On-Premises Pain, Copilot Curiosity, and a Glimpse into Global Secure Access: Practical 365 Podcast S04E38

• Post author:By Steve Goodman

Steve Goodman and Paul Robichaux dissect the latest Microsoft news, focusing on the sting of rising on-premises licensing costs. The team also explores Copilot Studio and the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Plus, Steve Goodman and Bastiaan Verdonk interview Microsoft's Janice Ricketts, to unravel the complexities of Global Secure Access (GSA) and Zero Trust security.

• Podcasts

April 23, 2025

3 Comments

Using Audit Logs and the Graph API to Investigate Security Incidents in Exchange Online

• Post author:By Mezba Uddin

In this article, Mezba Uddin reviews using Audit Logs and the Graph API to performs six specific investigation actions in Exchange Online to help keep your email environment safe.

• Exchange Online

April 22, 2025

Defending the Kingdom: Hardening Domain Controllers Against Modern Ransomware Campaigns (2025)

• Post author:By Victor King

Domain controllers are the crown jewels of any Active Directory (AD) deployment. They authenticate every user, enforce every Group Policy Object, and replicate the credentials that keep the business running, making them irresistible to attackers. In this blog, Victor King reviews how to harden your organization against these attacks through ITDR.

• Security

April 21, 2025

Practical Graph: How to Upload a Large Attachment to Exchange Online

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

Previously, the Graph APIs limited Outlook attachments to a maximum of 3 MB. That limit doesn't exist anymore, but the old method of uploading very large attachments in chunks to make sure that the operation is possible across flaky networks is still useful, so we explain how to do it here using the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK.

• Exchange Online

April 16, 2025

Using Custom Scripts to Support Endpoint Management

• Post author:By James Yip

In this article, James Yip discusses different ways to leverage Intune to run PowerShell scripts as part of endpoint management, specifically for Windows workstations, to perform custom administrative tasks.

• Blog

April 15, 2025

Practical AI: Managing My Travel Calendar with PowerShell

• Post author:By Paul Robichaux

AI is supposed to make our lives easier, so how about writing some PowerShell to block out timeslots in a travek calendar when the calendar's owner is on the move? Eventually AI gets the task done, but it needed some coaching and firm instruction along the way.

• Blog

April 14, 2025

Practical Graph: Running Audit Log Searches with the AuditLog Query API

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

After a year or so of using the AuditLog Query Graph API, we have enough experience to be able to explain how to take advantage of the API and when it could be used to run audit searches instead of the Search-UnifiedAuditLog cmdlet. There's lots of PowerShell code in this article to give anyone who wants to experiment with the API a good start to finding audit events.

• Microsoft Graph

April 8, 2025

Practical Protection: Auditing Guest Access in your Microsoft 365 Tenant

• Post author:By Paul Robichaux

Many tenants have inactive guest accounts, and sometimes in large numbers. Microsoft has made it easy to invite guests but harder for guests to voluntarily leave; overall, the lifecycle management process for guest accounts makes it easy to end up with guest ghosts. Finding out whether you’re a guest ghost host is the purpose of this column.

• Microsoft 365

April 7, 2025

Microsoft Increases for On-Premises Licenses Coming on July 1

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

On April 3, Microsoft announced a 10% increase in prices for on-premises products including Exchange Server SE, SharePoint Server, and Skype for Business SE. Prices for CAL suites also increase with the Enterprise CAL increasing by 20%. The transition to the cloud means that on-premises engineering costs must be met by fewer customers, so it's higher prices all round!

• Exchange Server

April 5, 2025

One comment

Using Conditional Access to Combat Token Theft

• Post author:By Thijs Lecomte

With AiTM phishing attacks on the rise, it is important to have procedures in place to combat future attacks. In this article, we explore three different ways to protect against token theft using Conditional Access.

• Security

April 2, 2025

4 Comments

Evaluating Options for Exchange Server in 2025

• Post author:By Steve Goodman

With the end of support for Exchange Server 2016 and 2019 rapidly approaching on October 14, 2025, organizations that rely on these versions must make a strategic decision for their messaging infrastructure, with Exchange Server Subscription Edition (SE) defined as the destination for Exchange on-premises mailboxes. This article gives practical guidance for the available options moving forward.

• Exchange Server

April 1, 2025

5 Comments

Practical Graph: Figuring Out Inactive Teams Isn’t That Easy

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

Some people say that the Teams usage report (available in the Microsoft 365 admin center) is a great way of finding inactive teams. I consider that viewpoint to be rubbish because the Teams usage report doesn't include all the kinds of activities that a team might host. This article explains how to use audit data to supplement the usage report and create a better view of inactive teams.

• Blog

March 31, 2025