Windows 11

Protecting against typosquatting with website typo protection in Microsoft Edge

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This week is a short post about website typo protection in Microsoft Edge. That subject was briefly mentioned earlier when discussing Enhanced Security Mode in this blog post about tightening browser security in Microsoft Edge. This week is mainly focused on awareness for website typo protection. Website typo protection is aimed at protecting users against typosquatting. Typosquatting is intended to hijack traffic of users that meant to visit well-known sites, but that made a spelling mistake. That hijacking is achieved by using addresses with common misspellings or typographical errors of those well-known sites. Often that is used as prank, ad, or (friendly) competition, but more and more often that is also being used for phishing and malware. In the latter cases, users will get to …

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Getting started with Quick Machine Recovery

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This week is all about a relatively new recovery functionality in Windows. And that functionality is Quick Machine Recovery, which is also known as Cloud Remediation. Quick Machine Recovery is focused on the recovery of Windows devices when encountering critical errors that prevent the device from booting. A huge strength of Quick Machine Recovery is that it can automatically search for remediations online and use that to recover from widespread boot failures. In practice that means that Quick Machine Recovery helps with addressing the most severe failures within the environment. The type of system failures that gets devices stuck in the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). The type of system failures that require significant troubleshooting time. And that’s especially challenging when it’s a widespread outage. Quick …

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Blocking other browsers with policies for Microsoft Edge (be careful)

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This week is all about creating awareness. Creating awareness for the configuration options that are available for Microsoft Edge via the Microsoft 365 admin center, also known as the Microsoft Edge management service. The Microsoft Edge management service is an alternative method, besides Microsoft Intune, for configuring the Microsoft Edge browser via the Cloud. The configurations are stored in the Cloud and the settings can be applied through a group assignment. The user must be signed into the browser to receive those settings, and the browser must be restarted to make new settings applicable. So, pretty similar to the capabilities within Microsoft Intune. Besides that, the Microsoft Edge management service also provides access to additional settings, such as organization branding, AI, and specific security settings. …

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Explicitly denying elevation of specified files using Endpoint Privilege Management

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This week is all about a new feature that was recently introduced in Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM), and that feature is the ability to explicitly deny elevation. Explicitly denying the elevation blocks the specified file from running in elevated context. That enables organizations to work the other way around. Instead of configuring which file elevations are allowed, this enables organizations to allow every elevation with the exception of the elevations of those specifically specified files. Of course, the recommendation is to tightly control which files are allowed to elevate. That is, however, not always the situation that every organization is in. Often simply getting insights into what users are installing is already a huge step forward. Especially in combination with no local administrator privileges. As …

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Getting started with the Microsoft Defender Browser Protection extension for Google Chrome

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This week is sort of a follow-up on the last couple of weeks. The last couple of weeks the focus was on getting started with the different Microsoft Purview extensions for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, while this week the focus is on getting started with the Microsoft Defender Browser Protection extension for Google Chrome. The Microsoft Defender Browser Protection extension brings protection against online threats, like phishing and malicious websites, functionality known from SmartScreen in Microsoft Edge, to the Google Chrome browser. With that functionality it protects users against threats such as clicking on links in phishing emails and websites that are designed to trick users into downloading and installing malicious software. Of course Google Chrome also provides similar built-in functionality, but that will not …

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Getting started with the Microsoft Purview extension for Mozilla Firefox

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This week is sort of a follow-up on last week. Last week the focus was on getting started with the Microsoft Purview extension for Google Chrome, while this week the focus is on getting started with the Microsoft Purview extension for Mozilla Firefox. The story around the extension is pretty similar, as the Microsoft Purview extension for Mozilla Firefox extends the Endpoint data loss prevention (Endpoint DLP) capabilities to sensitive items in the Mozilla Firefox browser. And after the installation of that extension, on Windows devices, organizations get the ability to also monitor attempts to access or upload sensitive items to a Cloud service when using the Mozilla Firefox browser, and to actually enforce protective actions via data loss prevention policies. This post will provide a …

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Getting started with the Microsoft Purview extension for Google Chrome

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This week is all about the Microsoft Purview extension for the Google Chrome browser. Not because it’s something really new, but mainly to create some awareness around its existence. The Microsoft Purview extension for Google Chrome extends the Endpoint data loss prevention (Endpoint DLP) capabilities to sensitive items in the Google Chrome browser. After the installation of the Microsoft Purview extension for Google Chrome, on Windows devices, organizations get the ability to also monitor attempts to access or upload sensitive items to a Cloud service when using the Google Chrome browser, and to actually enforce protective actions via data loss prevention policies. This post will provide a brief overview of the Microsoft Purview extension for the Google Chrome browser, followed with the steps to automatically …

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Preventing scareware with scareware blocker in Microsoft Edge

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This week is all about a relatively new security feature within the Microsoft Edge browser, and that feature is scareware blocker. Scareware blocker is a security feature to protect against scareware attacks. Scareware attacks often display as full-screen pop-ups with all sorts of warnings claiming that the device has been compromised. The idea behind those attacks is often to frighten users into calling fraudulent support numbers or downloading harmful software. Scareware blocker can automatically detect and stop these attacks, by using machine learning. This post will start with a brief introduction about scareware blocker in Microsoft Edge, followed with the steps to enable it. This post will end with an overview of the user experience. Note: At the moment of writing scareware blocker is still …

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Easier managing Device Control in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint using Microsoft Intune

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This week is all about easier managing the basics of Device Control in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint using Microsoft Intune. It was already possible for a while to configure the different aspects of the Device Control feature on Windows devices, the configuration of some aspects just became a lot easier. In general, the Device Control features enable IT administrators to control whether users can install and use peripheral devices, such as removable storage, printers, or Bluetooth devices. In the end, the Device Control feature provides IT administrators with more tools to protect organizations from cyberthreats, such as potential data loss, or malware, by reducing the attack surface. Nowadays there are many different configuration options and different configuration profiles. This post will focus on the basic …

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