Entra.Chat

Microsoft just dropped a massive wave of features for Entra, and the rules of Tenant Governance have officially changed.
Join us as we talk to three world-class MVPs about their hands-on experience with the new Entra Backup and Recovery and Tenant Governance features.
Our Microsoft MVP guests Nathan McNulty, Ru Campbell, and Thomas Naunheim break down the most exciting new features in Microsoft Entra.
In this episode, we explore:
* The “Shadow Tenant” Problem: One org found 700+ Entra tenants they didn’t know they had.
* Version Control for Admins: Why “Difference Reports” are a total game-changer for troubleshooting.
* Recovery Safeguards: How to protect your tenant from accidental deletions and “sneaky” background changes.
* Backup & Recovery: The truth about Entra Backup vs. Third-Party ISV tools.

Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇

About The Guests
Nathan, Ru, and Thomas are highly experienced MVPs specializing in identity security, governance, and Microsoft Entra.
Nathan McNulty - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanmcnulty/
Ru Campbell - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rlcam/
Thomas Naunheim LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasnaunheim/
🔗 Related Links
* Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery Documentation - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/backup/overview
* Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/id-governance/tenant-governance/overview
* Synced Passkeys - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/authentication/how-to-authentication-passkeys-fido2
* Microsoft Work IQ CLI (Public Preview) - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot/extensibility/workiq-overview
* Playwright https://playwright.dev/
* Entra Auth Tracer (Chrome Extension) - https://github.com/darrenjrobinson/EntraAuthTracer
* Unified Risk Score - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-xdr/investigate-users#risk-score-tab-preview
📗 Chapters
00:00 Intro to New Entra Features
02:04 Entra Backup and Recovery Deep Dive
10:41 Difference Reports Explained
15:54 Intro to Tenant Governance
23:34 Managing Multi-Tenant Organizations
33:31 Conditional Access Optimization Agent
36:55 The Great Passkey Debate
47:22 Retirements: SP-less Auth & ACS for SharePoint
48:46 Unified Risk Score in Defender
52:38 MVP Tips of the Week
Podcast Apps
🎙️ Entra.Chat - https://entra.chat
🎧 Apple Podcast → https://entra.chat/apple
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🎧 Others → https://entra.chat/rss
Merill’s socials
📺 YouTube → youtube.com/@merillx
👔 LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/merill
🐤 Twitter → twitter.com/merill
🕺 TikTok → tiktok.com/@merillf
🦋 Bluesky → bsky.app/profile/merill.net
🐘 Mastodon → infosec.exchange/@merill
🧵 Threads → threads.net/@merillf
🤖 GitHub → github.com/merill


Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at entra.news/subscribe

Emilien Socchi, Cloud Security Research Engineer at Storebrand, joins us to discuss CA Insight and AZTier.
Two open-source tools Emilien built to find gaps in Conditional Access policies and categorize Azure/Entra roles based on attack paths.
Learn how CA Insight evaluates 250 million sign-in combinations offline in minutes instead of days, why the What If API doesn't scale, and how AZTier helps defenders and pen testers understand privilege escalation risks across Entra ID, Azure, and Microsoft Graph.
Together, these projects help security teams move from reactive log monitoring to a proactive defense strategy.
What’s Breaking and Slowing Your Entra ID Environment?
In Microsoft Entra ID, the same visibility gaps cause two problems:
* Things break
* Work slows down
Expired client secrets disrupt integrations. Certificates lapse and authentication fails. New apps appear with excessive permissions and no clear ownership. At the same time, teams struggle to answer basic questions, which applications have access to Microsoft 365 data, whether that access is still required, and who is responsible for it.
When answers are not immediate, reviews stall and projects slow down.
ENow App Governance Accelerator Credential Guard helps identify expiring credentials and expose permission and ownership gaps.
For organizations under 10,000 users, pricing ranges from $3,500 to $9,500 annually through March 31, 2026.
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇
About Emilien Socchi
Emilien Socchi is a Cloud Security Research Engineer at Storebrand (Oslo, Norway) focusing on the proactive discovery of security issues. With an extensive background in application and cloud penetration testing, Emilien has published practical research and tooling used by defenders. He also maintains several open‑source projects, including Azure administrative tiering models and Entra ID role‑monitoring utilities.
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilien-socchi
🔗 Related Links
* CA Insight- https://github.com/emiliensocchi/entra-ca-insight
* Azure Administrative Tiering (AzTier) - https://aztier.com
* AzTier Source: https://github.com/emiliensocchi/azure-tiering
* AzTier Deployer - https://github.com/emiliensocchi/aztier-deployer
📗 Chapters
00:00 The Story Behind CA Insights
16:52 Why the ‘What If’ API Doesn’t Scale
21:09 Building an Offline Evaluation Engine
45:22 Deep Dive into AZTier: A Red Team Perspective
Podcast Apps
🎙️ Entra.Chat - https://entra.chat
🎧 Apple Podcast → https://entra.chat/apple
📺 YouTube → https://entra.chat/youtube
📺 Spotify → https://entra.chat/spotify
🎧 Overcast → https://entra.chat/overcast
🎧 Pocketcast → https://entra.chat/pocketcast
🎧 Others → https://entra.chat/rss
Merill’s socials
📺 YouTube → youtube.com/@merillx
👔 LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/merill
🐤 Twitter → twitter.com/merill
🕺 TikTok → tiktok.com/@merillf
🦋 Bluesky → bsky.app/profile/merill.net
🐘 Mastodon → infosec.exchange/@merill
🧵 Threads → threads.net/@merillf
🤖 GitHub → github.com/merill


Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at entra.news/subscribe

Darren Robinson, Identity and Zero Trust Strategy and Architecture Capability Lead at Increment, shares his extensive experience in identity governance and administration.
In this episode Merill sits down with Darren “Doc” Robinson – Microsoft MVP since 2017, former SailPoint Ambassador and one of Australia’s most experienced identity architects.
Darren takes us on a 25+ year journey from Novell networks to modern Microsoft Entra ID, reveals why he’s building custom ECMA2 connectors, and shares the exact PowerShell tools he just open-sourced (Granfeldt uplift, ECMA2 Host Tools, Provision On-Demand module).
We also compare Entra ID Governance vs SailPoint and dive into his latest obsession: MCPs for Entra News and personal AI agents.
Whether you’re migrating legacy apps or levelling up your IGA strategy, this episode is pure gold.
Sponsored by CoreView:
Would you bet your reputation on your current Microsoft 365 security posture?
Sure, you’ve checked Purview. Maybe tightened Conditional Access. We all do that.
But it’s usually the quiet stuff that bites... permissions that expanded, policies that drifted, exceptions nobody revisited.
You could assume it’s fine.
Or you could run the Microsoft 365 Security Posture Check.
It’s free.
It runs locally.
And no, it doesn’t send your tenant data back to us.
We’ll even help you set it up.
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇

About Darren Robinson
Darren is highly accomplished in digital identity and cybersecurity specialising in Identity & Access Management for over three decades. Darren is renowned for driving Digital Identity innovation, building global offerings, and leading high-impact teams to deliver cutting-edge solutions that enhance security posture, operational efficiency, and business value.
🔗 Related Links
* Blog: https://blog.darrenjrobinson.com
* GitHub: https://github.com/darrenjrobinson
* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenjrobinson/
In this episode…
1. Understanding the “Metaverse”
The foundation of Microsoft’s identity strategy dates back to the acquisition of Zoomit in 2000. This introduced the Metaverse—not a VR world, but a “hologram” or central representation of a user that exists across multiple systems like SQL databases and LDAP directories. By correlating these identities into one object, organizations can maintain consistency across a fragmented environment.
2. The Modern Bridge: ECMA and SCIM
As organizations move to the cloud, the “heavy” sync engines like MIM (Microsoft Identity Manager) are being replaced by Entra Cloud Sync. The modern approach uses:
* A Light Shim: A small on-premises component that acts as a member of the domain.
* SCIM Instructions: The Entra provisioning service sends instructions via the SCIM protocol to this shim.
* ECMA Connectors: The Extensible Connector Management Agent (ECMA) translates these cloud instructions into a language legacy on-prem apps can understand, such as SQL or Oracle updates.
3. Scaling with PowerShell 7
One of the biggest hurdles in legacy identity management was performance. Darren Robinson recently uplifted the popular Granfeldt PowerShell Management Agent to support PowerShell 7. This update allows for:
* 64-bit Processing: Handling larger datasets with ease.
* Parallelism: Sending multiple identity updates in parallel rather than waiting for individual “gets,” significantly speeding up sync times.
4. Managing the “Cache”
A common pain point for administrators is the lack of visibility into the ECMA host cache. To solve this, Darren developed a new module that allows practitioners to programmatically query the cache, back up configurations, and document every connector and parameter in the system.
Key Takeaway: Whether you are migrating from legacy solutions like Novell or managing a complex hybrid Entra environment, the goal remains the same: automated, secure, and visible identity lifecycles.
📗 Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:22 The Evolution of Directory Services and Synchronization
08:05 Understanding Sync Engines and the Metaverse
14:45 Modern Identity Provisioning with Entra
17:39 Developing Custom PowerShell ECMA Connectors
20:53 Automating Provisioning with New PowerShell Modules
28:53 The Current Landscape of Identity Governance
31:37 Solving the Disconnected Apps Challenge
35:46 Exploring Model Context Protocol (MCP)
45:34 Leveraging Local AI and LLMs for Identity Tasks
Podcast Apps
🎙️ Entra.Chat - https://entra.chat
🎧 Apple Podcast → https://entra.chat/apple
📺 YouTube → https://entra.chat/youtube
📺 Spotify → https://entra.chat/spotify
🎧 Overcast → https://entra.chat/overcast
🎧 Pocketcast → https://entra.chat/pocketcast
🎧 Others → https://entra.chat/rss
Merill’s socials
📺 YouTube → youtube.com/@merillx
👔 LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/merill
🐤 Twitter → twitter.com/merill
🕺 TikTok → tiktok.com/@merillf
🦋 Bluesky → bsky.app/profile/merill.net
🐘 Mastodon → infosec.exchange/@merill
🧵 Threads → threads.net/@merillf
🤖 GitHub → github.com/merill


Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at entra.news/subscribe

Richard Hicks wrote the book on DirectAccess. Then he wrote the one on Always On VPN. Now he’s here to tell you it’s time to move on from both (and other legacy VPNs). Over the last two years, Richard has helped numerous enterprise customers navigate the shift from legacy VPN to Microsoft Entra Private Access, and he’s collected some hard-learnt lessons along the way that most migration guides won’t tell you.
In this episode, Richard - enterprise security consultant and early Entra Private Access insider - breaks down why traditional VPN is fundamentally broken for today’s threat landscape, how Entra Private Access works under the hood, and the exact crawl-walk-run playbook he uses to migrate enterprise customers without disruption. Plus: his hot take on the Microsoft E7 announcement and why it just changed the pricing conversation forever.
In this episode you’ll learn:
* Why your VPN tunnel is a security liability — and how a single compromised device can expose your entire corporate network
* How Entra Private Access works differently to traditional VPN, and why that architectural shift matters for security
* The “Quick Access” migration strategy that lets you get off legacy VPN fast, without locking everything down on day one
* How to deploy the Global Secure Access client alongside your existing VPN — so you can migrate field-based workers without a single disconnection
* What most teams get wrong about the Entra Private Network Connector — and the scaling pitfalls that catch enterprises off guard
* Why Conditional Access knowledge, not connectivity, is the real key to a successful zero trust migration
* The current limitations of Entra Private Access and how to plan around them
* We also discuss the new ‘E7’ which includes Entra Private Access
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇

About Richard Hicks
Richard Hicks is the founder and principal consultant at Richard M. Hicks Consulting, Inc. A Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) with more than 30 years of experience implementing secure remote access and public key infrastructure (PKI) solutions, he is a widely recognized enterprise mobility and security infrastructure expert sought after by organizations worldwide. His mission is to help companies provide visibility, control, and assurance for their field-based users and devices, ensuring the highest level of security and productivity for today’s highly mobile workforce.
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardhicks/
🔗 Related Links
* Richard’s Blog - https://directaccess.richardhicks.com/
* Richard M. Hicks Consulting, Inc - https://www.richardhicks.com/
* https://directaccess.richardhicks.com/always-on-vpn-vs-entra-private-access/
📗 Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:10 The History of Direct Access and Always On VPN
05:59 Transitioning to Zero Trust and Entra Private Access
11:34 Seamless Side-by-Side VPN Migration
17:37 Using Quick Access to Kickstart Zero Trust
23:43 Changing Mindsets: Identity over IP Addresses
27:55 The New Zero Trust Network Assessment Tool
29:17 Avoiding Pitfalls with the Entra Private Network Connector
33:11 Feature Wishlist: IPv6 and Process Binding
38:46 Hot Takes on the New Entra E7 Suite
Podcast Apps
🎙️ Entra.Chat - https://entra.chat
🎧 Apple Podcast → https://entra.chat/apple
📺 YouTube → https://entra.chat/youtube
📺 Spotify → https://entra.chat/spotify
🎧 Overcast → https://entra.chat/overcast
🎧 Pocketcast → https://entra.chat/pocketcast
🎧 Others → https://entra.chat/rss
Merill’s socials
📺 YouTube → youtube.com/@merillx
👔 LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/merill
🐤 Twitter → twitter.com/merill
🕺 TikTok → tiktok.com/@merillf
🦋 Bluesky → bsky.app/profile/merill.net
🐘 Mastodon → infosec.exchange/@merill
🧵 Threads → threads.net/@merillf
🤖 GitHub → github.com/merill


Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at entra.news/subscribe

I am back home in Melbourne today, and joining me are Nathan McNulty from Alaska and Daniel Bradley from the UK as we dive into all the massive Entra updates that dropped last month. We are breaking down the controversial shift to syncable passkeys , why your Conditional Access policies might suddenly start blocking apps , and the absolute necessity of moving privileged accounts away from on-prem AD. We’re also geeking out over some incredible new Global Secure Access (GSA) features and how AI is completely transforming the way we work with Graph API. You won’t want to miss the under-the-radar changes that could impact your tenant’s security architecture overnight.
Here’s a quick overview of all the topics we covered in this episode (links below).
Sponsored by:
Scan, Score, and Secure Your Applications in Entra
Application identities represent one of the largest attack surfaces in Entra and are often among the least consistently governed. AppGov Score helps IT and Security teams understand where risk exists. The 24-check assessment evaluates Entra ID application integrations against Microsoft-recommended governance practices, analyzing:
* App registrations and enterprise apps for excessive permissions
* Expired or unmanaged secrets
* Ownerless apps
* Risky consent grants, and
* Privileged service principals
Results are delivered as a clear, defensible risk score with actionable findings. No scripts. No manual inventory. Just a fast, read-only scan that reveals app sprawl, identity misconfigurations, and blast radius so you can prioritize remediation and strengthen your security posture with confidence.
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇

About Nathan McNulty
Senior Security Solutions Architect at Patriot Consulting and Microsoft MVP in security. Nathan is the practice lead for identity and has extensive experience with endpoint deployments and everything Entra.
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanmcnulty/
About Daniel Bradley
Senior Solution Architect for CDW down in the UK and an MVP in Identity Security and M365 for Graph API. Daniel specializes in pre-sales, mergers, acquisitions, and the highly technical migration space.
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielbradley2/
🔗 Related Links
* Entra What's New - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/fundamentals/whats-new
* Upcoming Conditional Access change: Improved enforcement for policies with resource exclusions - https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft-entra-blog/upcoming-conditional-access-change-improved-enforcement-for-policies-with-resour/4488925
* XDRInternals - https://github.com/MSCloudInternals/XDRInternals
* Passkey Login - https://github.com/nathanmcnulty/nathanmcnulty/blob/main/Entra/passkeys/PasskeyLogin.ps1
* Graph PM - https://graph.pm
📗 Chapters
03:01 Syncable Passkeys & Registration Changes
18:10 Conditional Access Policy Updates
26:35 Blocking Hard Match for Privileged Roles
35:42 External Authentication Methods GA
43:04 Lifecycle Workflows & Admin Units
48:01 Global Secure Access (GSA) BYOD Preview
53:06 New My Account Portal & Authenticator Updates
58:43 AI Skills & Automating Graph API
Podcast Apps
🎙️ Entra.Chat - https://entra.chat
🎧 Apple Podcast → https://entra.chat/apple
📺 YouTube → https://entra.chat/youtube
📺 Spotify → https://entra.chat/spotify
🎧 Overcast → https://entra.chat/overcast
🎧 Pocketcast → https://entra.chat/pocketcast
🎧 Others → https://entra.chat/rss
Merill’s socials
📺 YouTube → youtube.com/@merillx
👔 LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/merill
🐤 Twitter → twitter.com/merill
🕺 TikTok → tiktok.com/@merillf
🦋 Bluesky → bsky.app/profile/merill.net
🐘 Mastodon → infosec.exchange/@merill
🧵 Threads → threads.net/@merillf
🤖 GitHub → github.com/merill


Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at entra.news/subscribe