Multi-Factor Authentication

Modern Workplace security: 5 steps to use Microsoft Teams in a safe way

By Jasper Bernaers | May 24, 2020 | Comments 0 Comment

In this blog I will go through 5 basic security improvement for organization that are shifting to Microsoft Teams. Also read my previous article: The Value Of Microsoft 365 E3 and E5.

Security improvements are embedded in Teams, it just needs activation

I’ve met a lot of organizations over the last months implementing Microsoft Teams, and I really love to see the fast-deployments, the big-activation, simple communication, dedicated onboarding.

Did you know that Microsoft Teams is not an addition to Office 365, but an integration of multiple services?
Did you know you can integrate the product better in your current workplace than ‘we’ think?
And thousand other possibilities – now that’s the problem, right? We do not really knew, before..
I know I’ve used Microsoft 365 E5 licenses. You can figure something out without CASB and with Azure Premium P1 + EndPoint Manager.

Introduction: Microsoft Teams Architecture

Did you know that Microsoft Teams is part of Office 365 or Microsoft 365 and is using: Azure AD, OneDrive, SharePoint, Exchange Online, SharePoint, Yammer, Stream, etc all out of the box. I mean, I suppose your organization will use deep integration when shifting to Microsoft Teams. Let’s dig into solutions now!

1. Identity Protection: MFA + Azure AD Conditional Access Policies + Risk Policy

The first step is to have a security-identity. Everything comes to Identity security and authentication – access management in general.

It’s still a best practice to activate Multi-Factor Authentication. I’ve written a lot about this in my previous article.
Activate Conditional Access to not get craziness of pop-ups and deliver a productive workplace.

Force a password change when assuming breach, risk-policies to be sure you can harbor save identities.

2. Registration for Windows 10: Device Onboarding

Make your Windows 10 devices known in the organization. So you have them in control, and you can do smart things with knowing.

Register or enroll your devices into Azure AD to provide an identity-token to the device. This identity is used to authenticate the device when a user signs in and apply conditional access rules that require domain-joined or compliant PCs.

Hybrid Azure AD Join: Enables devices in Active Directory to register in Azure AD For Access Management.

Go through Autopilot and let new devices join in Cloud-Only modus. With an Hybrid Identity. I’m not fan of doing registration only. It has value, but you can give than only Access Management. I’ve seen companies being able to go direct with Autopilot and shift to only Cloud Modern Management and have the devices in Azure AD only. It’s not a requirement Cloud or Hybrid. But it can help with straight-forward implementations.
Later you can do EndPoint Manager. Deploy Microsoft Teams, and the Office 365 suite to all endpoints.

3. Block downloading of document on non-trusted devices

If your device is not trusted. Accessing corporates data should be possibly (sometimes not, I know) but different than a real trusted device.

Set simple and transparent conditional access policies. Don’t make it to complex.
You could use this App Control (preview) to easily block downloading of ANY Office 365 document on a ‘non-trusted’, ‘non-compliant’ device.
Keep in mind, when using this. If you only select Exchange, it still impacts Teams, SharePoint as stated in the tip in the first screenshot.

4. Intune App Protection policies for Mobile Devices

You’ve covered your identity, your Windows 10 devices. You’ve covered your non-trusted devices and now your mobile devices.

I like to get feedback on this one. I’ve done App Protection policies on multiple customers without changing any definition of the standard policy you can create from: https://admin.microsoft.com – there is nothing wrong with standards. Better a policy activated than no policies.

Or you can use the App Protection Policy Data Protection Framework. It provides 3 levels op App data protection configuration. (github)

Level 1 enterprise basic data protection – Microsoft recommends this configuration as the minimum data protection configuration for an enterprise device.
Level 2 enterprise enhanced data protection – Microsoft recommends this configuration for devices where users access sensitive or confidential information. This configuration is applicable to most mobile users accessing work or school data. Some of the controls may impact user experience.
Level 3 enterprise high data protection – Microsoft recommends this configuration for devices run by an organization with a larger or more sophisticated security team, or for specific users or groups who are at uniquely high risk (as one example, one organization identified users who handle data whose theft would directly and seriously impact their stock price). An organization likely to be targeted by well-funded and sophisticated adversaries should aspire to this configuration.

Access requirements: You can find this in: EndPoint Manager

PIN for access: Require
PIN type: Numeric
Simple PIN Allow
Select minimum PIN length 4
Touch ID instead of PIN for access (iOS 8+/iPadOS): AllowOverride
More details in the 3 screenshots for iOS. I’ve also created a policy for Android.

5. Knowing the risks with Cloud App Security

You’ve covered your identity, your Windows 10 devices. You’ve covered your non-trusted devices and your mobile devices. If there is something slipping in between activation or something is missing. I suggest to use Cloud App Security to see data exfiltration, etc..

As you can see in your Cloud App Security portal the ‘possibility’ to understand the block download policy is there.

You can dig deeper to understand what happened. In the demo movie on the top I’ve showed left a trusted environment, on the right a non-trusted ‘personal computer’.

You can go further with automation from here. But I will not go deeper into this in this article. Because I believe that if you have these 5 steps you have already achieved somethings.

Next steps?

Identity protection(1) – automated remediation and creation of service-desk ticket to respond to your risky users.
Compliance policies(2) – to not let devices slip under the fingers of IT-departments. You need a process to be sure all devices are passing the same process. And are totally blocked if not.
Block downloads on non-trusted devices. (3) Go further, this implementation above is a great opportunity because of the easiness of implementation. Information protection is next. Because people can exfiltrate data when e-mailing, syncing, copying on their corp device, and their home device. And that’s a thing that should not be possible, anymore.
Automate actions with CASB. Label your exfiltration expert. And create processes IF there is something wrong. The right people in the chain of command are informed.

Next improvement is a future blog! Thanks for reading.

I hope you enjoyed reading. Please comment below!

The value of Multi-Factor Authentication – Get your story right!

By Jasper Bernaers | May 7, 2020 | Comments 0 Comment

I’ve tried something different last night. To write the story of Multi-factor authentication and bring the relation in the eco-system of Microsoft. Everything is connected. I would love a comment, share or a reply to see if this content is valuable for you! Thanks, Jasper

Creating the modern workplace! – Vision

Increase mobility: People are working from home. From clients and during travel. In regard to collaboration, 98% of information workers collaborate or communicate with someone else at work on a weekly basis.
Improve security and compliance. Most of the time there is no control of data compliance in the current on-premise environment. Security systems are complex and static without growing or proven improvements. Start with a Zero Trust model. Start with protection of your people.
Find more topics I’ve written in my previous article.

What is Multi-Factor Authentication – To know

Something you know, typically a password or a pincode.
Something you have, such as a trusted device that is not easily duplicated, like a phone or hardware key/token.
Something you are – biometrics like a fingerprint or face scan.

Cybersecurity Reference Architecture – The Cybersecurity vision to integrate deeply in Microsoft tech

Whoooaww, that’s a extreme reflex for doing our MFA implementation!! IS IT? Dear customer, colleagues. is it? I don’t think so. We need to see and understand that the small parts (Micro) are connected to the big parts. (Macro) Identity & Access management in crucial. Identity is the first step, is the bases, the baseline. We need to invest in the whole Cybersecurity frame and we need to start with the basics.

Next to the macro view of this Cybersecurity Reference architecture we need to dare to question the identity providers we have integrated in our current environment.

Foundation Infrastructure – The not so interesting part

The only way is up. Starting with your foundation. 1. Networking
2. Identity is the first investment before you ‘grow‘ to workloads and scenario’s.

Identity is a fundamental part of the workplace – The attack surface

As you can see in this figure all security mechanisms are built on the fundamentals of Identity Management. What can you protect IF you’re not able to enable MFA? It has his reasons. There are numbers out there to make you aware of this. We will come to that, later in this article.

Cloud Architecture Identity – MFA is part of something

Understanding identity management in the eco-system of Microsoft’s Identity management system is crucial to find the place where Multi-factor authentication (MFA) belongs. User Accounts – Identity management – Azure Active Directory – Azure/Microsoft365

Self-Service Password Reset – To help the people

Give people in your organization the ability to get some good because they ‘need’ to do MFA. This will ask people of your organization to change their password when there is a threshold higher or above the risk level. It will decrease the IT workload and more import it will make your customers happy. By the way, it’s very easy to configure go to Azure AD – Password Reset – Authentication Methods.

Force a password change when assuming breach – To prevent breaches AND decrease IT tickets

Go to Identity Protection in Microsoft Azure. Select your assignment. All users. Conditions. Select your requirement. And select Require Passwords Change. This will ask people of this organization to change their password when the threshold is at or above the risk level.

Did you know that: IT administrators can enable sign-in risk as a condition in multiple conditional access policies outside identity protection.
In case you don’t have MFA enrolled before this ‘risk policy’ – your account will be locked.

Azure AD Conditional Access – To make it easier

Conditional Access is a solution used by Azure Active Directory to bring signals together, to make decisions, and enforce organizational policies. Conditional Access is at the heart of the new identity driven control plane.

Keep user accounts safe by requiring strong authentication based on location and risks.
Keep data safe by only allowing managed devices.
Meet compliance requirements.
Create simple policies for everyone – not for groups, departments – make it simple!
Your modular dreams…

What if MFA fails like it did before? – Probably won’t

MFA failed 2 times? Less than 4 hours? Ever? Compared to your on-premise environment?
We like to kill MFA implementations because we don’t like it but we still want more security. DO IT. If security is a priority, you can fix this technically. What if that’s the real problem?
What if you did not have MFA and are breached? OR leave MFA enabled and still be in control of your data.
What if MFA failed and you had your devices and identities connected to your modern workplace because it was not a side-project and part of a strategic decision and were able to work when the service fails for some hours?
The reflex should to be prevent: Like a break glass account in case of a problematic situation.
Next to that write up a document that describes the action requires in case of MFA authentication problems. High risk user will get a unique passwords, low risk users may authenticate without password change. Risky users with medium risk and higher will get a password change.

The standard pitch doesn’t work – So stop telling this

99,9% compromised accounts did not have MFA.
Next to this fact the 50 accounts on 10.000 people that will be breached according the numbers of Microsoft is more and more understandable.
Your Pa$$word doesn’t matter
You can do internal phishing attacks and see that people are entering their passwords. It’s a fact. What’s the point of knowing again if it’s already known? Any fool can know, the point is to understand. Albert E.

These stories are well-known but will not trigger changes. Do’s & don’ts are judging. Don’t work on the ‘facts’. Work on the value and support and simplicity of modern technology. GIVE to the people. Don’t take things away.

99,9% compromised accounts did not have MFA

MFA is included in all licenses – It has been changed since a long time

Basic MFA is included in all Office 365 and Microsoft 365 licenses. It does not mean conditional access or other related features are included. Reference.

Passwordless authentication – To give to the people

Enablement of Passwordless authentication will activate authentication without a password – isn’t this great? Enablement of password Authentication in Azure AD is easy. Go to Azure Active Directory – Security – Authentication methods | Authentication method policy (Preview) – Enable.

Passwordless authentication is a feature that let us rethink our current MFA solution IF it’s not running in the cloud or third-party. As you can see the integration is deeper and deeper here.

The MFA Experience – It isn’t bad at all

The mobile experience shows 3 sign-in code’s to validate the sign-in. Your code needs to be validated. and you don’t need to enter the password.

Combined MFA and password reset registration – To make the onboarding smooth

Microsoft has announced that the combined security information registration is now generally available (GA). This new experience makes it easy for users to register for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR) in a simple step-by-step process.

Adoption and change management – To make everyone happy except the sponsor 😉

Make standards that are understandable for everyone, not only of the IT organization. Communicate MFA announcement and changes before the change – not after. Keep track of the change record. Explain very well how you’re using ‘standards’ in your organization. Put the guidelines on a place where all procedures are located. Communicate over multiple platforms. Make it about the end-user. Help end-users. It’s all about experience! And you are in control!

Published on the #WorldPasswordDay – Stay Save!

What are your thoughts after reading this article? Comment below! In case you were inspired by this article please share!

The value of Microsoft 365 E3 or E5

By Jasper Bernaers | April 15, 2020 | Comments 1 comment

Creating the modern workplace!

Digital business transformation. Every company has a digital transformation initiative. Microsoft 365 drives this digital transformation.
Increasing agility. The ability to respond to and drive market change quickly is the fundamental measure of business agility.
Empower information workers and firstline workers so they can collaborate and communicate better. Internally as with customers.
Support different working styles for millennial’s, Gen Z, Gen X, Baby boomers.
Generate better intelligence and analytics with a single view into your company information!
Increase mobility. people are working from home. From clients and during travel. In regard to collaboration, 98% of information workers collaborate or communicate with someone else at work on a weekly basis.
Improve security and compliance. Most of the time there is no control of data compliance in the current on-premise environment. Security systems are complex and static without growing or proven improvements. Start with a Zero Trust model.

Microsoft 365 E3 OR E5?

Decision making is crucial. Also simplicity. Make IT-system simple to move faster and support your business better. 2-3 Flavors of license scenario’s or strategies will be great. Don’t mess with addons id you will not use or active them..build trust, choose platform, choose Microsoft.
Start with activating basic security mechanisms. Start support of what you are using. grow. Don’t buy E5 when you are not mature enough, yet. Buy E5 and enable CASB to understand shadow IT or act when people extract crucial organization data… etc..
Don’t think it’s complex. Even when your company size is 50 people. You could start using Microsoft Business, full cloud. With real value and benefits as in Microsoft 365 E3. You could even use M365 E5 for small business when data control and cloud security is required.

Office 365 – standard set

Every company is using e-mail, calendar, contacts move to exchange Online. it’s a proven standard.
Voice, Video, Meetings. Microsoft Teams. It’s used by 500.000 organization and became a standard. Shift to Microsoft Teams for better collaboration.
Office ProPlus: Everyone is using rich office clients: Word, Excel, PowerPoint. It’s there for decades and became a standard.
Planner, Yammer, OneDrive, SharePoint,.. it isn’t always a standard but we currently have tools to Plan tasks, Share thoughts, Share Documents and colleborate in our organization. Proven standard

Office 365 – advanced

‘Built-in’ Analytics – did you know there are free/default/built-in dashboards for a lot of Microsoft 365 Services. I know. These are not organizational related. So they can give rich insights of usability of Office 365 tools.
Workplace Analytics for example: Measure progress toward transformation goals or Evaluate effectiveness of change efforts. Measure meeting hours, Discover inefficient processes, Identify hurdles to innovation, Gaps in learning, Identify Influencers,..

MyAnalytics: It’s not to control – it’s to to help to find out how work is done. People in your organization can find out their own habits because of their Analytic-insights.

The bigger picture – Why?

To bring value of Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 it’s important to understand the bigger picture. In the underlaying topics I’ve brought as much features in the eco-system of the E5 license. The main question is what are the benefits for a organization to shift to cloud solutions?

1. Protection across the attack kill chain

This slide shows the real value of Microsoft 365 E5. A lot of customers al laughing with MDATP because they think this is a isolated product. And are going deep in the license compare strategy of their current antivirus. Have a separated anti-spam solution, NO Azure AD Protection, NO cloud App Security..

2. Microsoft 365 E5 license includes

O365 ATP, Windows Defender ATP, Azure ATP + Cloud App Security. Detailed descriptions can be found on the website of Microsoft.

3. Cloud App Security

Cloud App Security shows you exactly whether data is passing on all endpoints. Document data, lateral movements, usage of applications, global traffic, count of applications in use in your organisation. Risk levels, GDPR proof applications. Bring network devices logging in CASB to have more insights.

4. Security & Compliance

I’ve seen that there a not enough organizations aware of the richness of the Security & Compliance possibilities in Microsoft 365. Because of shifting to Microsoft 365 the compliance will be in control of your organization. Even if you leave some file-servers and SharePoint services on-premise.

5. Identity & Access management

Because of simplified Identity management organizations are able to work with Security perimeters to protect their users and organization. Because of these simplified configuration users will be able to reset their own password, control their own devices, or configure additional security components. (ZERO-IT)

6. Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR)

The SSPR possibility Is an Azure Active Directory (AD) feature that enables users to reset their passwords without contacting IT staff for help. People can unblock themselves and continue working no matter where they are.

7. Managed Mobile Device

Cloud intelligence drives management. Use Autopilot to roll-out new devices and Increase productivity, reduce help-desk costs and Provide the best employee experience. Manage you Windows 10 devices and your mobile devices. Stop allowing personal devices without taking control of organization data. Use MAM and be diplomatic for end-users.

8. Microsoft Defender Security Center Security operations dashboard

The Security operations dashboard is where the endpoint detection and response capabilities are surfaced. It provides a high level overview of where detections were seen and highlights where response actions are needed. USE your built-in possibility for SECOPS reporting. You HAVE IT.

9. Identity driven Security

Because of the use of a single identity in Azure. Or hybrid synced from your local Active Directory services organizations will be able to protect and automatically act when necessary. request for update your password if breached. Ask MFA when your device is not trusted. etc.. let your users update their password from home. Increase productivity.

10. Risky Sign-ins

This great feature will bring based on cloud intelligence insights to understand the RISK of a user. for example unfamiliar location, anonymous IP addresses, leaked credentials.. (more info here)

11. Information Protection

To start with classification and labeling of document choose your battles. Define 1-2-3 labels for example: “High-Confidential Internal Only”, “Public” and “Internal Only”. It’s a good start without auto-labeling documents so people can learn how to protect their confidential data. In a later phase you can enable auto-labeling when a document is highly confidential because of there are credit-card numbers, personal information etc in this document. The activation of Information Protection could come from the fact that 1 million files are shared with external people. Or that you want to stop third-party applications so company data stays safe in the environment.

12. Advanced Threat Protection

Work with Microsoft Defender Security Center (previous WDATP) it will give you insights for Applications, OS, Network, Accounts, Security Controls + Give insights for Software patching, Top vulnerable software, Top exposed machines. Most reports are built-in and seamless integration is done in the Eco-system of Microsoft 365 E5.

Threat & Vulnerability management dashboard

13. Windows 10 Enterprise with modern approach

Windows 10: My personal favorite. I really love customers which did their homework and started using Windows 10 without policies, governance, Intune (for example), management solutions and now they are stuck in the patching & management of these systems. This is wrong!

Microsoft Windows 10: Windows 10 has been released to insiders in 2015. version. 1507 afterwards 1511, 1607, 1703,1709, 1803,1809,1903,1909. Microsoft did understand the pain of shifting from Windows XP to Windows 7, Windows 8 to 8.1 and Windows 10. And now they want you to work on this NEW versions in a different way.

Microsoft’s Windows 10 Enterprise: comes in the flavor of continues improvement. And needs to be implemented in a service-model with automatic updates, roll-outs, deployment, patching, updating, software requests (self-service) and even more!

Set compliance policies: Because of deep integrations you will be able to work on the compliance of the devices and grow to a recurrent update-model.

14. Desktop Analytics

Thanks to desktop analytics you will be able to evaluate the changes during updates as software distribution and compatibility issues. You can bring your organization to a next level. In case you were afraid that automation took your job, think again. These things need huge attention!

15. Native PowerBI Integration

Because of the rich Eco-system within Microsoft 365 everything can be measured. This report is default/standard without any manipulation of Power-bi. I know it sounds stupid, but without insights that can grow fast. You have nothing. Features/services are changing every year. Be prepared. Start consolidation and start using standards to built on.

Action Plan

Create a STRATEGY to bring value for Microsoft 365 E3 or E5. Do you want to: increase agility, empower information workers create intelligence increase mobility short: Drive transformation. AND invest in your SECURITY MATURITY -> than you should start with a STRATEGY. Non of all these things are technical. Even if we think it’s technical. DECIDE.
PLAN: Everything starts with a plan. PLAN to start a Microsoft Teams pilot, to evaluate, to pick-up the finding. and plan to go further. Most important PLAN to write a ROADMAP which describes the road ahead.
READINESS CHECK: Are you technically READY to start with a Microsoft Teams Roll-out? Is your company READY to start? Are the people READY to start? Is everyone involved? Are you READY?
IMPLEMENTATION: This is the easy part. Implement Microsoft Teams. Enable the features, check the boxes. Activate the subscriptions, copy the templates. Start the Pilot. Ask experts to deliver the technical requirements.
NEW WAY OF WORK: Microsoft Teams as used in this example as ‘new tech’, think about the groups we had in the top of the article. millennial’s, Gen Z, Gen X, Baby boomers. Do you think you should make some scenario’s? training and standard adoption programs to help them work as they never did before? YES!
TRANSFORM(ATION): Real transformation is successful when you KNOW/MEASURE it went well. Wen you see the activation/usage ratio in numbers. When you know the people are confident and happy to use new technology. When nobody is complaining and the organization has grown to a higher level of collaboration. And even when it fails or needs more improvements start over with this S-P-R-I-N-T.

Thank you for reading!

Jasper

The top 10 security recommendations to consider while working from home!

By Jasper Bernaers | April 12, 2020 | Comments 0 Comment

Mobile working is a standard, today.
Companies are not longer protected by their infrastructure in their corp-environment.
Crucial document data is moving away from centralized systems because it’s easier to work on them on our own document systems.
The irrelevance of bombastic systems in corporate environment is holding collaboration down.
Does it sounds familiar?

the 10 security recommendations we should consider while working from home!

Identity Security / MFA
Install the latest patches and updates
Passwords and management
Build real-time reports of security risks
Create automated and intelligent alerts
Install antivirus on all endpoints
Secure devices and corporate devices (+ personal phones)
Evaluate regularly which users have access to data, devices and networks
Track, change and block access for temporary projects and when employees are leaving your company
Use information protection solutions to protect your data everywhere.

1. Identity protection

Some facts: 1.2 million of all Office 365 or Microsoft 365 accounts (each month) are compromised. This represents 0.5% of all accounts in your environment. Source: theregister-co-uk