Phishing attacks are ever more common for all email users. These attacks can be specifically targeted to organizations and individual users, allowing them to appear very convincing. Most phishing email are easy to spot, but even the savviest of us can be caught off guar, end up clicking on a dangerous link in an email message, then all the sudden a bunch of servers start getting encrypted and your whole weekend is ruined. In an attempt to help reduce this problem, Microsoft is currently rolling out email safety tips as part of Exchange Online Protection in Office 365.
Read moreComing Soon: MCSMLab training videos
Some of the more observant of you may have noticed the new link to a “Store” section of my site, where there is currently a single txt file available for an insane price. Obviously my plan is not to trick people into spending $99 for that, then parlay all that cash into a huge txt file empire. Today seems like as good a time as any to share my plans, so here we go.
Read moreAuditing and Reporting for Office 365 →
Moving to Office 365 means a pretty big adjustment. Administrators who were used to doing things one way are going to have to make adjustments as their organizations migrate their infrastructure into Office 365. One of the areas where new Office 365 administrators often feel most in the dark about is changes in their environment.
Read moreAAD Connect Advanced Deployments and Troubleshooting →
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post here covering how to deploy Azure Active Directory Connect 1.1. Due to popular demand, today I'm going to circle back and review some of the advanced configurations of AAD Connect as well as some troubleshooting tips to cover you in case you run into a hitch with your AAD Connect deployment.
Since there is a lot to cover, and I have limited space in which to do it, I’m not going to go super deep into each of these topics. Instead I’m going to give you a high-level overview. I’ll try to link to resources where you can get more information on each topic as appropriate, and you can reach out to me via the comments below or on Twitter if you’d like me to answer any specific questions.
Read moreMailbox Auditing for Office 365 – Part 2 →
Enabling DKIM in Exchange Online →
Spam is the bane of all messaging administrators, as well as a major pain for all email users. Using email means a consistent battle against spam, malware, and unwanted nonsense flooding your inbox. There are a number of different tools and tactics we, as administrators, can use to reduce the impact of these attacks and recently Microsoft has added another one to the toolboxes of Office 365 customers. In this blog post I'm going to explain what DKIM is, and how you can use it to help make the world a safer place for legitimate email messages.
Read moreDeploying Azure Active Directory Connect 1.1 →
Active Directory Synchronization for Office 365 and Azure has been a vital, but fairly straight forward, part of Office 365 migrations for almost 5 years now. DirSync was updated to Azure Active Directory Sync, and AAD Sync was updated to Azure Active Directory Connect. In this blog post, I’m going to cover everything you need to know about deploying the newest version of AAD Connect
Read moreJohn Oliver understands encryption
John Oliver recently did a piece on encryption explaining why it's a really bad idea for Apple to "help the FBI get into just this one phone".
He said it better than I have, so I'll just link to the piece. Watch it. It's important. You have 20 minutes to kill.
Read moreMobility & Office 365: How To Enable Your Mobile Workforce →
Find out how Microsoft Office 365 makes it possible for information workers, who were formerly required to work in an office building, to do their jobs from anywhere with an internet connection. O’Bryan covers the major features in Office 365 including:
- Groups
- Planner
- SharePoint Online
- OneDrive for Business
- Skype for Business
- Office 365 mobile apps
- Mobile Device Management (MDM)
- InTune
- Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS)
Azure AD Connect 1.1 Filtering – Part 3
In Part 1 of this series, we covered the basics of setting up filtering for AAD Connect and the details of setting up domain filtering. In Part 2, we covered up the process of setting up OU filtering for AAD Connect. In Part 3, we’re going to cover setting up attribute filtering.
Read moreAzure AD Connect 1.1 Filtering – Part 2
Azure AD Connect 1.1 Filtering – Part 1
As DirSync evolved to AAD Sync, and AAD Sync evolved to AAD Connect, there have been significant changes to the way we accomplish tasks with these tools.
With the recent release of Azure Active Directory Connect v 1.1, Microsoft has made several updates to how various aspects of the process of syncing your on-premises Active Directory accounts into Azure Active Directory. There have been some pretty significant changes in a couple of areas, with one of those being sync filtering. In this series of blogs posts, I’m going to walk you through the options and processes for filtering your sync jobs.
Read moreEncryption in the Age of Innocence
I am an IT consultant. My job is to advise and inform organizations on how best to manage their IT infrastructure. In doing that job, I often talk about security and encryption. In lite of the current news about the “FBI vs Apple”, I’d like to talk about security and encryption here.
Read moreThe Confusing Case of Cross-Forest Delegation →
If you've even participated in an Exchange Online migration at almost any level, it's likely you've run into the issue of cross-forest delegation. You know that Exchange allows you to delegate rights from one mailbox to another, allowing users to access other mailboxes. When you do an Exchange hybrid migration, there are some special considerations you have to take to keep these delegated rights working. Depending on who you ask, you'll get all kinds of different answers about what works when. In this blog post I will explain the confusing case of cross-forest delegation, and what you can expect to work or not work.
Read moreMailbox Auditing for Office 365 – Part 1 →
Many Office 365 customers I talk to are concerned about how to audit changes to their organization’s mailboxes within Exchange Online. How do I track changes to the administrator roles in my tenant? How do I know if someone’s mailbox has been accessed by another person? How do I verify Litigation Hold is working? Read on and all shall become clear.
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