#Modern Workplace

  My last couple of blog posts have been about MDE device tagging where I covered bulk tagging for macOS and iOS\iPadOS devices using Intune. In this blog post, I will be covering another method for bulk tagging which can work independently of any MDM solution. Asset rule management in Microsoft Defender Asset rule management in Microsoft Defender has been around for some time for assigning device tags based on certain criteria. This is done through asset rules that can be based on device name, domain, OS platform, internet facing status, onboarding status and manual device tags. Here is how one can go about creating asset rules: 1. Navigate to Microsoft Defender portal . 2. In the navigation pane, select Settings > Microsoft Defender XDR > Asset Rule Management. 3. Select Create a new rule. 4. Enter a Rule name and Description. 5. Select Next to choose the conditions you want to assign. I am pulling in al end user OS platforms. 6. Select Next and choose or create the ...

  Credits: Microsoft In my recent blog about device tagging for macOS devices in Defender , I had mentioned about covering tagging feature for iOS\iPadOS platform as well. In this blog, I will cover the specifics for achieving this and my experience overall. The new Microsoft Defender apps Before we get into tagging, I want to touch base upon the recent change involving the renaming and feature offering of the MDE app both in Apple  and Google Play stores. The MDE app is now called Microsoft Defender: Security  in Apple store and is called Microsoft Defender: Antivirus in Google Play store, thus enabling All-in-one security functionality across both personal and work accounts.  Under the personal account, Microsoft Defender will function as a multidevice security app 'Microsoft Defender for individuals' allowing individuals and families to protect their data and devices by offering malware protection, timely security notifications, security tips, and reco...

I recently worked on an implementation project for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for macOS devices and while I will love to cover all the bells and whistles involving the setup, for now I will just focus on one particular aspect of the setup i.e. MDE device tags. What is an MDE Device Tag anyway? Tags are used primarily to label and classify devices in an environment. This helps in making the searching easy and streamlining the designating rules to specific groups or categories. Device tags support proper mapping of the network, enabling you to attach different tags to capture context and to enable dynamic list creation as part of an incident in Defender. Here are some common uses of device tags - 1. Device Filter - One can be use a filter in the Device inventory view, or to group devices. 2. RBAC - You can create device groups in Defender using tags for the purpose of enforcing Role Based Access Control in the Defender Portal. 3. Device Grouping - You can create device groups in Def...

Recently w hile working on an implementation project for CMG, I came across an issue which I had never dealt with before. I had taken care of the usual pre-requisites, but nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to experience. While creating the Cloud Management Gateway Service, I got the following error. This didn’t make sense as I ensured that I have Contributor access to the resource group prior to initiating the configuration. SmsAdminUI.log logged some errors. This got me looking into the activity of the resource group and I verified that there was indeed an Azure policy blocking the creation of the objects. I matched the definition id and was able to identify the policy in question. It was no other than, but the policy of Tags. Classic providers within Azure don’t support tags. While CMG uses Azure Resource Manager framework, it still uses classic service providers for creating cloud objects. Mainly ClassicCompu...