Browse All Security Content (547)

Rafia Aqil outlines how to enable Azure Databricks’ Compliance Security Profile (CSP) for HIPAA workloads, including the September 1, 2026 deadline, required prerequisites like Azure VNet encryption and supported VM series, and a rollout approach to validate cluster startup and end-to-end connectivity before production.

stevenbucher introduces a new Compliance Substate property for Azure Policy exemptions, making it possible to see whether exempt resources would be compliant or non-compliant if the exemption were removed. The post shows where to enable the column in the Azure portal and how to query the field at scale using Azure Resource Graph.

Allison announces npm publish-time malware scanning and explains how it can delay package availability, when publishes may be held or blocked, and how maintainers can declare dual-use security functionality using new package metadata and a required DISCLOSURE file.

fredguis outlines upcoming OneLake Security changes for Microsoft Fabric SQL analytics endpoints, focusing on enterprise-friendly access control. The update improves nested group resolution, shortcut-backed table behavior in hub-and-spoke lakehouse setups, more consistent column-level security with group-based access, and broader service principal support for automated and app-owned data products.

aonelakeuser outlines summer updates to OneLake security in Microsoft Fabric, including broader engine coverage (Eventhouse and Fabric Graph), a simplified column-level security UI, faster Secure tab performance, a redesigned SQL Analytics Endpoint sync model, and generally available OneLake security APIs.

Greg Ose summarizes the security changes GitHub and npm shipped over recent months to break common supply chain attack paths, focusing on preventing workflow compromise, reducing credential exposure, slowing malicious propagation, and improving incident response options for enterprises.

Allison announces an update to Dependabot malware alerts: GitHub Advisory Database now ingests malware advisories from the OpenSSF malicious-packages repository, expanding detection coverage across more ecosystems and surfacing matches as Dependabot alerts in your repos and orgs.

Allison announces a new GitHub Actions protection that automatically holds certain workflow runs flagged as potentially malicious until a collaborator with write access reviews and approves them via an authenticated web session.

Sergey Menshykh explains how .NET agents can discover and load Agent Skills directly from a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server using the Microsoft Agent Framework, so teams can publish skills centrally and have agents pull them on demand without redeploying.

Satya Nadella announces MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, a cybersecurity-focused model aimed at finding difficult vulnerabilities in large codebases, and describes how it pairs with MDASH to reduce cost while maintaining strong results. He also introduces Project Perception, an agentic security offering built around real-world signals and security workflows.

Allison announces that enterprise managed settings now apply to the GitHub Copilot app and Copilot cloud agent, letting enterprise owners enforce a single managed-settings.json policy across more Copilot clients, including controls for plugins, marketplaces, and approval-prompt bypass behavior.

vladvino announces the public preview of the AI Gateway tier for Azure API Management, focused on publishing and governing AI models and MCP servers. The post explains the new portal experience, policy-card governance (rate limits, quotas, Content Safety, fallback), and OpenTelemetry token metrics to destinations like Application Insights.

sbaynes introduces MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, Microsoft’s compact cyber-focused model used inside MDASH to handle most security tasks at lower token cost, while reserving larger models for harder cases. The post also outlines Project Perception’s agentic security workflows and the safety, governance, and enterprise controls built into deployment.

Ram Shankar Siva Kumar announces Microsoft’s External Red Team Alliance (EXTRA), a global effort to expand AI red teaming beyond internal teams by funding academic research and building an external network of specialists to test frontier AI systems across languages, regions, and domains.

Lee Stott explains why the Model Context Protocol (MCP) is becoming the standard way AI agents connect to tools and data, then shows minimal runnable MCP server examples in Python and TypeScript plus practical guidance for VS Code hosting, security, and production operations.

This week's Security roundup tracks a clear shift toward platform-enforced guardrails for both AI-assisted development and cloud operations. GitHub and Azure shipped changes that make controls more explicit and easier to standardize, from stateless MCP support and model selection safeguards in Copilot to Kubernetes-native admission policy, DDoS tuning, and tighter data plane access rules. On the supply chain side, Dependabot's default cooldown and GitHub Code Quality's PR gating aim to reduce risky churn while catching issues earlier. Threat reporting also reinforces that defenders need coverage beyond email as Teams-based lures and vishing keep growing, while incident response becomes more packaged through new insurer-aligned options.

Allison announces that Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5 is now selectable in GitHub Copilot, highlighting its strengths on long-running, multi-step coding tasks and agentic workflows, plus where it’s available, how admins enable it for Business/Enterprise, and how usage-based billing applies.

John Savill recaps a small set of Azure updates for the week of 24th July 2026, covering new capabilities across AKS, Azure Functions runtimes, networking, DDoS protection, Defender security assessments for PostgreSQL Flexible Server, and a new Log Analytics table aimed at generative AI workloads.

Allison announces that GitHub MCP Server already supports the upcoming stateless MCP specification, outlining protocol changes (like removing sessions and initialize) and what GitHub changed internally to stay compatible while improving scalability and verification.

stevenbucher explains how Azure Policy for Kubernetes can now enforce policies using Kubernetes Validating Admission Policy (VAP) with CEL, via Gatekeeper’s integration. The post contrasts the older webhook/Rego flow with in-process validation, then walks through packaging a CEL constraint template into an Azure Policy definition and rolling it out across AKS clusters.

HARMEETGILL announces the general availability of OneLake resource instance rules in Microsoft Fabric, explaining how workspace admins can allow secure service-to-service access from specific Azure resource instances (like Databricks or Azure SQL) without relying on broad IP allowlists or private networking everywhere.

OfirSarfaty announces a public preview feature for Azure DDoS Protection: custom policies that let teams set protocol-specific detection thresholds and manage per-resource mitigation behavior, while keeping existing Azure Monitor visibility and DDoS telemetry.

John Savill gives a quick, practical introduction to Windows Sandbox, showing how to install it, what the underlying architecture looks like, and how to customize a sandbox session for safely running apps or processes in an isolated Windows environment.

Microsoft Developer introduces SQL MCP Server 2.0 and explains how it helps agentic apps work with production SQL data more safely, including new OBO authentication, MCP tool improvements, and security guardrails, with demos covering configuration and controlling access across Graph, REST, and MCP.

Carlin Cherry explains why Dependabot now applies a default three-day cooldown before opening non-security version update pull requests, aiming to reduce exposure to fast-moving supply chain attacks where malicious package releases are discovered and removed within hours.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence and the Microsoft Defender Security Research Team summarize Q2 2026 email and Teams threat trends, including the post-disruption decline of Tycoon2FA-linked phishing, shifts in QR code and CAPTCHA-gated lures, and notable BEC and malware-delivery campaigns, plus concrete Defender configuration and response guidance.

brauerblogs shares a reminder to register for Microsoft’s “Path to Production for Agents” webinar series (July 27–28), focused on taking AI agent solutions from experimentation to secure, scalable production with guidance on governance, platform design, AgentOps, and multi-agent architecture patterns.

Kalaivanan explains how to use Azure API Management (APIM) as a control plane for Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, focusing on enterprise-ready authentication, access control, observability, and governance. The post lays out practical patterns for putting APIM in front of MCP endpoints and using Entra ID, OAuth flows, and API Center for discovery.

Catherine Cassell outlines changes to GitHub’s bug bounty program, including a permanent invite-only VIP track, new static payout tables for both VIP and public researchers, and a HackerOne signal requirement aimed at reducing low-effort and AI-generated submissions.

Aarti Borkar explains how Microsoft and AXA XL are partnering to make Microsoft Defender Experts Cybersecurity Incident Response available to AXA XL cyber insurance policyholders, with an emphasis on coordinating technical containment and recovery work alongside legal, executive, and insurance decision-making during high-stakes incidents.

Allison announces a GitHub Enterprise Server security change that will reject command-line support bundle uploads from unpatched GHES versions starting August 18, 2026, and lists the minimum patch releases required to avoid disruption.

Linda Li and Maria Naggaga explain how Azure AI Foundry Toolboxes let agents call MCP tools using the signed-in user’s identity, without embedding OAuth/token plumbing in agent code. The post covers per-user token isolation, consent handling, and governance features like RAI guardrails and gateway fronting.

Ricardo Duncan describes how CDK Global migrated a business-critical automotive CRM platform to Azure SQL Managed Instance, including the architecture choices, migration approach, and operational practices used to move more than 1,000 databases with minimal downtime.

richpaw describes a reference architecture for running Microsoft Discovery on a Windows VM in Azure and connecting it to an Azure CycleCloud HPC cluster via Azure NetApp Files (NFS) and SSH, so agentic workflows can submit Slurm jobs, read/write POSIX files, and stay inside a private network boundary.

sbaynes announces an expanded Microsoft–Mistral partnership that brings Mistral Medium 3.5 and OCR 4 into Microsoft AI Foundry and Copilot Studio, with deployment options spanning Azure cloud, Azure Local, and fully disconnected environments aimed at regulated industries that need stronger control over data and operations.

GitHub introduces GitHub Code Quality (now generally available) and shows how CodeQL analysis plus AI-assisted findings and Copilot Autofix can surface and fix issues directly in pull requests, with rulesets to enforce quality gates at merge time.

John Savill gives an overview of Microsoft IQ and how it’s meant to bring the right intelligence (enterprise data, web data, and model capabilities) to AI agents, including the different “IQ” surfaces (Work, Fabric, Foundry, Web) and the security/identity considerations around least privilege and protection.

Allison announces general availability of GitHub Code Quality for GitHub Enterprise Cloud and GitHub Team, combining deterministic CodeQL analysis with AI-assisted detection and Copilot Autofix to flag maintainability and reliability issues in pull requests, plus new org-level dashboards, coverage reporting, ruleset-based quality gates, and APIs.

John Edward outlines practical Azure architecture best practices for enterprise applications, covering the Azure Well-Architected Framework, scalability and high availability patterns, security with Zero Trust, observability, infrastructure as code, CI/CD, cost controls, networking, disaster recovery, and governance.

This week's Security roundup connects active threat intel with the platform controls teams can use to reduce exposure. Microsoft detailed ACR Stealer intrusion chains and ShinyHunters-linked OAuth abuse against Salesforce, while a real @asyncapi npm compromise showed how CI misconfigurations and trusted publishing can turn PRs into malware delivery. On the platform side, GitHub shipped more in-PR security signals (AI detections, agentic autofix, and Copilot security review) plus safer supply-chain defaults like Dependabot cooldowns and stronger secret scanning automation. Rounding it out, Entra ID moves to passkeys by default and new guidance focuses on governing AI agents and tool access with least privilege, gateways, and auditable authorization.