Need to Know podcast–Episode 291

After Microsoft cloud news and updates I talk about the importance of OneDrive for Business as an initial step in a successful cloud migration process.

You can listen directly to this episode at:

https://ciaops.podbean.com/e/episode-291-updates/

Subscribe via iTunes at:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/ciaops-need-to-know-podcasts/id406891445?mt=2

The podcast is also available on Stitcher at:

http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ciaops/need-to-know-podcast?refid=stpr

Don’t forget to give the show a rating as well as send me any feedback or suggestions you may have for the show.

This episode was recorded using Microsoft Teams and produced with Camtasia 2022.

Brought to you by www.ciaopspatron.com

Resources

@directorcia

@directorcia@twit.social

Join my shared channel

CIAOPS merch store

Become a CIAOPS Patron

CIAOPS Blog

YouTube edition of this podcast

ACSC Annual Cyber Threat Report, July 2021 to June 2022

ACSC Exercise in a box

Manage exclusions for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Microsoft Defender Antivirus

Azure AD Certificate-based Authentication (CBA) on Mobile

Introducing preview access to Microsoft Syntex document processing and more

Microsoft Teams Adoption

What’s new for Microsoft Whiteboard – November 2022

Build connections with Games for Work, a new Microsoft Teams app

Organizational messages for Windows 11 now in public preview

Easily launch an Instant Poll in Teams meetings to engage with your audience & collect feedback

A framework for file migrations to Microsoft 365

Enhanced phishing protection in Windows 11 22H2

If you have Windows 11 22H2 and you take a look at your Windows Security settings under App & Browser control, you’ll find some new settings in Reputation-based protection as shown above.

You can read about these here:

Enhanced Phishing Protection in Microsoft Defender SmartScreen

If you want to enable these settings using an Intune Device policy you can do so using the Settings Catalog like so:

Remember, at the moment, you need Windows 11 22H2 to configure this.

Adafruit Huzzah input from button

After the last project:

Adafruit Huzzah WiFi

I wanted to have the device take input from a switch (which also came in the Starter kit).

Based on my existing projects I now created a configuration of:

Pin 4 = Red LED + Resistor (560 ohm)

Pin 5 = Green LED + resistor (560 ohm)

Pin 2 = button

Each of these lines then went to the GND pin.

For the code I found the following article which was a great help:

https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/muhammad-aqib/arduino-button-tutorial-using-arduino-digitalread-function-08adb5

from which I adapted my own code at:

https://github.com/directorcia/Azure/blob/master/Iot/huzzah-button.c

So that when the button is pressed it swaps which LED is on like so:

Of course, it could be improved but I am still calling it a success as all I really wanted to do was incorporate input from an external source.

With all this now done, the next aim is to work out how to connect the device to Azure and get Azure capturing the input from the device and reporting it somehow.

November Microsoft 365 Webinar resources

Slides from this month’s webinar are at:

https://www.slideshare.net/directorcia/november-2022-ciaops-need-to-know-webinar

If you are not a CIAOPS patron you want to view or download a full copy of the video from the session you can do so here:

http://www.ciaopsacademy.com.au/p/need-to-know-webinars

Watch out for next month’s webinar.

Need to Know podcast–Episode 290

I have a few updates from the Microsoft cloud for this episode followed by a discussion about Attack Surface Reduction Rules (ASR) and their importance in reducing your risk.

You can listen directly to this episode at:

https://ciaops.podbean.com/e/episode-290-updates/

Subscribe via iTunes at:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/ciaops-need-to-know-podcasts/id406891445?mt=2

The podcast is also available on Stitcher at:

http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ciaops/need-to-know-podcast?refid=stpr

Don’t forget to give the show a rating as well as send me any feedback or suggestions you may have for the show.

This episode was recorded using Microsoft Teams and produced with Camtasia 2022.

Brought to you by www.ciaopspatron.com

Resources

@directorcia

Join my shared channel

CIAOPS merch store

Become a CIAOPS Patron

YouTube edition of this podcast

Microsoft Outlook, your personal organizer, helps you be more productive and in control

Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2022

Investigate incidents more effectively with the new attack story view in Microsoft 365 Defender

Announcing enhanced control for configuring Firewall rules with Windows Defender

What’s New in Microsoft Teams | October 2022

New device control capabilities to manage removable storage media access in Microsoft Intune

Demystifying attack surface reduction rules – Part 1

Demystifying attack surface reduction rules – Part 2

Demystifying attack surface reduction rules – Part 3

Demystifying attack surface reduction rules – Part 4

Enable attack surface reduction rules

Check ASR Rules

Adafruit Huzzah Wifi

My last IoT challenge was to get an

External flashing LED

working and the next was to get the Adafruit Huzzah with ESP8266 to connect to Wifi. To do that I found most the required code here:

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-feather-huzzah-esp8266/using-arduino-ide#connecting-via-wifi

and I’ve put my code on my Github here:

https://github.com/directorcia/Azure/blob/master/Iot/huzzah-wifi.c

You’ll need to put in your own WiFi access point details at the top of the code to connect to your own environment.

This script uses a lot of commands like:

serial.println

which basically outputs text to a serial port. This allows much easier troubleshooting so you can see what is going on. To see this output you will however need a dedicated serial monitor console program. I started off using Putty:

https://putty.org/

which works great but upon reflection, I wanted to use something that was integrated directly into Visual Studio code. After some poking around I found this extension:

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.vscode-serial-monitor

which is from Microsoft and seems to do what I needed.

You can see the output from my code above in serial monitor. Always ensure you match the output port and baud rate in the serial monitor to the device you have (here COM3 and 115200). Configuring this is very easy with the serial monitor extension.

Without much alteration, I was able to take the initial code and easily connect to my network as well as the Internet. Once connected I could ping the Adafruit Huzzah with ESP8266 from another PC in the network. A pretty painless exercise. Nice that things are becoming a little easier now I’m becoming familiar with this stuff.

So far, all I’ve done is use the Adafruit Huzzah with ESP8266 for output. Next, I’ll be to start taking simple input into the device by reading something like a button press and then taking action on that.

Stay tuned for details on that soon.

Power Automate PAYG costs

Recently, I detailed how to enable the Power Platform PAYG billing:

Power Platform PAYG configuration

I now see the following in my environment that has Flows with premium connectors:

which basically says:

You can use premium capabilities in this environment. It’s covered by your org’s pay-as-you-go Azure subscription.

The reason I enabled this was because I wanted access to use Premium connectors without having to pay for a higher fixed monthly license cost.

I have the following Flow in this environment that uses two premium connectors:

– Azure Key Vault

and

– HTTP

If I now look at the recent Flow runs I see six in total 1 in November and 5 in October.

Now looking at the Azure costs by service for November I see:

and for October:

Therefore, with 5 runs in October my average cost was $3.70 / 5 = $ 0.74 while in November, with only 1 run so far it was $0.92.

Assuming the highest run cost of $0.92 and with the execution of 4 premium connectors in the Flow (3 x Azure Key Vault and 1 x HTTP) that comes to a cost of $0.23 per premium connector.

The big benefit of the Power Platform PAYG option is that it allows quick and easy access to Premium connectors without the need to purchase a higher Power Platform license at a fixed rate per month regardless of usage. This means the PAYG option is great for testing prior to committing to a higher fixed value license or occasional use of Premium connectors. This should be really appealing to many who may only need to use a Flow with Premium connectors a few times in a month. When the PAYG billing approaches the full license cost you can always switch over.

In summary then, from what I can determine, you should allow around $0.25 per Premium connector per Flow run when calculating your PAYG costs with the Power Platform.

We shall remember them

Today marks the anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in the First World War. It was a multi year bloodbath that killed millions, many in the most terrible of ways. Many of whom have no known grave.

Today we pause to remember all those whose lives have been affected by war. Any war.

Today, many people are still experiencing war and many live with the threat of imminent war. For them we hope that horrors of the past remain in the past. Unfortunately, all too often, history repeats and brings death and destruction to their door step through no fault of their own. Let us hope that todays brief remembrance reminds everyone of the immense and continuing impact war has and why it should be prevented at all costs, not with empty promises and gestures, but real action.

Times may change but the impact of war hasn’t. This seems to be a lesson we fail tor learn.

In times like these we celebrate and remember the human spirit of the those that sacrificed for others. Those that put the needs of others ahead of their own, and for those that put their lives on the line to save others from harm. These are the special people, who come from all walks of life but had the single purpose of service to a greater good. They are special and worthy of our utmost respect.

War is a human construct. born of the worst aspects of the human condition. It is however also something that we can just as easily could and should prevent. As those that went before, we can prevent these horrors by thinking of others before ourselves and working for the common rather than individual good.

Every day is a blessing and life is far too short. For those that we remember today, it was cut short for reasons that fad with the passing years. Let the memory of the reasons fad but never those who have paid the ultimate price.

Lest We Forget.