take steps necessary to build your customer knowledge graph. This will entail reframing your thinking from marketing funnel to customer pyramid and establishing goals that move audiences from unknown, to known, to well understood, as you increase your level of first-party data.
Finally, employ AI to accelerate new insight and learning capacity. With the world segregated between the data-rich and the data-starvedAI-haves and AI-have-notsthe companies who are left out or cut off from the data access will likely be disrupted into oblivion.
2. Are you diversifying your portfolio?
Investments with platforms may have generated outsize returns over the past decade, but companies can no longer afford to risk relying on a small number of walled gardens. Just as disciplined investors diversify financial portfolios, so too must marketers act as disciplined data investors, diversifying their data portfolio to manage risk while balancing returns.
In practice, this will require companies to make decisions that feel riskier in the short term, while increasing the probability of success over the long term. Much as characteristics like agility and resiliency seem wasteful right up until the moment they are needed, as will a portfolio with a wider variety of players seem inefficient until the moment that adaptability, responsiveness, and self-determination prove critical.
3. Can you activate customer knowledge across all relevant channels and touch points?
Most enterprise data remains scattered across silos. As you take ownership of data relationships and diversify your portfolio, it is imperative to connect your customer knowledge graph to and from all sales, service, commerce, and marketing channels.
Internally, this means building bridges across organizational functions and acting as a kind of “customer engagement champion,” taking on responsibility for customer experience management spanning organizational divides. Externally, this means partnering with open platforms that enhance customer knowledge and are committed to the open web. To drive personalization and AI-led interactions at each moment of the customer journey, it is important to access and manage your data in open, interoperable systems.
4. Have you redesigned how you build brands?
Marketers of the past could be brand-centered and idea-obsessed, but marketers of today must learn to be human-centered and experience-obsessed.
It seems deceptively simple, but the shift from “brand drives the experience” to “experience drives the brand” upends the decades of history, tradition, and superstition that make up the unwritten rules of marketing.
Cultivating lasting relationships will require an evolved set of written and unwritten rules. Marketers should aim for a virtuous cycle between customers and brands. Great experiences facilitate a fair exchange of data. Data enables deeper insight and greater personalization to improve the experience. Improved experiences facilitate greater trust and a larger exchange of data. Distinctively helpful experiences build uniquely beloved brands. In a world where customer relationships operate through personalization, automation, and journey orchestration, data-starved companies run the risk of losing to the competition.
Summary
The responsibility of today’s CMO is no enviable task. Against the backdrop of shifting customer behavior, shrinking job tenure, and a fracturing ecosystem of media and technology partners, marketers often feel they are locked into an impossible dilemma.
Data autonomy is the key to unlocking this dilemma and paving the way forward to a more proactive and empowered future. By establishing agency over customer data, marketers can better understand customers, participate in deeper customer relationships, and build capabilities to innovate across the journey.
Data autonomy is poised to become a make-or-break achievement for marketers to succeed in the experience era. Marketers can no longer afford to risk relying on a small number of walled gardens, even if the benefits to date have been large. When experience drives the larger share of brand, it’s time to prioritize deep customer relationships.
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