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Downtime Is Dangerous: Why Identity Resilience is Now Mission-Critical for Healthcare

Beyond Access: How Healthcare IT Can Cut Costs, Shrink Attack Surfaces, and Protect Patient Data with Smart Automation

In healthcare, behind every login is a nurse, a physician, and—most importantly—a patient in need. When identity systems fail, care delivery comes to a halt. That reality has been underscored by recent breaches, where stolen credentials, dormant admin accounts, and lateral movement across hybrid systems have caused not just IT outages, but also treatment delays, patient diversions, and canceled surgeries.

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NTLM Relay Attack Prevention: A Checklist for Active Directory Security

TL;DR Active Directory environments face severe risks from an NTLM relay attack, which exploits the lack of mutual authentication in legacy protocols to intercept credentials and gain unauthorized network access. Organizations can mitigate these vulnerabilities by phasing out NTLM in favor of Kerberos, enforcing SMB signing, and implementing strict privilege

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Cayosoft joins the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association

Enhanced Windows LAPS Password View and Management

Introduction  In our commitment to provide robust Active Directory, Entra ID, and M365 security, monitoring, and recovery Cayosoft Guardian is rolling out new features designed to make your security processes more streamlined and secure. With the latest update, we’re introducing modern LAPS management capabilities directly in the product.  Feature Highlights 

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Enhanced Security and Deployment with gMSA and AD Connector

In our commitment to provide robust Active Directory, Entra ID, and M365 security, monitoring, and recovery Cayosoft Guardian is rolling out new features designed to make your security processes more streamlined and secure. With the latest update, we’re introducing Group Managed Service Account (gMSA) integration and the AD Connector feature,

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Active Directory Security Best Practices: Key NSA Guidelines

Most global businesses run hybrid AD environments, and following active directory security best practices is critical when combining on-premises and cloud services to secure both Active Directory (AD) and Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD). Both systems manage identity and access control, making them prime targets for attackers aiming to

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K-12 Ransomware Protection: Securing Schools’ AD & Entra ID

As K-12 schools increasingly rely on digital services and key infrastructure such as Active Directory and Entra ID for authentication and access to support education services. We continue to see an increase with being targeted by Ransomware groups and falling victim to ransomware attacks, putting sensitive data and education services

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Qilin Ransomware: How to Detect & Protect Against This Exploit

Qilin ransomware has emerged as a significant threat to organizations, particularly those relying heavily on Active Directory for managing their IT infrastructure. Qilin ransomware has adopted a new method for stealing credentials from Google Chrome browsers by leveraging Active Directory Group Policy. In this guide, we will explore how Qilin

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FSMO Roles: The Hidden Key to Resilient Active Directory

At the heart of every well-functioning Active Directory (AD) environment lies a set of unsung heroes: Flexible Single Master Operation (FSMO) roles. These specialized roles hold the keys to your AD’s resilience, stability, and recoverability. While they may not be the most glamorous aspect of AD management, understanding and safeguarding

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Mastering Microsoft 365 Governance: Active Directory Guide

TL;DR Effective Microsoft 365 governance relies on strategic Active Directory management to secure user identities, enforce role-based access control, and automate the user lifecycle in hybrid environments. By utilizing automation and centralized reporting, organizations can mitigate security risks, streamline administrative tasks, and maintain strict regulatory compliance across all group types.

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Managing Active Directory in a Zero Trust World

Applying a Zero Trust strategy to Active Directory management reduces your identity threat landscape, enhances access controls and segmentation, enforces just-in-time access, and improves monitoring and incident response. Overall, this approach strengthens your identity platform and makes it more resilient. In this blog, learn how Zero Trust strategy and principles

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Securing Active Directory Against DCSync Attacks

DCSync attacks remain a persistent threat to Active Directory (AD) security. These attacks cleverly exploit normal AD replication processes, allowing hackers to secretly extract sensitive password hashes. This access can pave the way for widespread exploits across your network. Given the prevalence of DCSync attacks, IT professionals must be equipped

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Active Directory Best Practices for Management in 2026

TL;DR Modern organizations must prioritize Active Directory best practices by transitioning from manual management to automated workflows to mitigate risks like human error and sophisticated cyberattacks. Implementing strategies such as the principle of least privilege, automated user lifecycle management, and continuous auditing ensures a secure and resilient IT infrastructure. In

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Securing SYSVOL: Threats, Protection, and Recovery

What is SYSVOL and Why is it Important? For many IT professionals, the system volume (SYSVOL) might seem like just another shared folder. However, if not properly protected, it represents a critical security vulnerability within every Active Directory domain controller. SYSVOL stores the essential files and scripts that govern user

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Active Directory Software: Top 7 Enterprise Requirements

Understanding the Complexities of Enterprise IT Security The Microsoft Digital Defense Report reveals a concerning trend: 93% of Microsoft’s ransomware incident response engagements uncovered insufficient controls on privilege access and lateral movement. This illustrates that companies need to strengthen their user management and security in 2024. The growing trend underlines

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Active Directory Authentication Explained

Getting Smart with Active Directory Authentication Let’s talk about Active Directory authentication, a key player in your IT environment’s security. In simple terms, it’s like the main gatekeeper of your organization’s IT environment, deciding who gets in and what they can do. This isn’t just about keeping bad guys out,

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Active Directory Cleanup: Top 8 Best Practices

TL;DR Regular Active Directory cleanup optimizes system performance and strengthens security by removing obsolete objects, inactive accounts, and unoptimized Group Policy Objects. Implementing automated monitoring and metadata maintenance ensures long-term regulatory compliance while reducing the risks associated with unauthorized access and replication errors. Top Best Practices for Optimal Performance |

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Active Directory Schema: Essentials & Backup Strategy

Understanding Active Directory Schema Before we dive into the backup, let’s clear up what an Active Directory schema is. Simply put, the Active Directory schema is a set of definitions that outline what kinds of objects and information about those objects can be stored in Active Directory. Think of it

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Why You Need to Recover Active Directory Forest

Essential Considerations to Recover Your Active Directory Forest Active Directory isn’t just a part of your IT infrastructure, it’s the forgotten central hub that keeps everything running smoothly. But with great power comes great responsibility – and vulnerability. It’s a primary target for attackers and any disruption will send ripple

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Enhancing IT Agility with Automated User Provisioning in Active Directory

Understanding Automated User Provisioning in Active Directory In the world of IT, manual management of user provisioning and deprovisioning feels as outdated as a floppy disk. Just imagine trying to juggle countless user profiles across diverse on-premise and cloud environments—it’s a logistical nightmare. Enter the era of automated user provisioning

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Selecting the Right Tools to Manage Active Directory in 2024

How to Choose the Best Tools to Manage Active Directory In the changing world of IT management, choosing the right tools to manage Active Directory is very important. Active Directory is the main system for managing identities and access in your organization. It needs a strong solution that simplifies operations,

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Is it Time for your Microsoft Enterprise Agreement Renewal?

Resources to Optimize Microsoft 365 (Formerly Office 365) License Management and Reduce Costs For organizations with 500 or more users or devices, that want a more manageable volume licensing program, the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) provides the ability to buy cloud services and software licenses under one agreement. These enterprise agreements are

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FBI charges former AWS engineer in Capital One breach

The FBI arrested a former AWS engineer who allegedly stole data for more than 100 million Capital One customers and credit card applications, thanks to a misconfigured firewall. The FBI arrested and charged a former AWS engineer Monday in connection with a massive data breach at Capital One. Paige A.

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7 Simple Tasks All New Office 365 Admins Should Learn

As a new Microsoft Office 365 admin, there are some critical Office 365 common admin tasks you need to know. There are the first tasks that you should learn about; the tasks that you’ll find the most common as you maintain and manage the system. This is a review of

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5 Reasons IT Professionals Use PowserShell for Office 365

A command-line and scripting tool for system administration, PowerShell is both a powerful and potentially dangerous utility. Through PowerShell, an administrator is able to control and automate administrative processes across almost any Microsoft product, including cloud-based services and server-side applications. Using PowerShell with Office 365 requires a privileged user account with the

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Top Ten Shortcuts in Microsoft Teams

It’s happened to all of us. We’re in an important call and a group of coworkers decide to strike up a passionate conversation. We frantically reach for the mouse in an effort to find the mute button but can’t seem to get there quick enough. This is just one of

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Microsoft Azure Recovering from Major Networking-Related Outage

An outage that lasted more than an hour took out a host of Microsoft cloud services Thursday afternoon, as networking connectivity errors in Microsoft Azure also took out third-party apps and sites running on Microsoft’s cloud. Beginning around 1:20pm and lasting for more than an hour, the outage appeared to

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Teams Chat Group Size to 100

Microsoft Teams has updated Group Chat Size to 100. They’ve announced they will begin rolling this feature out soon. How does this impact me? This feature simply allows for all users to add and chat with up to 100 users in a group chat. Microsoft is increasing the limit from

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Verizons’ 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report

Every year Verizon creates a report that covers previous period cyber breaches. That report has now been released. Not only is this report relevant to IT security professionals, but anyone that regularly uses a device to connect to the internet. Check out Verizons’ Data Breach Investigations Report.

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Updated Microsoft Azure Certifications Emphasize IT Roles

Updated Microsoft Azure Certifications As Microsoft tailors its cloud credentials to specific roles and skill levels, Azure certifications are also being modified. Microsoft made most of the changes in late 2018 but also made a few changes to its exams and requirements in the early part of 2019. Let’s review

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Microsoft Market Cap Hits $1 Trillion After Earnings

Microsoft Market Cap Hits $1 Trillion After Earnings For about a year, Microsoft has been approaching a $1 trillion market capitalization. The company crossed the big business milestone in after-hours trading on Wednesday, 4/24/19, after outperforming Wall Street expectations with its third quarter earnings. Last year, Microsoft was in a tight

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Microsoft Cloud Strength Drives Third Quarter Results

Microsoft Corp. announced the following results for the quarter ended March 31, 2019, as compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year: Revenue was $30.6 billion and increased 14% Operating income was $10.3 billion and increased 25% Net income was $8.8 billion and increased 19% Diluted earnings per share

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How to Add Members and Owners to Microsoft Teams

How To Assign Team Owners and Members in Microsoft Teams

Within Microsoft Teams there are two user roles: Owner and Team Members. Keep in mind, a user who creates a new team is granted the Owner status. If a team is created from an existing Office 365 Group, permissions are inherited. Note: Owners can make other members owners in the View teams option.

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