John Savill’s Post

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Chief Architect, Americas Office of the CTO

Every month I pick a topic for a really short write-up that I put at the top of a weekly update email I send out to some of my customers. I figured I'd start sharing that monthly topic here as well each month. Without further ado... Top 5 Security Tips for Every Organization Security is a huge complex topic, but I wanted to share 5 things at minimum every organization should be thinking about for their security posture. Require strong authentication - Think about MFA and ideally phishing resistent methods like certificate-based, hello for business, passkeys/FIDO2. Less is more - Practice least privilege and just-in-time access. Humans shouldn't be touching production systems except in exceptional circumstances. Permissions should only be the minimum required for the task (both human and service accounts/managed identities) and for humans elevate up to privileged permissions for limited time when needed. Less is more also applies to connectivity, only have the minimum required connectivity between systems and networks. Stay current - This applies to updates on operating systems, runtimes, applications, anti-malware, agents etc WHILE ENSURING YOU FOLLOW SAFE DEPLOYMENT PRACTICES, i.e. don't just update everything at the same time. Use staged deployments to build confidence (as discussed at https://lnkd.in/ghR76sTw). Have isolated backups - Have separtely secured backups that require different credentials to access. For example in Azure Backup you can use Resource Guard, immutable vaults). Stay informed - This applies to everyone. As security practioners understand the threats that exist and how to protect. For your users help them be aware of common threats they can be vigilant for and where possible help protect them. For a more detailed set of guidance see https://lnkd.in/gRyMrzZx. Stay safe out there!

Mohammed Fayez Rajab

Cloud Security Expert | 15+ Years Experience | Azure Cybersecurity Certified Expert | Intune Administrator | Azure SOC Analyst | PowerShell Scripting Professional | PMP | MSc of Computer Science - UK

3mo

I am going to add a using conditional access policy to restrict privileged accounts using the following conditions: 1- Use privileged access Workstation 2- Ensure PAW is complaint managed by Intune with Security Baseline 3- Logging from names locations you know especially from your SASE appliances. 4- Use YubiKeys + Windows Hello for Business 5- Do not Sync Hybrid privileged accounts from AD to Entra ID 6- Use sign-in risk policies to reset passwords if threshold met 7- Do not allow normal accounts to access Azure Portal 8- Keep monitoring what is going on using Sentinel 9- Using PIM and justify the access

Milad Sakiani

Vice President, IT Operations | Cybersecurity and Technology Leader at Nicola Wealth

3mo

"Require strong authentication" ... We are in 2024, if you have to "think" about turning on MFA... you're in trouble and shouldn't be on LinkedIn reading posts IMO. Everyone following you John Savill I 🙏 pray has MFA on for their org.

Daniel Itzhak ★

Sales Engineer | Cloud & Cybersecurity | I help businesses to turn the tide against cyber attacks

3mo

John Savill that's a nice summary of the Zero Trust principles, I would also add deep network visibility to the list, can't protect what you can't see 🙂 . On a separate note: thanks for all the work you put in the Azure Architect videos, these were my bible for AZ-30x tests

Roy Kee (纪力文)

Experienced Project Manager | Cloud Security | Smart City | Public Sector

3mo

Great post! I would like to add one more security tip that I find crucial—investing in a good alert filtering system. With so many false positives coming from security scans, having a reliable system to filter and prioritize alerts can help teams focus on real threats and avoid alert fatigue. It improves response times and ensures that critical issues are not missed.

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Lori Kim

Sr. Customer Success Account Manager | Families ERG Communities Co-Chair | Shepherd Leader with an Innovator's Mindset

3mo

Great advice and very insightful #security tips and good practice for every organization to understand the threats that exist and how to protect. 💪💡

Matt Koozer

Infrastructure Architect at Komatsu America Corp.

3mo

Thanks for sharing 😎

Oscar Monrio de la Herran

CIO | CTO CHC ENERGÍA | Líder del mercado eléctrico

3mo

Hi John Savill , you are the BEST! Video pills Will be great ! BEST wishes

Paul Huff

Experienced IT Executive | CIO | CTO | Driving Innovation and Transformation

3mo

Fantastic basic practical advice John! These are solid underlying principles that you can build policies and standards on and guide practical application. I wish more organizations did this.

Victor A. Adekunle

DevOps | Platform Engineering | Azure | Git | Terraform | PowerShell | Python | Bash| Infrastructure Automation

3mo

Well said John...

Terdell Nash

Problem Solver & Project Manager | AI + Governance, Risk & Compliance + Privacy = Leading Teams to Achieve Secure, Scalable Results

3mo

Useful tips John..

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