Latest Microsoft Authenticator App/ MFA Improvements

Exciting new improvements in the Microsoft Authenticator front. This is a step towards phishing attacks that can lead to accidental MFA approvals. We all know about MFA fatigue by now and how much damage a bad actor can make when an account holder makes one wrong move. This will trend will not stop, but this … Continue reading Latest Microsoft Authenticator App/ MFA Improvements

Get Started with Microsoft Graph Intune PowerShell Module for Endpoint Manager Tasks

This is my very first blog post after being awarded as a Microsoft MVP and during the past few days it was all about processing this new avenue that just opened up in my life and was mentally getting ready for it. I will be writing a separate article about that later. But for now, … Continue reading Get Started with Microsoft Graph Intune PowerShell Module for Endpoint Manager Tasks

Microsoft Intune and Defender for Endpoint Relationship Simplified

I stumbled upon this so many times, tripped and fell, read things over, test things again and again, and finally thought to write about it. Without understanding the high-level architecture and how these two services talk to each other, using this in day-to-day tech life can be challenging. Especially if you are coming from a … Continue reading Microsoft Intune and Defender for Endpoint Relationship Simplified

How to Use Endpoint Manager Import ADMX Function to Map Shared Drives

Earlier this year I wrote the same but more of a manual method to map drives using Endpoint Manager OMA-URI function and by ingesting the ADMX files in raw form to configure the drives. https://shehanperera.com/2022/04/01/network_shares_with_mem/ After Microsoft announced the Preview of the Import ADMX function, I was thrilled as I wanted to test out a … Continue reading How to Use Endpoint Manager Import ADMX Function to Map Shared Drives

[Product Feature] Passwordless Authentication with FEITIAN BioPass FIDO2 Security Key K49

FEITIAN Technologies recently reached me out via LinkedIn to request if I can review one of their latest Passwordless key products - K49. This is not a paid review and only contains my independent opinion as a technologist as well as an avid Identity and Access Management enthusiast. I'm always a big fan of going … Continue reading [Product Feature] Passwordless Authentication with FEITIAN BioPass FIDO2 Security Key K49

A Closer Look At The Azure AD Joined Device Local Administrator Role And Endpoint Manager Account Protection Policy

Local Admin is a must needed account/ access that requires in a domain setup for so many reasons. Over the years Microsoft brought many options to manage these accounts in a secure manner. Restricted groups/ LAPS etc. With Azure AD and Endpoint Manager in the scene, many devices are moved to cloud managed rather than … Continue reading A Closer Look At The Azure AD Joined Device Local Administrator Role And Endpoint Manager Account Protection Policy

Get Notified When You Have Group Based License Assignment Issues

I'm considered as a citizen developer and I know the ways to get some automation happening when it needed the most. This is one of them. This has been in my head for a while and I've seen this happening many times. SO thought to do some findings, playing around with the tools to come … Continue reading Get Notified When You Have Group Based License Assignment Issues

Microsoft Entra – An Overview

Woke up to a nice little surprise from Microsoft this morning. Microsoft Entra. At first glance It looked like they have bundled the Identity and Access related products in to one portal and provides access via https://entra.microsoft.com According to Microsoft, this is a single pane of view for all Identity and Access related solutions, which … Continue reading Microsoft Entra – An Overview

How to Setup Endpoint Manager RBAC

Welcome to another MEM article. Today I'm going to talk about an essential component of Microsoft Endpoint Manager where a lot of admins ignore or fail to configure. As your team grows or if you planning on outsourcing tasks to a different team of admins, a MSP perhaps, it is vital to configure correct RBAC … Continue reading How to Setup Endpoint Manager RBAC

FIX and Thoughts on Autopilot Pre-Provision Error 0x80180014

It was one of days where you get these sort of errors just after completing a task. That big ol' unsatisfying red screen with an error. This time it was We couldn't finish MDM enrollment. Error 0x80180014 At 1st glance, though the Reset button will fix the issue. However it didn't. It resets the machine … Continue reading FIX and Thoughts on Autopilot Pre-Provision Error 0x80180014

Pros and Cons of Using Microsoft Endpoint Manager Policy Sets Feature

What else can be a great feature in Microsoft Endpoint Manager other than bundling up all the policies and create that "Golden Image" type policy and assign it to the Device or User groups so from an Administrators perspective, you don't need to individually assign groups in to policies and apps and managing this will … Continue reading Pros and Cons of Using Microsoft Endpoint Manager Policy Sets Feature

How to Use KQL and Azure Log Analytics to Inspect Azure AD Sign-in Logs?

As you may already know KQL has become the standard for querying large data sets in Azure Log Analytics space. When you have thousands of users who are in Azure AD and when you have MFA and other Conditional Access Policies setup, next thing you will see is tons of sign in logs, activity logs, … Continue reading How to Use KQL and Azure Log Analytics to Inspect Azure AD Sign-in Logs?

Intune Remote Help to the Rescue

I think it's too soon to compare Remote Help with a tool like TeamViewer because the Remote Help feature with Microsoft Intune just went on GA this week. I was looking at this option for quite a while and finally got time to test and write about it. Remote Help BenefitsRemote Help License RequirementsNetwork ConsiderationsConfigure … Continue reading Intune Remote Help to the Rescue

How To Map a Shared Drive Using Microsoft Endpoint Manager Instead of GPOs

Welcome to another MEM how to article. Among Microsoft Endpoint Manager's wonderful capabilities I see this as a big win towards promoting it's modern device management capabilities. This will simply supersede the local AD, OUs and GPMC that used to manage drive mappings to user sessions. Update [03 Sep 2022] Microsoft have recently announced the … Continue reading How To Map a Shared Drive Using Microsoft Endpoint Manager Instead of GPOs

How To Create and Usages of Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM) Device Filters

MEM device filters finally came out of preview to General Availability (GA) and lets see why we need to use device filters. What Device Filters Does? This helps the Endpoint Manager policies to apply in a more targeted manner. This feature is similar to the setting up targeted GPO assignments or probably GPO loopback processing. … Continue reading How To Create and Usages of Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM) Device Filters

How To Set Defender For Endpoint To Work In Parallel When Defender Is Not The Primary A/V In The Workstation/ Server

EDR in Block Mode EDR stands for Endpoint Detection and Response. MDE has the capability to work in parallel to the 3rd party A/V running in the device. While this will not provide 100% of the tasks done by an A/V which includes real-time protection, it will help to report malicious activities.Because there is a … Continue reading How To Set Defender For Endpoint To Work In Parallel When Defender Is Not The Primary A/V In The Workstation/ Server

How to use Microsoft Graph and Power Automate to Automate Teams Creation With a Template

Often the issue with the IT Admins is with the ever-growing Teams popularity, how to beat the demand and how to create Teams and especially, how to template it out and automate it. Well, Teams templates are now in the Teams Admin Center where you can see pre-defined templates and the ability to create custom … Continue reading How to use Microsoft Graph and Power Automate to Automate Teams Creation With a Template

I’ve completed the MDE Ninja Training and it was great! (my thoughts and experience)

It took me sometime, but finally completed the MDE Ninja training. I got to know about this course from a local user group meetup and it hit me. This certificate is not a standard Microsoft certificate, but I would say more of an achievement celebration from Microsoft for the effort we put to learn the … Continue reading I’ve completed the MDE Ninja Training and it was great! (my thoughts and experience)

How to Onboard Windows Devices to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

To start hunting for threats and act on alerts, first the devices in the organisation must be onboarded to MDE. There are few onboarding methods that suites the organisation and I will be showcasing the steps of the commonly used setups. I will be focusing on Windows 10 devices in this article. And finally the … Continue reading How to Onboard Windows Devices to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint