October 2024 Newsletter
Table of Contents
What’s the Buzz at eGroup Enabling Technologies?
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month!
Cybersecurity Awareness Month is an international initiative that empowers individuals and businesses to protect their data from cybercrime. Even amidst large-scale data breaches and cyberattacks, Cybersecurity Awareness Month reminds everyone that there are simple, effective ways to keep yourself safe online, protect your personal data, and ultimately help secure our world.
Check out these helpful resources to learn how to protect your business effectively:
Register to attend our Nightmare on Cyber Street: Protecting Your Devices and Identities Webinar, happening on Thursday, October 31st at 2PM EST. Discover how the Intune and Entra Suite value-packed bundles can protect your devices and identities from the ghouls and goblins of the digital world.
Download our Mapping NIST CSF 2.0 to Microsoft Security Services eGuide, built for those who value tools that work together, rather than managing separate platforms.
Check out our blog post, Securing What Really Matters. We believe in taking a proactive approach to protecting, detecting, and responding to incidents for our customers, and this article shares some of those practices.
Learn how Microsoft Security Workshops can provide insight into security and protection services that fit the needs of your organization.
What’s New in the Hybrid Data Center?
Cisco
- Cisco continues to expand its AI-native security solution, Hypershield. This architecture integrates security directly into network and compute fabrics, offering autonomous segmentation and protection from emerging threats. By leveraging hardware accelerators like DPUs, Hypershield enhances security across data centers, cloud, and edge environments.
- Cisco released the 1200 Series of SD-WAN-enabled firewalls, which provide up to three times the performance of traditional solutions, combining routing, switching, and security functionalities. This update also includes new features in Cisco’s Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) 7.6, offering advanced protection for AI applications and zero-day threats.
- Cisco expanded its AI collaboration with NVIDIA through the Nexus HyperFabric AI Clusters, specifically targeting generative AI workloads. This simplifies AI deployment and management across hybrid cloud environments, making it more accessible for enterprise data centers.
- Cisco rolled out enhanced observability features in its ThousandEyes platform and across its networking portfolio, enabling AI-powered insights that improve operational efficiency and security.
Cisco Meraki
- Meraki released the MX18.2 firmware for its MX security and SD-WAN appliances. This update improves throughput for branch networks and strengthens your security posture by offering enhanced real-time steering capabilities and better resilience and scalability.
- Meraki’s Secure Connect platform now integrates with Cisco’s Secure Access, a cloud-based security service. This integration helps organizations implement zero-trust models more effectively, offering advanced security for remote workforces across hybrid environments.
- Meraki has incorporated AI-driven features in its networking solutions to improve visibility and automated issue resolution. Tools like Cisco ThousandEyes provide comprehensive digital experience assurance across networks, making it easier to manage owned and unowned parts of a network.
Cohesity
- Cohesity 7.1.2 U2 released! While 6.8.2 U1 is still the LTS release, 7.1.2 U2 provides fixes, as well as Security updates, and is supported through March 2025.
Nutanix
- New Long Term Support Release drops! As Nutanix has been bringing some fantastic features to the platform, recently most of them have been in the Short-Term Support (“STS”) and Extended Short-Term Support (“eSTS”) releases. On October 7th, Nutanix dropped the latest Long-Term Support (“LTS”) release with AOS 6.10 and AHV 20230302.102001 being released. The 6.5 release for AOS has been around for a while, and it’s great to see the features from the 6.8 releases make their way into the LTS release.
- Nutanix recently announced a promotion for customers using VMC on AWS. With Broadcom’s announcement of VMC on AWS and the inability to purchase directly from AWS, Nutanix is helping those customers with a migration path/promotion to Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2). Nutanix is providing a one-time promotion for licensing, and will run from September 2024 through July 2025.
- Prism Central 2023.4.0.2 released! While mostly a bug-fix release, Nutanix continues to focus on stability and scalability for Prism Central as a cornerstone of the Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure.
- Nutanix Move 5.4.1 released! Easily one of the most powerful tools in the Nutanix toolbox, Move continues to be enhanced with some helpful features.
- Move now supports the automatic installation of NGT on migrated VMs.
- Move now supports configuring Nutanix Self-Service runbooks for execution post VM migration.
- Move now supports the automatic target share creation for Files Migrations.
- Move now supports the scanning of shares, and shows progress of migration for Files 5.0.0+.
VMware
- The rocky relationship between Broadcom and its customer base continues with an AT&T lawsuit. 1050% is an extreme case, but we’re consistently seeing 200-400% cost increases. We’re a Broadcom partner and can provide options and ballpark pricing before your renewal.
Zerto
- ZVR remains a vital tool for IT teams seeking to protect their critical data and applications. Whether using VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, or exploring the cloud for DR or Lift and Shift opportunities, Zerto ensures your business is always prepared for the unexpected. Read our blog on the latest!
What’s New with Microsoft?
Azure
- Evaluating your next move from VMware? Microsoft has released incentives and opportunities to explore cloud native, Azure VMware Solution, and alternative hypervisors in Azure. Read more to dig deeper into how you can get information as well as pros and cons.
- The new capabilities of Azure Cost Management give more precise and predictive cost estimations from your Azure investments.
- Mandatory MFA is here for Microsoft Azure. Be prepared and get ahead of the gradual enforcement over the coming months and early 2025 by reading here and acting.
- One of the most valuable uses of Azure is still to provide disaster recovery for on-premises resources. Mike Dent tackles the capabilities of not only Zerto Virtual Replication to on-premises but also for VMware environments to Azure in his latest blog post.
- Available in public preview, Azure Business Continuity (ABC) Center is the new, streamlined replacement Azure Backup Center that centralizes management of Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery BU/DR policies and operations.
- Automated Patching is being deprecated on 9/15/2027, replaced by Azure Update Manager.
- Between now and 3/31/25, MSFT is offering an additional 15% discount on 1-year Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instance rates for the latest Linux VMs.
- Azure Application Gateway support for TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 will end by 31 August 2025.
- Risk and safety evaluations for protected material (text) are now available in public preview, accessible through Azure AI Studio UI and SDK experiences.
- Start using the Azure Machine Learning model monitoring instead of the Azure Machine Learning data drift detection before September 1st, 2025.
Defender for Office 365
- Beginning now and through late October, admins can start blocking or allowing IPv6 addresses without prior submissions.
Defender XDR
- Microsoft is consolidating ‘Microsoft 365 Defender for Cloud Apps’ communications under ‘Microsoft Defender XDR’ in Service health and Message center.
- The Files page in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps will be retired on October 28, 2024. Users can manage Information Protection policies and explore malware files via the Policy Management page.
- Stay up to date on the security enhancements in Microsoft Defender XDR with the monthly blog. Drill into the details of things like improved resilience against QR code phishing and the critical role of identities in attack disruption.
Delve
- Delve retires December 16, 2024.
Entra ID
- A new Conditional Access template requiring device compliance is now available in Public Preview. This template restricts access to company resources exclusively to devices enrolled in mobile device management (MDM) and compliant with company policy.
- Beginning with version 6.2408.5807, Authenticator for Android is compliant with Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS 140-3) for all Microsoft Entra authentications, including phishing-resistant device-bound passkeys, push MFA, passwordless phone sign-in, and time-based one-time passcodes.
- Follow our blog and events page for an opportunity to learn more and join our webinar about the all-new Microsoft Entra Suite, the top tier in Microsoft Identity Security solutions. In the meantime, read more about the capabilities of Private Access, Internet Security, and ID protections & governance.
Exchange Online
- Microsoft is now gradually enabling IPv6 for all customer Accepted Domains that use Exchange Online for inbound mail. To take advantage of IPv6 connectivity, please make sure that your network allow-lists allow Exchange Online IPv6 endpoints in the same way it allow-lists IPv4.
- Starting October 15th, Exchange Online will reject emails with multiple From addresses without a Sender header, to comply with RFC 5322. Organizations should ensure a single address in the Sender header to avoid non-delivery reports (NDRs) with error code 550 5.1.20.
Forms
- Microsoft Forms introduces a new, more reliable data sync to Excel for the web, replacing the older version on January 13, 2025. Migration support begins late September. Users must manually update to the new solution after October 20, to continue syncing data from Forms to Excel.
Intune
- Intune ends support for Android device administrator on Google Mobile Service devices after 12/31/24. Users should stop enrolling devices using GMS and migrate to newer management methods.
- Working time settings allow you to enforce policies that limit access to apps and mute message notifications received from apps during non-working time for Teams and Edge apps.
- Enterprise App Management is enhanced to allow you to update an Enterprise App Catalog app, with a wizard that allows you to add a new application and use supersedence to update the previous app.
- Samsung has deprecated many important Samsung Knox APIs (opens Samsung’s web site) configuration settings on Android device administrator managed (DA) devices.
- You can now use the new Personal Data Encryption (PDE) template that is available through endpoint security disk encryption policy. PDE differs from BitLocker in that it encrypts files instead of whole volumes and disks. PDE occurs in addition to other encryption methods such as BitLocker.
- Since Apple ended support for profile-based user enrollment, Intune has ended support for profile-based user enrollment with Company Portal. This method was their privacy-focused BYOD enrollment flow using managed Apple IDs.
- While cloud-native endpoint management has been a trend for quite a while, there are lots of questions on what it truly takes to get there. This blog aims to tackle that question with common changes to the vision and process required to make the jump.
Microsoft 365 Admin Center
- Enable multifactor authentication (MFA) for your tenant by October 15, 2024, to access Microsoft Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, and Microsoft Intune admin center. Postponement is possible, but without MFA, admin sign-in will prompt MFA registration.
Microsoft 365 Copilot
- Wave 2 of Copilot was launched on 9/16.
Improvements include:- Pages for Microsoft 365 Copilot, enabling collaborative AI interactions and multiuser prompting. The feature is automatically enabled but comes with admin controls for customization. Copilot agents to automate business processes.
- Microsoft changed how it handles detailed usage metrics. Previously, admins had to enable optional diagnostic data. Now, this data is reclassified as required service data, meaning you no longer need to enable optional diagnostic data to see active usage metrics.
- Self-service purchase settings for Microsoft 365 Copilot will be generally available for global admins or billing admins. The option to self-purchase can be deactivated.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot now connects to SharePoint organization libraries for brand-approved images and other assets. Admins must prepare by uploading brand content and using a new cmdlet for consent.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot will automatically offer to summarize a document when opened in Word.
OneNote
- OneNote for Windows 10 will end support on October 14, 2025. OneNote for Windows is the future.
Outlook (New)
- More options for work location sharing are available in late October, including not sharing any information. Users and admins can configure these settings in Outlook or with PowerShell.
- Soon, when users want to share a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file that is saved to their device (not stored in OneDrive), the user can right-click the file name in File Explorer, select Share, and select new Outlook for Windows to email the file.
- Outlook is updating to automatically hide duplicate contacts, with rollouts ending mid-October. This affects Outlook on the web and new Outlook for Windows, while other versions will show all contacts.
Places
- Microsoft Places, an AI-powered app to efficiently find meeting locations that suit participants’ needs, will be available in Q4 CY24 with core and premium service plans. Existing O365 subscribers receive the core service plan, with basic workplace coordination. Teams Premium users get enhanced features.
Planner
- The new Planner for the web integrates features from Microsoft To Do, Planner, Project, and Copilot for a comprehensive task management solution. Expect availability by late January 2025. Some features will be unavailable at launch but will return by early 2025. A Microsoft 365 license is required.
Power Platform
- Coming to public preview today, admins and makers can protect against data exfiltration by controlling what apps can be run in the Dataverse environment. This feature will help to prevent malicious users from creating or using unapproved apps to export data.
- The ‘create a flow on a file’ in Teams feature for Power Automate allows users to set up and use Workflows in Teams on files on 10/31. It will not be available via Power Automate Desktop.
Purview
- Diagnostics for Microsoft Information Protection and Data Loss Prevention will soon be available in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal, with a public preview in late October and GA in early January.
- Endpoint DLP is introducing seven new conditions for Mac endpoints in December to bring capabilities closer to parity with Windows.
- Purview Insider Risk Management will roll out a feature allowing HR resignation date to be used as a condition for risk level in Adaptive Protection.
SharePoint
- SharePoint is introducing coauthoring for Pages and News, allowing multiple authors to edit simultaneously with real-time changes.
Teams Chat and Channels
- Teams will eventually stop working on old/unsupported Operating Systems. Beginning October 15th, the Teams desktop client may present a banner notifying users that they are on an unsupported OS version with a link instructing people to update to Windows 10 version 10.0.19041 or higher.
- Teams Workflows will allow users to describe the automation they need and have a workflow created by late October. The feature is in the Workflows app in Teams chat and channel overflow.
- Teams introduces a way to add a location to your presence signal, viewable from profile cards, one-on-one, and group chats. This will roll out in early to mid-November. Review the Places deployment guide.
- Teams is introducing a block user feature to prevent malicious users from contacting an organization again. Admins can block users, preventing 1:1 and group chats with them. It’s off by default.
- ICYMI: Teams now offers real-time Calendar notifications in the Activity Feed. Notifications include meeting invites, updates, cancellations, and forwards. If these notifications create noise for you, turn them off at “…/Settings/Notifications and activity/Calendar/New invites, updates, and cancellations.”
Teams Meetings
- Meeting passcodes are increasing from 6 to 8 characters for enhanced security. This won’t affect internal usage, only external users joining with a Meeting ID will need to use longer passcodes.
- Teams is introducing a new policy that gives IT admins enhanced flexibility with distinct settings for voice and face enrollment. Voice and face biometric enrollment will be enabled by default, enabling voice isolation and speaker recognition in meeting rooms and enhancing intelligent meeting recaps and Microsoft Copilot for meetings (link to LinkedIn).
- The UDP signaling ports for Calling and Meetings are changing in need to be updated in firewalls. The source ports will change from 49152-65535 to 50070-50089, with the destination UDP port remaining at 3478. Rollout begins early October 2024.
- The new Microsoft Teams on Windows now allows users to mute and unmute using the mic icon in the Windows taskbar or a keyboard shortcut.
- New interaction improvements for multi-room Mesh events will be available, allowing attendees to see reactions across rooms and hosts to move between rooms.
- By early November, presenters can join events via mobile. No admin action needed, but inform users.
- If using older Teams Room systems on Android, see the note immediately below.
Teams Phone
- Automatic updates for Teams Android Devices to Company Portal version 5.0.6152.0 are planned, now through late December. Devices running older versions may be unstable after July 1, 2025. Organizations should ensure devices are updated and check Teams Admin Center for current firmware and application versions. Accelerated updates will occur outside business hours, overriding normal update timelines and maintenance windows. Devices no longer supported will not receive updates.
Teams Admin
- Teams is currently updating its app installation process to be more and user-friendly. No changes to policies needed.
- New Teams apps and Copilot extensions will provide admins with security and certification information for compliance assessment. This feature, available in the Teams and Microsoft 365 admin centers, will include Microsoft 365 certification outcomes and ISV-submitted data.
Windows
- October 1st’s Windows 11 2024 Update contains new features, including enhanced battery saver, Bluetooth LE Audio, HDR background support, and support for Wi-Fi 7. Admins need to configure Windows Update for Business, Intune, or other solution to deploy this full operating system swap.
- The functionality formerly known as Windows Update for Business deployment service has been woven into Windows Autopatch. A dashboard in the Intune admin center now has four main sections: update policies, update groups, update status, and update reports.
Conclusion
If any of these updates or changes pose as a challenge for your team, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us! We will be happy to work with you to navigate these changes. Feel free to fill out the form below to get in contact with our team.
We Want to Hear From You!
Like any good partner, we’re listening! Since the latest advancements and announcements are coming in quickly, we’ve separated the list into subcategories below. Let us know what you’d like to see more of!
Need Assistance with These Updates?
Contact our team today to get help with any of the updates mentioned above!
