This blog is about how you can use the .Net cryptography model to encrypt and decrypt sensitive information such as passwords with PowerShell. It is specifically for the encryption in transit and encryption at rest scenarios, where, for example, you may be sending data to a backend service and securely storing it in that service. … Continue reading Encrypting Sensitive Data for Transit or Rest with PowerShell
Category: Compliance
Automate a Daily Activity Log Audit Report for an Azure Subscription
Yesterday I published a PowerShell script that retrieves activity log events for an Azure subscription. In this post, I will demonstrate how you could automate a daily email summary report of activities in your subscription using Azure automation. The email report looks something like this, with a summary of operations performed over the last 24 … Continue reading Automate a Daily Activity Log Audit Report for an Azure Subscription
Audit Events in Your Azure Subscription with PowerShell
Update! v.1.1 released fixing a bug where the most recent events were not being returned (2022-09-13) A quick post - I just published a new script for retrieving activity log events for an Azure subscription as the current options for searching and retrieving events didn't satisfy me. Azure Monitor has an activity log at the … Continue reading Audit Events in Your Azure Subscription with PowerShell
Enhance Update Compliance Reporting with Microsoft Endpoint Manager
If you're using Windows Update for Business in Microsoft Endpoint Manager you're probably also using Microsoft's Update Compliance solution for reporting. Update Compliance contains some useful data and I know the team are working on additional improvements. A while back I created my own "Update Compliance" solution in part because I wasn't happy with the … Continue reading Enhance Update Compliance Reporting with Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Update MEMCM Configuration Item Supported Platform conditions for Windows 11 with PowerShell
Ok, so I'm late to the party but I recently updated MEM Configuration Manager to 2107 and checking the release notes the supported platform conditions for configuration items don't automatically get updated to include Windows 11 where they've been targeted to Windows 10. I've got lots of CIs and I didn't want to manually update … Continue reading Update MEMCM Configuration Item Supported Platform conditions for Windows 11 with PowerShell
Use Proactive remediations to report on or install the Microsoft Update Health tools
Microsoft recently made a download available for their Update Health tools - if you're using Microsoft Endpoint Manager and enrolling or co-managing Windows devices these tools need to be installed to make use of the capability for expediting quality updates. For devices connected to Windows Update or Windows Update for Business these tools should already … Continue reading Use Proactive remediations to report on or install the Microsoft Update Health tools
MEMCM Compliance Item Scripts to Secure PointAndPrint Registry Keys
Microsoft published some updated guidance yesterday for the Windows Print Spooler Vulnerability (CVE-2021-3457) and recommend securing a couple of Point and Print registry keys if they exist, in addition to deploying the security update: After applying the security update, review the registry settings documented in the CVE-2021-34527 advisoryIf the registry keys documented do not exist, … Continue reading MEMCM Compliance Item Scripts to Secure PointAndPrint Registry Keys
A case of the unexplained: Intune password policy and forced local account password changes
Having a password policy is a best practice for security of accounts, whether domain, local or wherever passwords are used. In the Windows world, domain accounts have a default domain password policy. Azure AD accounts have the Azure AD password policy. Accounts local to Windows can have a password policy too, and you can use … Continue reading A case of the unexplained: Intune password policy and forced local account password changes
Get the current patch level for Windows 10 with PowerShell
I was working on some updates to our unified reporting solution for Windows Updates (ie WUfB + MEMCM) and I wanted to figure out simply from the OS build number whether a Windows 10 workstation has the latest cumulative update installed. The only reliable and useable static list I could find for Windows 10 build … Continue reading Get the current patch level for Windows 10 with PowerShell
PowerBI Reports for Windows 10 Feature Update Compliance
This morning I saw an interesting tweet from Sandy Zeng with a Log Analytics workbook she'd created for W10 feature updates based on Update Compliance data. I'd been meaning to create a similar report for that myself in PowerBI for some time, so I took inspiration from her tweet and got to work on something! … Continue reading PowerBI Reports for Windows 10 Feature Update Compliance