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Practical cybersecurity articles, step-by-step guides, and quick-reference cheat sheets — from Active Directory hardening to Microsoft 365 and zero trust. Written by someone who's done the work. No hype, no fluff.

6 posts

6 results for “licensing” · Clear

Article Aug 1, 2026

Conditional Access Baseline Policies Every Microsoft 365 Tenant Needs in 2026

Every Microsoft 365 tenant should run a baseline of roughly eight to ten Conditional Access policies — block legacy authentication, require MFA for all users, phishing-resistant MFA for admins, compliant or managed devices, block device code flow, sign-in and user-risk policies, session controls, guest MFA, and a break-glass exclusion group — deployed in report-only first, piloted with a ring group, then enforced. This guide gives the named set, the safe rollout order, the P1/P2 licensing reality, the enforcement changes that landed in June and July 2026, and the production gotchas that lock teams out of their own tenant.

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Article Jul 30, 2026

How to Configure Microsoft Entra PIM for Just-in-Time Admin Access

Microsoft Entra Privileged Identity Management (PIM) removes standing admin rights by making a role eligible instead of permanently active: the admin activates it just-in-time, for a time-boxed window, subject to MFA, justification and optional approval. This step-by-step guide covers licensing (Entra ID P2 or Entra ID Governance), prerequisites and break-glass accounts, assigning eligible roles, configuring activation settings, the end-user activation experience, validation, and Access Reviews — plus the production gotchas that lock teams out of their own tenant.

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Article Jul 18, 2026

Which Microsoft 365 Plan Do I Actually Need for My Business? Basic vs Standard vs Premium in 2026

Microsoft 365 Business Basic covers email, Teams and web apps; Business Standard adds the desktop Office suite; Business Premium adds the security and device-management layer most small businesses are missing — Entra ID P1, Intune, Defender for Business and Defender for Office 365. With the July 2026 price increase now in effect and new capabilities rolling into every tier, here is what each plan actually includes, what it costs, and a decision framework for picking the right one — including when to skip the Business plans entirely and go enterprise.

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Article Jul 16, 2026

Windows 10 ESU Extended to October 2027: What Changed, What It Costs, and How to Decide

Microsoft has quietly extended the Windows 10 consumer Extended Security Updates program by a full year — coverage now runs through 12 October 2027, and enrollment stays open until the program ends. But the business ESU terms have not changed: Year 2 starts in October 2026 at $122 per device, and late joiners must buy Year 1 retroactively. Here is exactly what changed, what it costs for home users and organisations, the free paths most admins overlook, and a decision framework for the October deadline.

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Article Jul 9, 2026

Copilot Cowork and Work IQ: Requirements, Cost, Use Cases and Setup for Microsoft 365 Admins

Copilot Cowork is Microsoft's agentic layer in Microsoft 365 Copilot — it sends emails, builds documents, schedules meetings and runs multi-step tasks with your approval — while Work IQ is the intelligence layer that grounds Copilot and agents in your tenant's data. This guide covers what each one does, the licensing and tenant requirements, how Copilot Credit billing works, real use cases, and step-by-step setup for admins and users.

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Article Jun 28, 2026

Microsoft 365 E3 vs E5 vs E7: A Practitioner's Guide to Choosing the Right License in 2026

Microsoft 365 E3 covers core productivity and baseline security, E5 adds the advanced security, compliance and voice stack, and the new E7 'Frontier Suite' bundles E5 with Copilot, Agent 365 and the Entra Suite for AI-driven work. This guide breaks down what each tier includes, what it costs, and how to decide which one your organisation actually needs.

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