Discount on a Microsoft Certification Exam?!? Yes Please!

Those of you who know me know I am pretty close to a dollar. With that today’s #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix is how you can get a 50% discount off the cost of a Microsoft certification exam!!!

#MicrosoftLearn is the place to go for all the latest training direct from #Microsoft. It is a free online training platform that provides hands-on, interactive learning for products and services within the #Microsoft ecosystem.

The content is curated specifically for the self-starting #LearnItAll an Information Technology Professionals strives to be. The learning is self-paced and available to you anywhere on any device. There you can ‘build the skills that open doors’.

I have spent hours utilizing Microsoft Learn to ‘skill-up’ on #MicrosoftCloud technologies and utilize it as one of my primary resources for Microsoft certification studies.

One of my favorite ways to absorb this content for my learning style is using the Microsoft Cloud Skills Challenge. It’s a fun, free, and interactive program that provides you with access to Microsoft resources and will help you skill-up on Microsoft Cloud Technologies via a gamified experience utilizing Microsoft Learn content!

There are several learning paths to choose from and once you complete the challenge you select within the 30-day window you will earn a 50% discount voucher toward the cost of a Microsoft certification exam!!!

Consider the Microsoft Cloud Skills Challenge as part of your next Microsoft certification study plan!

#MicrosoftCloudQuickFix #Microsoft #MicrosoftLearn #Microsoft365 #MicrosoftAzure #CloudSkillsChallenge #LearnItAll

Microsoft to begin sending DMARC Reports

Today’s #MicrosoftQuickFix is that #Microsoft will soon begin sending DMARC Aggregate Reports as part of the #DMARC standard and as the owner of a domain you can request reports be sent to wherever your DMARC DNS record RUA setting points to. Is it time to revisit your #Microsoft365 domains DMARC, DKIM and SPF security settings?

Phishing attacks are getting more sophisticated and most organizations have implemented email security measures like SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) to help mitigate these risks.

Unfortunately SPF and DKIM alone do not provide 100% protection against email attacks or nefarious hackers spoofing a companies domain regardless of SPF and DKIM implementation.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting) works with SPF and DKIM to authenticate your mail senders. With a DMARC record configured you’ll get reports that provide the status of your email authentication so you can improve it if needed. This helps you detect malicious emails that claim to be from your domain.

Note: DMARC reports are in XML format and contain a lot of technical data. There are several DMARC report analyzer tools available as well as third-party vendors offering DMARC reporting capabilities.

Using DMARC with SPF and DKIM gives organizations more protection against spoofing and phishing of email. DMARC also helps receiving mail systems decide what to do with messages from your domain that fail SPF or DKIM checks thru the actionable DMARC policy you specify.

DMARC Aggregate Reports will be available for all Exchange Online Protection customers beginning in late February 2023 with expected rollout to complete in late March 2023.

For more information about DMARC in Microsoft 365 see:

#Microsoft #Microsoft365 #MicrosoftDefender #ExchangeOnline #DMARC #DKIM #SPF #MicrosoftCloudSecurity #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix

Cloud-based Message Recall in Exchange Online

Have you every accidently sent an email that wasn’t ready? Sent it to the wrong person? Something you regret? Rage quit? 🤨 Any combination of the above but to a Distribution List? Or are you an Exchange Admin watching this unfold knowing what comes next… Well Microsoft is FINALLY fixing the Message Recall feature and that is today’s #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix !

For several years #Microsoft has been working on a new cloud-based Message Recall feature for Exchange Online. This week it was announced that it is finally ready and has begun rolling out to all #Microsoft365 tenants – Still need a business case for migration to #ExchangeOnline ?

The classic #MessageRecall feature was hit-and-miss at best. It was client-based requiring the recipient to have Outlook for Windows open, clunky, didn’t work if the message had been read or moved, filled the requestors mailbox with recall status email notifications, and had a success rate of about 50%.

The new Message Recall feature has a greater then 90% success rate, occurs within the Exchange Online mailbox and is no longer client based, is fast regardless of how many recipients got the message due to scale of cloud resources in Exchange Online, provides a new single status report per recalled message, and can even recall read or moved messages!

After a Message Recall request is executed the next time the recipient’s email client syncs, regardless of client now, with their Exchange Online mailbox the message should be gone. Now you can breath again…

See a feature comparison below:

CapabilityClassic Message RecallNew Message Recall
Average recall success rate40%> 90%
Recalls are performed in the cloudNoYes
Recipients can use any email client to be eligible for recallsNoYes
Can recall read messagesNoYes
Can recall messages from sub-folders (except Draft and Sent Items by design)NoYes
Single recall status report for all recipientsNoYes

Note: Message Recall has always only been available if both you and the recipient are in the same email organization. You can not recall messages sent outside to other companies, even if they use Microsoft products, or to Gmail, Hotmail, etc.

For more information about Message Recall or how to perform one see:

Look for this feature to be Generally Available by mid-March 2023!

#Microsoft #Microsoft365 #ExchangeOnline #MessageRecall #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix

Valentine’s Day Microsoft Teams Love – Automatic hands lowering in Teams meetings

Happy Valentine’s Day ❤ Here is your #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix ! #MicrosoftTeams will soon automatically lower hands in Teams meetings if that attendee has spoken! You’re going to love this feature!!! 😉🥰

Users who raise their hand in a Teams meeting and then speak will see a notification informing them that their hand will automatically be lowered shorty. The notification will allow them to keep their hand raised if they choose to. If the user doesn’t take action on the notification, their hand will automatically lower.

Hand automatically lower functionality

This feature will ensure smoother meeting facilitation for organizers and presenters. Note: This feature will only be available in the desktop versions of Microsoft Teams

Per Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 90022 look for this new feature to be in public preview this month with General Availability roll out in mid-March 2023!

#MicrosoftCloudQuickFix #Microsoft Microsoft365 #MicrosoftTeams #ValentinesDay

Microsoft Authenticator Number Matching enabled by default at the end of February 2023

Upgrades to how your Microsoft Authenticator works to include number matching by default are coming at end of February 2023. That is today’s #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix !

With so many alerts on our phones these days from text messages, email messages, stock price alerts, Amazon reorder messages, new Spotify release notifications, Elon’s Tweets, and LinkedIn post alerts from me, its easy to get fatigued and just hit whatever to dismiss the alert (except this one of course 😎) and move on.

The increasing adoption of strong authentication and use of multi-factor authentication on corporate and personal accounts has added to this fatigue and spawned a technique called ‘MFA spamming’. These attacks rely simply on the users alert fatigue to approve a notification without any context to gain access.

To combat this for users using Microsoft Authenticator #Microsoft365 administrators can require users enter a number displayed on the sign-in screen when approving an MFA request in the #Microsoft Authenticator app. This feature is critical to protecting against MFA spamming attacks.

Note: If you are using ADFS/NPS there may be are some additional steps so please consult the full documentation below.

Microsoft will begin enabling this security feature for all users of the #MicrosoftAuthenticator App starting at the end of February 2023. Feature rollout controls will also be removed and as such it is recommended to begin testing and create training / change management documentation now.

For guidance on how to enable this security feature now and target users for testing and documentation see this link on Microsoft Doc – Enable number matching in the portal – Microsoft Entra

For more information please see:

#Microsoft #Microsoft365 #AzureAD #MultifactorAuthentication #MicrosoftAuthenticator #NumberMatching #MicrosoftCloudSecurity #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix

Exchange Server 2013 End of Support April 11, 2023

Yesterday was Groundhog Day and in honor of the great movie with the same name today’s #MicrosoftQuickFix is once again (get the reference now 😉) that Exchange Server 2013 is reaching end of support in 67 days from today on April 11, 2023!

After April 11, 2023, #Microsoft will no longer provide technical support for problems that may occur, bug fixes for newly discovered issues, security fixes for vulnerabilities that are discovered, and time zone updates.

Now look this doesn’t mean that because the Exchange Server software is out-of-date and no longer supported that it is going to stop working. Email will still flow, databases will still store data, mailboxes will still be accessible, but nefarious hackers will breathe a sigh of relief as the code now remains stagnant and despite “network magic” mitigation attempts all it takes is one zero-day venerability making its way in…

So your options are to Upgrade to Exchange Server 2019 – See the following page on Microsoft Docs for to Exchange Server 2019 system requirements, Exchange 2019 Requirements, Exchange 2019 Memory Requirements, Exchange 2019 Client Compatibility to begin.

Note: It is a supported coexistence scenario for Exchange 2019 and Exchange 2013 provided all your Exchange 2013 servers in your organization are patched to Exchange Server Cumulative Update 21 or higher.

and/or

Migrate to Exchange Online – See Decide on a migration path in Exchange Online on Microsoft Docs – Anyone still need a business case for migrating to #ExchangeOnline ?

In either case we recommend seeking assistance and using the Exchange Deployment Assistant which is a web-based tool that asks you about your current Exchange environment and generates a custom step-by-step checklist that will help you.

For more information about Exchange Server see:

#Microsoft #Microsoft365 #MicrosoftExchange #ExchangeOnline #MicrosoftCloudSecurity #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix

Concurrent Exchange Online License Assignment Supported! Finally!!!

I’m back from winter break and today’s #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix is #Microsoft365 finally supports concurrent Exchange Online License Assignments!!! This is going to dramatically reduce the administrative burden managing #ExchangeOnline license assignments and specifically will allow an intuitive groups-based licensing strategy!

Previously when Microsoft 365 Tenant Admins tried to assign more then one license pack containing #ExchangeOnline to the same user, whether that be thru the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, #AzureActiveDirectory PowerShell, or group-based licensing, an exception message would be displayed and the assignment rejected.

In this case the user already has an Exchange Online Plan 1 license included in Microsoft 365 Business Standard suite and the Tenant Admin is looking to upgrade the user to an Exchange Online Plan 2 license likely to take advantage of the larger mailbox size, Data Loss Prevention, In-place Hold, or Exchange Online Archiving capabilities.

The same exception message is displayed for any combination of the following licenses:

  • Microsoft 365 Business packages: Basic, Standard, Premium
  • Microsoft / Office 365 F1, F2, F3, E1, E3, E5, A1, A3, A5
  • Exchange Online Essentials
  • Exchange Online Kiosk
  • Exchange Online Plan 1
  • Exchange Online Plan 2
  • Other #MicrosoftTeams and #MicrosoftProject license packs which rely on Exchange Online

Now with this change any combination of the above is allowed and Exchange Online will automatically decide which of the assigned plans is “superior” and will enable the features of that plan (mailbox quotas, transport limits, protocol access, etc.).

When a license is removed Exchange Online will reevaluate and adjust as needed to the new superior plan.

For more information, please see the following Exchange Team Blog post.

#MicrosoftCloudQuickFix #Microsoft365 #AzureActiveDirectory #ExchangeOnline

Exchange Server Security Updates Available for September 2022 Vulnerabilities

Today’s #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix is that #Microsoft has released the November 2022 Exchange Server Security Updates which contain fixes for the CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082 vulnerabilities reported at the end of September 2022 and reported discussed on my blog post below:

Exchange Server Patch Alert! – Microsoft Cloud Quick Fix (mscqf.com)

CVE-2022-41040 is a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability and can only be exploited by authenticated attackers while CVE-2022-41082 allows remote code execution (RCE) when PowerShell is accessible to the attacker.

The November 2022 Exchange Server Security Updates are available for Exchange Server 2013 CU23 (Note: Support ends in April 2023), Exchange Server 2016 CU22 and CU23, and Exchange Server 2019 CU11 and CU12. Since #Microsoft has been made aware of active exploits of related vulnerabilities their (and my) recommendation is to install these updates immediately!

Microsoft has indicated that #ExchangeOnline customers are already protected from the vulnerabilities addressed in the November 2022 Exchange Server Security Updates and do not need to take any action other than updating any remaining on-premises Exchange servers.

For more information about this and Exchange Server Patching see:

#Microsoft #Microsoft365 #ExchangeOnline #ExchangeServer #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix

Outlook Cloud Based Signatures

Upgrades to how your email signatures are stored will be launching soon. That is today’s #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix !

Email signatures regardless of your mailbox residing on-premises or in Exchange Online have traditionally been stored on your local computer. Users have had to recreate them every time they reinstall Outlook, move to a new device, or leverage multiple devices.

As outline in Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 60371 with this change for mailboxes hosted in Exchange Online, #Microsoft will migrate the local signatures to the cloud automatically, no manual steps are required. This means the same set of signatures will be available on any Windows (Microsoft 365) or Web version of Outlook, and you will no longer need to reconfigure your signatures when getting a new device.

Per Microsoft if you use 3rd party solutions in your environment for signature management this change will not impact you at this time.

For more information, please see the following Microsoft Support page.

#MicrosoftCloudQuickFix #Microsoft365 #ExchangeOnline

Microsoft Book of News is out

Today’s #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix is #MicrosoftIgnite may be over, but all the announcements can be found in one place in the 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁 𝗜𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 found here:

Microsoft Ignite 2022 Book of News

Lots of newsworthy announcements from new Azure Arc-enabled features, new features for Virtual Machine Scale Sets, Azure Premium SSD v2, to Azure Elastic SAN, now in preview, a fully managed storage area network service, to the new Microsoft Teams Premium add-on, Microsoft Places, and the unveiling Microsoft Syntex.

Another #MSIgnite in the books but there is lots more exciting technology to use! Thank-you #Microsoft for an awe-inspiring event!

 #MSIgnite #MicrosoftAzure #Microsoft365 #MicrosoftCloudQuickFix