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Microsoft Patches Four More Exchange Server Vulnerabilities as the FBI Moves to Clean Infected Servers 2 Comments

Microsoft Patches Four More Exchange Server Vulnerabilities as the FBI Moves to Clean Infected Servers

Microsoft has released security patches to address four new remote code vulnerabilities in Exchange 2013,2016, and 2019. At the same time, the FBI has removed web shells from compromised servers, but only in the U.S. Now more than ever it is essential that Exchange Server administrators apply all available patches and make sure that their servers have no lingering surprises left behind by attackers.

April 15, 2021
Exchange Online Launches Expiring Domain Insight (and Causes a Little Confusion) 7 Comments

Exchange Online Launches Expiring Domain Insight (and Causes a Little Confusion)

Exchange Online has a new domain expiring soon alert, which means that a mail flow insight checks for soon-to-expire domains in the set of accepted domains for a tenant. When the insight detects a domain due to expire within 90, 60, and 30-day windows, it sends a high-severity alert to the tenant administrators to tell them that they should renew the domain(s).

April 14, 2021
Why Microsoft 365 Audit Logs Lack Proper Fit and Finish 3 Comments

Why Microsoft 365 Audit Logs Lack Proper Fit and Finish

The audit events generated for license assignments to user accounts available in the Azure AD audit log and Office 365 audit log are inconsistent and incomplete. This is certainly true for licenses assigned to accounts through auto-claim policies and group-based licensing, but known gaps exist in the audit records generated in other areas of Office 365 and Microsoft 365 functionality. We think Microsoft needs to pay attention to ensure that auditing works consistently and predictably across all workloads. Once they improve the fit and finish of audit record generation, they can move into other areas, like charging for access to high-value audit events.

April 14, 2021
Teams Meetings Get Webinar Capability 48 Comments
Microsoft Teams Webinar

Teams Meetings Get Webinar Capability

Anyone who can run a Microsoft Teams meeting can now run a webinar using a modified version of a standard Teams meeting. Microsoft is quite clever in extending the standard functionality to be able to deliver the features needed to publish and deliver a webinar. Some rough edges exist, but because running a webinar is very like running a regular meeting, you can expect that this will be an extremely popular new feature.

April 12, 2021
Azure’s DNS Problem Highlights Fallibility in Cloud Services One comment

Azure’s DNS Problem Highlights Fallibility in Cloud Services

Microsoft experienced a failure with its Azure DNS servers on April 1. The issue was quickly resolved and the root cause determined to be a bug. That's all good, but Azure has suffered several recent problems which have affected other Microsoft cloud services from Office 365 to Bing to Xbox. Microsoft says they are taking action to remove the single point of failures in their infrastructure. Let's hope that they get the work done before the Microsoft cloud suffers a more widespread outage.

April 9, 2021
Time to Move from Exchange DLP Policies to Unified DLP Policies 12 Comments

Time to Move from Exchange DLP Policies to Unified DLP Policies

Microsoft has upgraded unified DLP policies to support the rich set of conditions, exceptions, and actions available for Exchange transport rule-based DLP policies. The upgrade means that organizations which have been forced to continue using ETR-based DLP policies can begin the process of moving over to unified DLP. This process won't be easy, but it's the right thing to do for the long term.

April 7, 2021
Microsoft Relaunches Teams Pro Service Plan to Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Tenants 12 Comments
Microsoft Relaunches Teams Pro Service Plan to Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Tenants

Microsoft Relaunches Teams Pro Service Plan to Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Tenants

Microsoft has clarified that the Teams Pro service plan is being added to Office 365 enterprise and Microsoft 365 business standard and premium licenses. Tenant admins don't have to do anything to add the new service plan as Microsoft will do this for them. Teams Pro adds the ability to differentiate product features across different types of user licenses. Teams Pro does not replace the Teams Advanced Communications add-on, but it needs an overhaul too.

April 6, 2021
Flash Flood Warning! You Just Setup MCAS One comment
Drowning in Microsoft Cloud App Security email alerts

Flash Flood Warning! You Just Setup MCAS

Microsoft MVP Amy Babinchak reveals how Office365 administrators can turn Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS) into a manageable and indispensable tool for organizations. This is achieved with several simple, tried and true methods that will reduce the amount of information alerts while highlighting severe, actionable alerts which are detailed in this article.

April 6, 2021
Using Viva Topics to Highlight Knowledge in Microsoft 365 Apps 4 Comments

Using Viva Topics to Highlight Knowledge in Microsoft 365 Apps

In the second part of a two-part series, after going through the work to generate Viva Topics, it's time to expose the topic cards to apps. In this article, we explore how apps use topic cards, including the Office online apps and Microsoft 365 apps for enterprise. We also consider the experience of users within a tenant who don't have a license for Viva Topics. Finally, we ask the big question if Viva Topics is worth the $5/month fee per user asked for by Microsoft.

April 1, 2021
Building a Knowledge Network with Viva Topics

Building a Knowledge Network with Viva Topics

Viva Topics is the foundation of Microsoft's knowledge network. Substantial effort is needed to build the set of topics found in SharePoint Online content before apps can surface topic cards to users. This article is the first of a two-part series. In it, we chronicle the process of how the AI used by Viva Topics suggests topics and how knowledge managers refine and publish the topics to make them available to end users.

March 31, 2021
SharePoint Hits 20: Memories and Reflections

SharePoint Hits 20: Memories and Reflections

Twenty years after the release of SharePoint Portal Server 2001, SharePoint now powers document management in Microsoft 365. The event will be commemorated at a 20th anniversary SharePoint Saturday on March 27, 2021. All are welcome to celebrate this notable achievement for a fine product and a great user community.

March 26, 2021