Entra.Chat

Nicolas Blank, Founder of NBConsult and a 20-year Microsoft MVP, joins the show to dismantle the complexity around Zero Trust. Most Zero Trust conversations fail because they start with technology. Nicolas flips the script by using powerful everyday analogies (locking your car, protecting your newborn) to land the three core principles with executives. Essential watching for anyone implementing Ze...

Is the traditional VPN dead? In the latest episode of Entra Chat, we dive deep Microsoft Entra Global Secure Access (GSA).Joined by Karen Simmel from the GSA product team and Thomas from the Entra CXE Architecture team, we explore how Microsoft is bridging the gap between identity and network security. The Shift from VPN to SASE The "good old days" of spinning up firewalls and DMZs are fading. Tra...

Louis Mastelinck, a Microsoft MVP and Security Consultant at Proximus NXT, joins me to discuss the critical journey of moving organizations away from SMS-based MFA. We deep dive into a practical strategy for migrating users to the Authenticator app, starting with “stopping the bleed” and managing user groups. We also explore a significant security blind spot regarding Email OTP for SharePoint gues...

In this week’s episode Jan Bakker, Microsoft MVP and solution architect from the Netherlands, joins us for a masterclass in extending Microsoft Entra ID beyond out-of-the-box capabilities. This episode is your complete guide to building custom identity governance and lifecycle management using Power Apps, Logic Apps, and Azure automation. You’ll learn the fundamental building blocks of automation...

Khurram, a key member of the internal App Governance assessment team at Microsoft, joins the show to pull back the curtain on how Microsoft manages application security at a massive corporate scale and the rigorous internal security measures Microsoft employs to protect its corporate Entra ID tenant from risky applications. In this deep dive, Khurram reveals Microsoft’s custom-built App Governance...

Luca Spolidoro from the Microsoft Entra AI Innovations team joins us to unveil the new Microsoft MCP Server for Enterprise. We discuss how this innovation allows admins and AI agents to interface with their tenant using natural language, bridging the gap between LLMs and the complexity of Microsoft Graph. We also talk about the technical challenges of token limits, the patented “three-tool” soluti...

This week, I’m joined by a stellar panel of Nathan McNulty, Ru Campbell, Martin Sandren, and Thomas Naunheim to break down the firehose of news from Microsoft Ignite related to Entra. We dive straight into the hot debate over synced passkeys versus device-bound credentials and why consumer adoption might force our hand in the enterprise. We also explore the new Account Recovery features that could...

This week, I’m so excited to share the inside story of a project I’ve been working on for over a year: the new Zero Trust assessment. I’m joined by some of the key folks from the team: Tarek, who’s leading the charge; Sarah and John, who are crushing docs; and Ravi, who’s owning Intune. We unpack the wild breach that sparked it all, geek out over those Sankey charts that spotlight sneaky unmanaged...

In this episode, I sit down with security researcher Katie Knowles to unpack the hidden layers of identity systems inside Microsoft Entra. We get into real-world attack paths like backdooring service principals, restricted administrative units that can accidentally create unstoppable accounts, and OAuth phishing in Copilot Studio. Katie also shares how she approaches deep technical research, what...

Sami Lamppu and Thomas Naunheim, the creators of the Entra ID Attack and Defense Playbook , join me to discuss their incredible 5-year community project. We talk about the most complex attacks they’ve researched, including the “black box” token and PRT attacks, and their shocking findings related to TPM and device compliance. We also dive deep into their brand-new chapter on the new Microsoft Entr...

In this episode, I chat with Dirk-jan Mollema , the legendary researcher behind some of the most important discoveries in Microsoft identity security. We go deep into how curiosity led him from tinkering with web tools to uncovering one of the biggest Entra ID vulnerabilities ever found . He shares the story behind the CVE that rocked the cloud world, the stress of realizing what he’d uncovered, a...

In this episode, I sit down with Alexander Filipin, a Product Manager at Microsoft, to unpack the essentials of identity governance and why access reviews are a game-changer for security and compliance. We explore the pitfalls like rubber stamping that plague traditional methods and tease how the new AI-driven Access Review Agent is stepping in with smart recommendations and context to make decisi...

Welcome back to Entra. Chat! In this rapid-fire Q&A, I’m joined by a team of brilliant CXE Identity Architects from Microsoft, and they’re answering the toughest questions on the future of identity. We dive deep into the security challenge posed by agentic AI that can spawn self-replicating identities and how Microsoft is creating tailored behavioral analytics to protect your environment. The team...

In this episode, I sit down with my longtime friends and colleagues, Jas Suri and Gayan Randeny, at Microsoft’s campus to unpack the biggest Microsoft consumer identity shift in years—Azure AD B2C’s sunset and the rise of Entra External ID. We talk about why B2C is going away, the crazy scale of tenants with 100M+ identities, the migration paths and what the future looks like for customer identity...

On this episode of Entra Chat, I was thrilled to sit down with Yanyan and Sweta from the Entra UI experience team to dive deep into a feature that many of us have used but is now getting a massive refresh: Bulk Operations . We talked about how they took a critical legacy tool and completely re-engineered it for insane performance and scale, making it more reliable than ever. You’ll hear about some...

Cybersecurity expert Erica shares her incredible journey from pharmacist to becoming a professional hacker. She reveals how attackers are bypassing modern security controls like MFA and what you can do to protect your tenant. We talk about the most common configuration vulnerabilities that exist in almost every organization, the dangers of application onboarding, and the top five phishing vectors...

Jeremy Conley, Product Manager on the Identity Governance team at Microsoft, demystifies the world of guest access in Microsoft Entra. We discuss the hidden security risks that accumulate as guests are invited into a tenant and the governance challenges this creates. We also do a deep dive into the different licensing tiers, from P2 to the new Entra ID Governance for Guests license, and explain th...

In this episode of Entra. Chat, I dive into the critical world of app governance with experts Jay Gundotra and Sander Berkouwer, who unpack the hidden risks of non-human identities in Microsoft Entra. From shocking real-world breaches like Midnight Blizzard to a hilarious tale of a theme park’s water supply mishap, we explore why securing your cloud apps is more urgent than ever. Tune in to discov...

In this episode of Entra. Chat, I dive deep with cybersecurity architect Fabian Bader into his research on bypassing poorly designed Microsoft Entra’s conditional access policies and what you can do about them. We also cover the game-changing new Group Source of Authority feature that lets you finally manage synced groups in the cloud, and share insights from Fabian’s work with MSRC to secure the...

In this episode, I sit down with my boss, Tarek Dawoud, to pull back the curtain on what really happens during a major service outage. Tarek shares some incredible "war stories" from his time in the trenches, from the early days of DirSync where the team had to edit a sync file with a debugger to prevent an incident, to the massive outages of 2017 and 2018 that changed everything. We'll give you a...

In this episode, I sit down with Conrad Murray, a seasoned expert who lives and breathes the complexities of IT migrations during mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. We dive deep into the real-world challenges that companies face, from the political battles of deciding whose tenant to use, to the technical nightmares of migrating three-quarters of a petabyte of data for a major global firm. C...

In this episode we are joined by Jef Kazimer, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft to discuss the critical role of Microsoft Entra ID Governance. We explore the entire identity lifecycle from joiners, movers, and leavers (JML), the financial and security benefits of automated provisioning, and the pitfalls of legacy IGA solutions. Jef shares his extensive experience, from deploying complex MIM s...

In this eye-opening episode, I sit down with Microsoft's Clay and Ramiro, two Customer Experience (CxE) architects who've collectively run over 150 Zero Trust workshops with enterprise customers. They reveal the shocking gaps they consistently find—like customers spending millions on compliance policies but forgetting to actually block non-compliant devices with conditional access. We dive deep in...

In this episode, I sit down with Jordan Dahl, a Product Manager on the Entra Conditional Access team, to discuss the newly GA'd Conditional Access Optimization Agent. Jordan shares the origin story of the agent, explaining how customer feedback about the difficulties of managing CA policies at scale led to its creation. We delve into how this AI-powered "digital colleague" works to identify and re...

In this exciting episode of Entra Chat, I dive into the world of Entra + Windows devices with the passionate and knowledgeable John Towles, a solution architect and MVP for Windows 365 and more. We unpack why Entra hybrid join is still relevant for some organizations, explore the ins and outs of Windows Autopilot, and reveal practical tips for navigating the complexities of modern device managemen...