Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Microsoft has just unveiled the Secure Future Initiative (SFI), a groundbreaking roadmap for tomorrow’s cybersecurity, innovatively crafted to protect our digital existence.

Here’s a sneak peek at the core pillars of the Secure Future Initiative (SFI):

• Faster Vulnerability Response: Proactive defenses and swift threat mitigation will define the new era of cybersecurity response times.
• Secure Identities: Next-level authentication mechanisms are set to create an unbreachable shield around user identities.
• Secure Development: Integrating security DNA into every strand of our development process, ensuring the software of tomorrow is safe today.

For a deeper dive, into these pillars and how they will shape our digital landscape, check out the insightful blog posts by Microsoft’s senior executives:

Detailed announcement by Microsoft President, Brad Smith:

• A new world of security: Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative – Microsoft On the Issues
  https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2023/11/02/secure-future-initiative-sfi-cybersecurity-cyberattacks/

Detailed blog by Microsoft Executive VP of Security, Charlie Bell:

• Announcing Microsoft Secure Future Initiative to advance security engineering | Microsoft Security Blog
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/11/02/announcing-microsoft-secure-future-initiative-to-advance-security-engineering/

Deep perspectives on Secure Future Initiative by Microsoft Corporate VP of Security, Vasu Jakkal:

• In the age of AI, security is global, geopolitical — and deeply personal | LinkedIn
  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/age-ai-security-global-geopolitical-deeply-personal-vasu-jakkal-taqwe/

(Image courtesy of Sameh Younis, Sr Microsoft Cybersecurity Specialist)

The release schedule for Microsoft artificial intelligence in US Government posted.  The GCC roadmap includes:

• Azure OpenAI Service for Government
  Q1 CY2024
  
• Microsoft 365 Copilot for Government 
  Summer 2024
  
• Teams Intelligent Recap for Government
  Spring 2024
• Open Source LLMs via Azure ML (Llama-2, etc.) for Government
  Available today
  

Read the full article here:

• Delivering Cutting-Edge AI Solutions to US Government – Azure Government
  https://devblogs.microsoft.com/azuregov/ai-solutions-for-us-government/

Teams Premium has made quite a name for itself, having thousand of customers in just a short time.  The showcase feature that attracts the most attention is usually “Intelligent Recap”.

• Intelligent Recap
• Text meeting summaries
• Automatic task generation
• Timeline markers for mentions, speakers, arrivals/departures
• AI generated notes & chapters
• Real-time translation captions

But there’s SO MUCH MORE to Teams Premium for:

• IT management & control
• Information & meeting security
• Engagement & sentiment analytics
• Appointment schedulers & assistance
• Webinar trainers & marketers

Here’s a quick 10minute overview of what else there is to experience with Teams Premium:

• VIDEO: Teams Premium Experiences
  https://youtu.be/zcfcDH4FbVo

Check some of these features out:

• Personalized experiences
• IT customizable Meeting templates
• Post-meeting audience analytics
• Custom user policy packages
• Advanced meeting information protection
• Watermarking for shared content & video
• End-to-end Encryption option for meetings (E2EE)
• Per-attendee Recording Restrictions
• M365 G5 Sensitivity labels for automatically present/enable “prevent copying” meeting confidentiality options
• End user experience monitoring
• Real-time meeting analytics & reporting for audio, video & sharing while meeting is in progress
• Organizational branding for meeting invites, join page
• Custom in-meeting backgrounds for organizations
• Organization together mode scenes
• Professional virtual appointments
• End-to-end customer appointments – SMS reminders, custom branded lobbies & join-by-web
• Appt management for scheduled & on-demand with pre-appt chat
• Analytics & reporting for trends, no-shows, wait times
• Mobile browser join without Teams download
• Professional, comprehensive webinars
• Waitlists, limit registration & manual approval
• Custom webinar confirmation emails
• Presenter Virtual Green Room
• Discuss & prepare & stage content behind the scenes
• Respond to chats & Q&A with attendees
• Managed webinar video & screen through webinar
• Microsoft eCDN for Teams Live Events
• Attendee engagement analytics

Read more here:

• Get Started with Microsoft Teams Premium
  https://aka.ms/setupTeamsPremium
• Overview of Microsoft Teams Premium
  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/overview-of-microsoft-teams-premium-4b34cd18-fa16-4797-bae0-b96b13a54f52
• Microsoft Teams Premium – Overview for administrators
  https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/enhanced-teams-experience

This was actually released earlier this year but I forgot to post about it.  So here’s a summary of one of the lesser known secrets of Microsoft Teams, starting with the announcement:

Today, I am excited to introduce the Games for Work app,* developed by Microsoft Casual Games, an Xbox Games Studio.** Now, you can easily add a game in the context of where work happens: in Microsoft Teams meetings. Choose from a selection of favorite casual games including Microsoft IceBreakers, Wordament, Minesweeper, and Solitaire—all easy to play in quick, interactive, and multi-player versions (from 2 to 250 players). They are safe for work (verifiably “E” rated) and ad-free. To address the various needs of teams, each game within the app emphasizes a different element of team building.

VIDEOS ABOUT GAMES FOR WORK:
Seeing is believing so:

• Here’s a video that shows the games in action:
  https://youtu.be/fDJq1-jefIc
• Here’s a tutorial on using Games for Work:
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams/video-tutorial-how-to-use-the-microsoft-teams-games-for-work-app/m-p/3681168

FAQ:
A few things that I’ll add:

• Does “Games for Work” require a Microsoft Teams meeting?
  YES.  Games for Work is a Microsoft Teams meeting add-in.  It works when assigned to a previously scheduled meeting & run within an actual Teams meeting only.  It can also be added to a meeting during the meeting itself on the fly.
• Does this require a Microsoft 365 Enterprise subscription?
  YES.  This is only available to Microsoft 365 Enterprise & Education customers.
• Does this work with Microsoft Teams on Mobile devices or browsers?
  YES.  The apps scale to the form factor that is using it.  It works on iPhones, Android-based phones as well as tablets. It will also render in a browser when using Teams for the Web.
• Can you use Games for Work with people in other Microsoft 365 tenants?
  YES.  The Teams experience within a browser will render “Games for Work” games with people outside of your Microsoft 365 tenant.
• Can we disable/enable Games for Work for our tenant?
  YES.  Read the following post for details.
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams/how-to-use-and-disable-the-teams-games-for-work-app/m-p/3680971

Read the announcement for “Games for Work” with Microsoft Teams here:

• Build connections in Microsoft Teams with Games for Work, a new Microsoft Teams app| Microsoft 365 Blog
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2022/11/16/build-connections-with-games-for-work-a-new-microsoft-teams-app/

We are excited to announce that Microsoft is recognized as a Leader for the fourth year in a row in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud AI Developer Services and are especially proud to be placed furthest for our Completeness of Vision.

NOTE: The above Gartner Magic Quadrant for March 2023 did not consider or evaluate any Azure OpenAI Services including ChatGPT, GPT-4, and DALL-E.  The report’s evaluation cut off was January 1, 2023 which happened a few weeks before Azure OpenAI’s general availability.

To download the licensed report, visit:

• Microsoft is a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud AI Developer Services | Azure Blog | Microsoft Azure
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-is-a-leader-in-the-2023-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-cloud-ai-developer-services/

Q: I want to be able to type 12/31/30 and have the date be resolved as 12/31/2030 instead of 12/31/1930?
(In the same way that 12/31/29 is resolved to 12/31/2029?)

A: Changing this behavior on a Windows 10/11 workstation by hand is documented in the article below:

Windows 10

1. In the search box on the taskbar, type control panel, and then select Control Panel.

2. Under Clock, Language and Region, click Change date, time, or number formats

3. Click Regional and Language Options.

4. In the Region dialog box, click Additional settings.

5. Click the Date tab.

6. In the When a two-digit year is entered, interpret it as a year between box, change the upper limit for the century.

As you change the upper-limit year, the lower-limit year automatically changes.

7. Click OK.

For broader organizational deployment via a Group Policy Object:

• Creating a Group Policy Object to distribute this change organization wide
  Applying this across your workstations would require the creation of a Group Policy Object (or modifying an existing one) that makes this change on every workstation.
  A general tutorial on how to do this from the “Group Policy Management” console is written about here.
  https://theezitguy.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/group-policy-use-regional-settings-to-change-date-format/comment-page-1/

A customer of mine has been working with a “FastTrack for Azure” engineer to help them:

• Manage & Monitor Azure services & VMs
• Secure & Govern Azure services & VMs

This has been such an phenomenal engagement, I decided to simply drop all the resources here that have been cited over the past 2 months for others to reference.

NOTE: “FastTrack for Azure” is a Microsoft-funded service for customers deploying $5K/mo in new Azure services that would like expert guidance. For any of my customers that are interested in engaging FastTrack for Azure engineers for direct remote guidance in deploying Azure Monitor & Azure Policy, please ping me directly.

Azure Monitor

• GitHub – Azure/AzureMonitorStarterPacks: A project to create a framework for workloads and services monitoring in Azure
• Set up the Azure Monitor agent on Windows client devices – Azure Monitor | Microsoft Learn
• Resource naming and tagging decision guide – Cloud Adoption Framework | Microsoft Learn

Security & Azure Policy

• Overview of the Microsoft cloud security benchmark | Microsoft Learn
• Reference – Azure Policy guest configuration baseline for Windows – Azure Policy | Microsoft Learn
• Reference – Azure Policy guest configuration baseline for Linux – Azure Policy | Microsoft Learn
• ALZ Policy Assignments v2.xlsx (live.com)
• Azure Policy glossary – Azure Policy | Microsoft Learn
• ALZ Policies · Azure/Enterprise-Scale Wiki · GitHub- Policies included in Azure landing zones reference implementations
• GitHub – dolevshor/azure-orphan-resources: Centralize orphan resources in Azure environments

SQL in Azure – SQL Server VMs & Azure SQL Database

• How to enable Microsoft Defender for SQL servers on machines – Microsoft Defender for Cloud | Microsoft Learn
• Enable SQL Insights (preview) – Azure SQL Database | Microsoft Learn

Create a Zero Trust adoption plan that accommodates your organization’s unique risks and capabilities. With this flexible playbook, get foundational action items that help you strengthen security across six key risk areas.

Download The Comprehensive Playbook for a Zero Trust Security Strategy to:

• Identify small changes that can make big improvements to your security.
• Understand how deeper integration of key security pillars can simplify policy enforcement.
• Learn how Zero Trust can increase efficiency and productivity in security posture management.

Get the eBook from the link below:

• DOWNLOAD: Get Started with Zero Trust | Microsoft Security (.PDF, 38pgs)
  https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-comprehensive-playbook-zero-trust.html?lcid=en-us