A little later than originally planned because of an unexpected visit of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on my way…. In my previous postings I blogged about the start of the conference and some of the Exchange sessions I attended in the first two days. Now how much I do love Exchange, most of my clients are moving towards Office 365 and Exchange Online, so what else is important here?
Yes, authentication! Azure Active Directory, Identity and Access Management and security around these solutions. And this happens to be important for Exchange and Exchange Online as well, so….
Secure access to Office 365/Azure Active Directory with new features in AD FS in Windows Server 2019 and Azure AD Password Protection
Sessions “BRK3226 – Secure access to Office 365/Azure Active Directory with new features in AD FS in Windows Server 2019 and Azure AD Password Protection” is all about authentication in Azure AD. It explains the traditional password hash sync as well as the ADFS options (more that 71 million users are actively using ADFS). But there are also 1.29 billion authentications blocked in August 2018 and 81% of all security breaches are because of weak, default or stolen passwords.
Common passwords used in (Azure) AD are Password, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, 2018, 1234, your favorite football team etc. And these in turn are used in password spray attacks! Also vulnerable are passwords where number and letters are changed, for example “I” becomes “!”, “O” becomes “0” etc. And now you wonder, how many of my users are doing this? Password protection in Azure AD also includes normalization of the password, so these changes are automatically blocked. The good thing is, Azure AD password protection is coming to on-premises AD as well!
You can find the presentation on Youtube https://youtu.be/DC4cyF_JEgw and the presentation can be found here https://mediusprodstatic.studios.ms/presentations/Ignite2018/BRK3226.pptx
Azure Active Directory best practices from around the world
The title of the session was renamed to “Azure AD: Do’s and Don’ts”, but this is a more ‘notes from the field’ session with a lot of practical information around Azure AD, legacy authentication, modern authentication, Hybrid Azure AD Joine (HAADJ, I hate 3 letter acronyms, let alone 5 letter versions 😊) and what to do to get a better and more safe authentication experience.
Interesting in this presentation is that is also discusses what step you need to take to move from legacy authentication to modern authentication, and also the pitfalls you might encounter, including links to more information (found in the presentation).
You can see the presentation on Youtube https://youtu.be/wGk0J4z90GI and you can find the presentation here https://mediusprodstatic.studios.ms/presentations/Ignite2018/BRK3408.pptx
Scott Schnoll’s Exchange and Office 365 tips and tricks
I don’t know how many times Scott Schnoll has delivered this session, but it still is an awesome session and contains so much practical information around Exchange and nowadays Exchange Online.
I tried to make some pictures with Office Lens, but I think the color of the slides and text are not identified correctly so they are horrible. The slides aren’t available (yet), so you have to check the presentation on Youtube: https://youtu.be/0WNMX8EKYZk
Topics include anti-virus exclusions, DMARC enhancements, decommission on-premises Exchange in (or after) hybrid, changes to EOP IP ranges, migrating DL’s to Office 365 (including a script to do so), a license administrator in Office 365 (preview), DLP and credit card numbers and Mail Flow Insights, a new tool/dashboard that is currently being developed. Scott is doing a demo on this at the end of his presentation. Very cool, very promising, very useful!
Summary
So, after 5 days (well, four and a half days) we can say it was a very successful event. It is so huge, approx. 30,000 attendees from 5,000 organizations. So many sessions, break-out, theatre, workshop, hands-on, almost too much. And the sheer size of the location, I guess one can walk between 6 and 7 miles every day between the various locations. Would I go again? Sure, next year, again in Orlando, November 4-8. Hope to see you there!
More information/sessions
And some more interesting sessions to view online….
BRK2407 – Windows 10 and Office 365 ProPlus lifecycle and servicing update (CONDENSED)
https://mediusprodstatic.studios.ms/presentations/Ignite2018/BRK2407.pptx https://youtu.be/t9Bs55czc1E
BRK3234 – An IT pros guide to Open ID Connect, OAuth 2.0 with the V1 and V2 Azure Active Directory endpoints (very informative, but not available online yet I’m afraid)
BRK3397 – Protect and control your sensitive emails with Office 365 Message Encryption
https://mediusprodstatic.studios.ms/presentations/Ignite2018/BRK3397.pptx
BRK3408 – Azure Active Directory best practices from around the world
https://mediusprodstatic.studios.ms/presentations/Ignite2018/BRK3226.pptx
BRK3146 – What’s amazing and new in calendaring in Outlook!
THR3024 – How to add MFA to your Exchange Online/on-premises mailboxes in 20 minutes or less
BRK3081 – Implementing a modern network architecture to get the most out of Office 365
BRK3145 – Deploying Outlook mobile securely in the enterprise
THR3036 – Azure Active Directory hybrid identity and banned password detection
Jaap Wesselius 
Great presentation and also great to look forward to new collaboration.
LikeLiked by 1 person