Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Interested in the why, how, and what of Active Directory (AD) and enterprise protection? This course has the answers you need to help you defend AD against cyberattacks. Learn from the experts, as they look at Active Directory from an enterprise risk perspective. The key to success is knowing what your high-value assets are, securing them, and securing their dependencies.

Whether your digital assets are on-premises or in the cloud, join us to explore the AD environment, today’s adversaries, relationship dynamics, and strategic prioritization, along with adoption of least privilege. Take a look at the different aspects of Active Directory security, based on findings from the Microsoft Cybersecurity Services team, learn strategies to protect privileged identities in your environment, and finish the course with a roadmap for hardening your AD environment. Defenders should be as extremely adaptive as adversaries are these days, and this course is a great place to start.

• Active Directory Security: First Things First
  Take a look at the sophisticated threats that target Active Directory. Examine the anatomy of a cyberattack, and review the basics of Active Directory security.
• Adopt Least Privilege
  Learn about the centricity of Active Directory, further explore Tier 0, and understand the importance of assigning least privilege, including its role in your organization’s cyberdefense strategy.
• Protect Privileged Identities
  Adversaries leverage privileged identities, the primary attack vector, to persist and expand the scope of compromise. Learn strategies to protect privileged identities in your environment.
• Defend Your Directory
  Do you know who your admins are? Learn why maintaining solid access control to sensitive directory objects is important for mitigating stealthy means of persistence and escalation of privilege.
• Defend Your Domain Controllers
  Protecting Domain Controller hosts is fundamental to maintain the integrity of the overall access model and security boundary provided by Active Directory. Learn how to mitigate the risks.
• Beware of Security Dependencies
  Security dependencies are one of the more sophisticated means of compromising Active Directory. Learn how to minimize and protect the security dependencies in your organization’s environment.
• Monitoring
  Collection is not the same as detection. Learn what to collect and how to analyze and respond to your collected data. Start making more informed decisions in response to your collected data. Start making more informed decisions in response to security events.

Learn

• Learn about the anatomy of a cyberattack.
• Learn the importance of assigning least privilege.
• List strategies you can use to protect privileged identities in your organization’s environment.
• Maintain solid access control to sensitive directory objects.
• Find out different means of compromising hosts, and differentiate ways to mitigate the risks.
• Identify your organization’s security dependencies.
• Analyze and respond to your collected data.

To start the FREE course, go to:

• TRAINING: Defending Active Directory Against Cyberattacks (May 10, 2016)
  https://mva.microsoft.com/en-us/training-courses/defending-active-directory-against-cyberattacks-16327?l=gj8k5xssc_2004300474

Andre Da Costa wrote up two epically awesome tutorials on how to download Windows 10 as an ISO or create a bootable USB drive.  They should be required reading for any tech using Windows 10.

• How to download official Windows 10 ISO files
  http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows_10-windows_install/how-to-download-official-windows-10-iso-files/35cde7ec-5b6f-481c-a02d-dadf465df326
• How to install and activate Windows 10 using your Windows 7 or Windows 8 product key
  http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows_10-windows_install/how-to-install-and-activate-windows-10-using-your/d713f9f9-e91f-4ffe-a3c0-7ef9639a0559

Folks that have Premier Support can use the credit on their contract to purchase registration passes to the Microsoft Ignite 2016 in Atlanta, GA, Sept 26-30.

Note: Ignite 2016 is Microsoft’s conference for IT Decision Makers, IT Professionals, & Enterprise Developers.  Think of Ignite as the combination of the Microsoft Exchange, Lync, Project, SharePoint, MMS, or TechEd Conferences all in one.

A full Ignite registration pass requires 9:26  Premier hours.  In order to transact this exchange:

1. Tell your Premier Technical Account Manager how many tickets you want. 
2. Within 24-48 hours after, the TAM will send customer a single registration code with x number of tickets associated + instructions on how to finalize the registration process.

For more information about Ignite, visit:

• SITE: Microsoft Ignite 2016
  https://ignite.microsoft.com/
• FAQ: Microsoft Ignite
  https://microsoftignite.uservoice.com/knowledgebase

For the session list at Ignite, visit:

• Microsoft Ignite 2016 Session List
  https://myignite.microsoft.com/sessions 

Come and join Xamarin and Microsoft after the WWDC 2016 State of the Union. We’ll be providing food and drinks and chatting about iOS.

WHO
All iOS & OS X devs are welcome!
(even if you’re not attending WWDC)

WHEN
Monday, June 13
Starting immediately after the “State of the Union” (estimated 5:00)

WHERE
Market St. & 9th St.
1355 Market Street, 3FL
San Francisco, CA 94103
(behind the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium) 
  
For more information, visit:

• EVENT: Xamarin & Microsoft WWDC 2016 Party – June 13, 5PM-8:30PM (PDT)
  https://wwdcparty.ms/

Are you looking for a quick & simple way to get your team together, create plans, assign & collaborate on tasks, set due days, update statuses, share files ,etc.?

Check out the new Microsoft Planner for Office 365!

Today marks the general availability of Microsoft Planner. Over the next several weeks, Planner will roll out to all eligible Office 365 customers worldwide. This includes Office 365 Enterprise E1–E5, Business Essentials, Premium and Education subscription plans.

All users with eligible subscription plans will automatically see the Planner tile appear in the Office 365 app launcher when it is available for them to use. No specific action by Office 365 admins is needed.

The addition of Planner to the Office 365 lineup introduces a new and improved way for businesses, schools and organizations to structure teamwork easily and get more done. With Planner, teams can create new plans; organize, assign and collaborate on tasks; set due dates; update statuses and share files, while visual dashboards and email notifications keep everyone informed on progress.

…

Planner is rolling out starting today to Office 365 tenants.  All tenants should be updated in the next few weeks.

• ANNOUNCEMENT: Microsoft Planner ready for showtime
  https://blogs.office.com/2016/06/06/microsoft-planner-ready-for-showtime/
• FEEDBACK: UserVoice page for Microsoft Planner for Office 365
  https://planner.uservoice.com/forums/330525

You’ve likely used OneNote before. But perhaps you’ve wondered if there’s more you can do, or if there’s a faster way to do something.

That’s why we created this eBook — so you can learn about our favorite hidden features, techniques, and timesavers in OneNote 2016 for Windows.

• DOWNLOAD: eBook–“OneNote 2016 Tips & Tricks”: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/eBook-OneNote-2016-Tips-Tricks-4e08cf8b-dc37-4229-bdef-1f580220b6f5

More OneNote training is available here:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/OneNote-2016-training-51d1d95b-bdf4-48df-acad-a3331dec8f97

Today we announced the general availability of SQL Server 2016, the world’s fastest and most price-performant database for HTAP (Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing) with updateable, in-memory columnstores and advanced analytics through deep integration with R Services.

Software applications can now deploy sophisticated analytics and machine learning models in the database resulting in 100x or more speedup in time to insight, compared to deployments of such models outside of the database.

“Both industry analysts and customers recognize the breadth and depth of Microsoft’s capabilities in data, intelligence and the cloud. Microsoft is the only company recognized as a leader across data platforms and cloud by Gartner in both vision and execution in database, business intelligence, advanced analytics, data warehouse, cloud infrastructure and cloud application platforms, and the furthest in vision and ability to execute within the Leaders Quadrant  in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Operational DBMS.”

Read the announcement & details of the product on the SQL Server blog:

• SQL SERVER BLOG: “SQL Server 2016 is generally available today
  ”https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/06/01/sql-server-2016-is-generally-available-today/
• SQL SERVER SITE:
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/sql-server/

Our next group of Azure Active Directory Premium webinars will start June 7th.  Please note, we are running these on Tuesday/ Wednesday/ Thursday this month.

These webinars are free of cost and are currently held monthly with new sessions being added.  They are 1 hour which includes an anonymous Q&A session with our Engineering Team.

To stay apprised of these and other events, visit:

• Azure Active Directory Premium Customer Training Webinars
  https://info.microsoft.com/AADP-Webinar-CLE_AADP-Main-Landing-Page.html

Yesterday at Citrix Synergy in Las Vegas, Citrix chief executive Kirill Tatarinov said the following:

“We will see some really incredible introduction of technologies as a result of this renewed partnership,” he said.

“Probably most exciting, we’ve been working together to enable XenDesktop VDI to help you deliver Windows 10 desktop as a service from Azure cloud.”

Strangely, most of the media didn’t pick up on that.  Perhaps they aren’t aware that Windows client OS has never been available in cloud-based virtual desktops… until now.

This means for the first time, via the partnership between Citrix & Microsoft, it will be soon possible to license, provision & deliver a full & complete Windows 10 virtual desktop experience to any Citrix receiver through Microsoft Azure & XenDesktop VDI.

(Note: Amazon Workspaces does not serve Windows client desktops. They serve Windows Server-based desktops with numerous caveats.)

Here’s more on this from Microsoft CVP Brad Anderson himself:

Also, here’s Brad Anderson via the Microsoft In The Cloud blog:

“Building out (and then maintaining) the infrastructure or farms for centralized apps and desktops can be really daunting.  Why not let Microsoft and Citrix do this for you?  This request has come up from a lot of our customers.  In fact, one of the most common requests has been for Citrix to offer managed services that Citrix maintains and operates.  Moving forward, Citrix will deliver “as-a-service solutions” hosted in Azure for all of their customers.

Also, later this year, Citrix will offer customers who have purchased Windows Software Assurance on a per-user basis the option to host their Windows 10 Enterprise Current Branch for Business images on Azure through its XenDesktop VDI solution. This will be an industry first!  This means you can deploy virtual apps or desktops and accelerate Windows 10 adoption for those customers who are using Microsoft Cloud solutions.“

• Microsoft and Citrix Partner to Help Customers Move to the Cloud
  https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/in_the_cloud/2016/05/24/microsoft-and-citrix-partner-to-help-customers-move-to-the-cloud/
• Video Recap: Big Announcements at Citrix Synergy 2016
  https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/in_the_cloud/2016/05/26/video-recap-big-announcements-at-citrix-synergy-2016/

Azure DevTest Labs provides developers and testers a self-service sandbox environment to quickly create Dev/Test environments while minimizing waste and controlling costs. Check out this video to see all the benefits you can get from Azure DevTest Labs. More information can be found at http://aka.ms/dtl. 

Here’s part of the GA announcement:

Today, we are very excited to announce the general availability of Azure DevTest Labs: your self-service sandbox environment in Azure to quickly create Dev/Test environments while minimizing waste and controlling costs.

We’ve been hearing from a lot of customers about all kinds of challenges they’ve been facing in their Dev/Test environments. With the power of cloud, some problems have started being solved such as the hardware maintenance cost. On the other hand, there are still a few problems many customers have to deal with day to day, especially:

• The delays in delivering environments to developers/testers that are introduced by the traditional environments request model;
• Time-consuming environment configuration;
• Production fidelity issues;
• And the high cost of the cloud resource management in order to optimize the resource usage.

Here’s a brief video intro to Azure DevTest Labs:

Read more at the announcement here:

• DEVTESTLABS BLOG: Announcing General Availability of Azure DevTest Labs
  https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/devtestlab/2016/05/25/announcing-general-availability-of-azure-devtest-labs/

Here’s where to get started:

• SITE: Azure DevTest Labs
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/devtest-lab/