Updated Windows for Endpoint Security Baseline

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Microsoft has updated the Windows Security Baseline for Endpoint Security in Intune to 24H2 as shown above. Baselines are an easy way to set a vast array of best practice settings across your Windows devices in a single policy, already pre-configured by Microsoft.

I have extracted the policy to a JSON file and made it available at:

https://github.com/directorcia/bp/blob/main/Intune/Policies/Endpoint/Baselines/win.json

and the previous one is here:

https://github.com/directorcia/bp/blob/main/Intune/Policies/Endpoint/Baselines/Archive/win.json

You can now simply import that directly into your environment programmatically using something like PowerShell.

I will note that when I initially exported the templated and tried to import it back I got the error:

Invalid Reference id found in Policy

after a lot of troubleshooting (and I mean a LOT) I tracked down the issue to be related to id 241:

{
   “id”: “241”,
   “settingInstance”: {
     “choiceSettingValue”: {
       “value”: “device_vendor_msft_policy_config_deviceguard_machineidentityisolation_0”,
       “children”: [],
       “settingValueTemplateReference”: {
         “useTemplateDefault”: false,
         “settingValueTemplateId”: “6a208e4b-0e34-4d12-a821-3173e99f3ce0”
       }
     },
     “@odata.type”: “#microsoft.graph.deviceManagementConfigurationChoiceSettingInstance”,
     “settingDefinitionId”: “device_vendor_msft_policy_config_deviceguard_machineidentityisolation”,
     “settingInstanceTemplateReference”: {
       “settingInstanceTemplateId”: “1fa97457-2a1f-4e33-b3c2-9a4c8930510d”
     }
   }
}

removing that from teh template allowed the rest of the template to import. I’ll have to spend some more time working out the exact settings and hopefully by then Microsoft fixes the issue and I’ll update the JSON in my Best Practices repository. However, for now the JSON at the URL can be imported.

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New Endpoint Security Windows Baseline


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Microsoft have released an updated Endpoint Security Baseline for Windows 10 and later.

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I have updated my Best Practices repository to include the new template JSON file here:

https://github.com/directorcia/bp/blob/main/Intune/Policies/Endpoint/Baselines/win.json

and the older JSON file here:

https://github.com/directorcia/bp/blob/main/Intune/Policies/Endpoint/Baselines/Archive/win.json

I have also found that the Graph endpoint to which these two policies are applied is also different.

The new Security Baseline for Windows 10 now has an enormous area under Administrative templates. It also has a LAPs setting.

You can’t upgrade the older policy to the newer one, you need to create a completely new Security Baseline using the new policy.

This is going to take some time to work through all the new options that have been added, and there are many!

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Luckily, I can put Copilot for Security to work to help me!