Today, organizations are being measured by how quickly they can innovate. Whether it’s launching new digital experiences, streamlining operations, or responding to customer needs in real time, the ability to move fast has always been a competitive differentiator. And it only grew on importance in the agentic era. But speed alone isn’t enough. Innovation must be scalable, secure, and sustainable.
Microsoft Power Platform is designed to meet that challenge. It empowers teams to build solutions faster, automate more processes, and scale across the business within a framework that puts security and governance first. With tools that are AI-ready and built for enterprise-grade environments from Copilot-assisted development to intelligent threat detection and posture management, the platform helps organizations move with both agility and control.
Let’s break down the facts about building secure, modern applications.
Fact: Low code does not mean low security
Despite the ever-growing usage and strong ROI, there are still people who think that low-code tools are not built for enterprise grade applications. Power Platform proves otherwise by delivering a comprehensive, layered security model designed to meet the demands of large organizations. As part of a managed security approach, the platform integrates governance and security controls directly into the development lifecycle ensuring that policies are consistently applied across environments.
From identity and access management to data protection and network security, Power Platform provides native capabilities that reduce risk without slowing innovation. Features like role-based access control, conditional access for individual apps, and data loss prevention policies are all included. Azure Virtual Network (VNet) helps keep apps and data private by creating a secure connection that blocks public internet access and limits traffic to only trusted sources.
Visibility and access control are central to this approach. Power Platform includes tenant-level analytics and inventory tracking that allow IT teams to monitor what’s being built, which connectors are in use, and whether apps are operating within approved environments. Advanced connector policies complement these tools by helping enforce data boundaries and prevent unauthorized connections, rather than providing direct visibility or access control. With tools like IP filtering, cookie binding, and role-based permissions, IT can ensure that only the right users have access to sensitive data. This helps prevent shadow IT before it starts giving teams a secure space to innovate while ensuring IT retains oversight.
The platform’s approach to security also extends to AI and agents. Security is enforced across all components of the platform, including apps and AI agents. As organizations adopt tools like M365 Copilot and Copilot Studio, Power Platform provides a secure foundation for building and deploying AI agents. These agents follow existing data loss prevention policies, access controls, and network protections, ensuring AI adoption does not create new exposure.
Power Platform also provides the flexibility to extend Copilot Studio agent protection beyond default safeguards with additional runtime protection. Organizations can choose to integrate additional monitoring systems such as Microsoft Defender, custom tools, or other security platforms for a defense-in-depth approach to agent runtime security.
Centrica, the UK’s largest retailer of zero-carbon electricity, is a good example of secure low-code innovation. With over 800 Power Platform solutions and 15,000 users, Centrica maintains enterprise-grade governance by embedding security, oversight, and controls into every stage of development.
Accenture also demonstrates how Power Platform helps reduce risk at scale. By giving more than 50,000 employees the ability to build within defined guardrails, the company reduced demand for short-term IT projects by 30%. Their approach to low-code governance helped them gain visibility into platform activity while supporting global collaboration. As one Accenture executive put it, “For us, we define shadow IT as things we cannot see or control when we need to. By standing up the platform and inviting our people to create and build—at its very core we have gained visibility into what people are doing and how they are connecting, which starts governance at the platform level.”
Fact: You do not have to outsource to be compliant
There is a perception that distributed development models increase compliance risk. Power Platform addresses this with centralized administration and clear visibility into who is building, what they are building, and how data is being used.
From the Power Platform admin center, IT teams can configure environments, enforce policies, and monitor usage across the entire organization. Tools like Dataverse audit logging, Microsoft Purview integration, and Lockbox support provide deep visibility into sensitive operations and data access.
Purview enhances compliance by enabling data classification, sensitivity labeling, and activity tracking across Power Platform environments. It also helps organizations enforce retention policies and ensure data governance requirements are met supporting alignment with global regulations like GDPR and HIPAA.
AI capabilities introduce new governance needs, which Power Platform meets with built-in support for risk assessment and proactive recommendations. Copilot capabilities also assist admins in identifying misconfigurations and streamlining compliance reporting.
Power Platform also integrates with Microsoft Sentinel and solution checkers to detect anomalies, surface vulnerabilities, and alert administrators to unusual behavior. Security posture management tools help teams assess and adjust configurations over time, helping organizations scale AI responsibly while maintaining strong governance.
PG&E is a case in point. With more than 4,300 developers and 300 Power Platform solutions, the company has embedded governance and risk management into its development lifecycle. This approach has helped PG&E achieve more than $75 million in annual savings, while ensuring that compliance and oversight remain strong.
Fact: You are not alone in your administering. You have guidance and support.
Another misconception is that managing low-code platforms at scale requires external tools or consultants. Power Platform includes everything needed to govern, secure, and scale app development from within your organization.
IT admins can use Power Platform admin center and advisor to receive AI-driven, real-time recommendations tailored to their environment. These insights help assess environment health, refine governance policies, and proactively manage security posture. Advisor also provides a security score, giving teams a clear view of how well they are securing their environments and a concrete way to demonstrate progress and accountability to leadership.
The platform is designed to adapt to each organization’s structure and needs. Recommendations can be dismissed when covered by other controls, and environmental groups allow governance to be tailored to specific business units or departments. This flexibility ensures that security doesn’t get in the way of progress but works alongside it.
Advanced features like test automation, environment isolation, and integrated observability help maintain consistent performance. VNet integration allows organizations to connect securely to on-premises systems without exposing resources to the public internet.
An example of one of leading automotive manufacturers highlights these capabilities. The company used VNet support in Power Platform to securely connect AI agents to internal systems without relying on an on-premises data gateway. The result was faster deployment, better compliance with internal security policies, and more than 3,000 hours saved through improved data access.
Start building secure, scalable solutions
Foster innovation while still maintaining security and governance principles. Microsoft Power Platform gives IT leaders and developers the ability to move quickly while maintaining the control their organizations require. With built-in governance, privacy protections, and AI-powered insights, teams can confidently scale low-code development without introducing risk. You no longer have to choose between innovation and security. With Power Platform, you can deliver both.
Explore real-world success stories and best practices. Visit the Power Platform site and follow this blog for the next article in the series breaking down the facts of the modern development.
The post Breaking down the facts about secure development with Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.
This post was originally published on this site.
At Microsoft, we believe that security is a team sport. That’s why we are committed to meeting customers where they are, integrating with the solutions they already use to ensure that everyone can take advantage of the agentic capabilities of Security Copilot.
And it’s not just an idea—it’s a reality. We’re excited to share why partners such as BlueVoyant, OneTrust, and Tanium chose to build agents with Security Copilot—and the value this brings to their customers.
By watching the videos featuring BlueVoyant, OneTrust, and Tanium, you’ll see firsthand how collaboration drives innovation and empowers security teams to tackle today’s threats with agility and confidence. Together, these partner-built agents show how organizations and partners can transform Security Copilot into an integrated force multiplier—proving that security is a team sport.
Partner-built agents power smarter protection
BlueVoyant – Specializing in comprehensive cyber risk management, BlueVoyant provides a suite of services to protect organizations from cyberattacks. In this video, we learn about BlueVoyant Watchtower and how their agents help customers get the most out of their Sentinel and Defender products by using an agent to always review the environment and recommend updated rules, configurations, and policies that catch bad actors Security Copilot gives us the advantage of moving more quickly.” – Micah Heaton, Executive Director, Microsoft Product & Innovation Strategy at BlueVoyant
OneTrust – OneTrust, a privacy and consent management platform, specializes in helping customers responsibly use data and AI. By partnering with Microsoft—specifically Microsoft’s Sentinel platform—OneTrust is able to provide their customers with a full view of their data estate. The Privacy Breach Response Agent by OneTrust combines the deep privacy and regulatory expertise of OneTrust with the robust generative AI capabilities of Microsoft Security Copilot, automating privacy risk assessments improving their accuracy.
Tanium – Specializing in endpoint management and security, Tanium gives IT teams visibility and control over every device in their environment. Tanium’s partnership with Microsoft provides Tanium with seamless integration into Microsoft’s Security products via Copilot, which combined with Tanium’s real-time environment insights, power powerful end to end workflows across Defender, Entra, Tanium, and Intune. The Security Triage Agent by Tanium accelerates alert triage, providing security teams with the context they need to make informed decisions on Tanium Threat Response alerts swiftly.
The work of partners like BlueVoyant, OneTrust, and Tanium is shaping a new security ecosystem—one where the Microsoft Security Store is a launchpad for partner innovation to drive real-world customer impact. The Store turns partner-built agents into enterprise-ready solutions by providing Microsoft-validated certification, high‑quality metadata, consistent deployment flows, secure authentication and transactions, and in‑product visibility inside Defender, Entra, and Security Copilot. These deployed agents run securely in your Security Copilot zero-trust environment.
The power of the Security Store is that it doesn’t just distribute agents—it amplifies them. It gives partners a unified, trusted surface where their solutions are discoverable directly within Microsoft Security products; where customers can compare capabilities through standardized metadata; where installation is guided and repeatable; and where Microsoft’s AI foundation elevates the value of every partner-built capability. For customers, this means direct access to the best of partner-driven security innovation. Partner-built agents deliver value at every stage of the security journey: proactively monitoring sensor health, surfacing actionable insights, accelerating investigations, and automating incident response. These capabilities help organizations strengthen their security posture, respond faster to threats, and stay ahead of attackers.
For partners, success begins with identifying the unique value their agent brings to customers and designing real security outcomes—such as improved detection, automated investigations, and measurable risk reduction. As more partners publish agents, the ecosystem expands- unlocking advanced scenarios like phishing and identity alert triage, incident enrichment, policy optimization, and automated remediation. By combining Microsoft’s AI foundation with specialized partner expertise, Security Copilot agents deliver differentiated solutions that address a wide range of security challenges—from privacy and compliance workflows to vulnerability management and forensics—helping customers strengthen their security posture and respond faster to threats.
Explore resources and documentation
Explore all the partner-built agents in Security Copilot and partner SaaS offerings at the Microsoft Security Store and at the Security Store Learn page Security Store documentation – Security Store | Microsoft Learn. Or read more documentation on Security Copilot agents to learn:
- What agents are and how they work in Security Copilot
- How partners build and integrate agents
- Links to related resources for development and deployment
Why “Like” and “Comment” Features Should Be Disabled in SharePoint Sites
In our wonderful age of digital collaboration, SharePoint is continuing on its march to be what it is – a great platform for content publishing, knowledge sharing and governance (my go to!). But not every feature should be enabled in every site. Two of the most deceptively harmless and sometimes mis-understood in terms of impact are the ‘Like’ and ‘Comment’ options on SharePoint modern pages.
While Like and Comment, classed as social features may seem like a ‘Oh yes! Let’s enable them throughout because doing that will increase engagement’ Utopian statement, enabling them can undermine governance, compliance, and clarity. This is especially true in structured, regulated or formal SharePoint sites.
Why? Brainstorm time:
- Governance and Compliance Risks
- Unmoderated Feedback: Comments are not subject to approval workflows using any automation engine. Anyone with access to the site from a contributor perspective can post; and guess what, those posts are immediately visible to others;
- Audit Gaps: Comments and Likes are not version controlled. They are not visible in any audit trails, so that makes them invisible to compliance reviews. Forget using say Microsoft Purview to try track Likes or Comments – these interactions are not captured in Purview logs;
- Policy Confusion: When users comment on pages, those comments create the illusion of a ‘feedback loop’. There would be no mechanism to act on them.
- Content Integrity and User Experience (UX) Clarity
- Noise Over Signal: Comments can dilute the authority and authenticity of ‘official’ content. Users can post anything – post questions, complaints, or off-topic remarks.
- Visual Clutter: The social bar (Like, Comment, View Count, Save for Later, etc.) adds UI elements that may distract from the page’s purpose. So, not at all useful for pages whose key objectives are Dashboards, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), or compliance repositories.
- Misleading Metrics: A “Like” on a ‘policy page’ does not mean the content of that page is understood. ‘Like’ is classed as simply a ‘vanity metric’ that can mislead stakeholders.
🛠️ 3. Operational and Technical Limitations
- No Central Moderation: SharePoint does not have an Out-Of-The-Box (OOTB) ‘centralised comment moderation’ dashboard. Site ‘owners’ must manually monitor each page on the SharePoint site.
- Default Enablement: If comments are enabled by default on modern pages this leads to no proactive governance – proliferate unnoticed.
- No Alerts: Page owners will never receive notifications when comments are posted. This leads to stale and/or unaddressed feedback.
Example: Healthcare Intranet Misstep
Time to give you an example as to how a mid-sized healthcare provider learned the hard way. They launched a SharePoint Online communication site to publish internal policies, including those related to patient data handling and emergency standards. Unknown to the governance team, Like and Comments were enabled by default on every page on the SharePoint tenant. So, every page being created going forward on their SharePoint site had Like and Comments enabled.
Within weeks:
- Staff began posting unmoderated feedback on sensitive policy pages;
- Some comments included anecdotal patient references, violating internal privacy standards;
- Others expressed disagreement with procedures, creating confusion about which policies were enforceable;
- No one was alerted—the comments sat visible for weeks before being discovered during a routine audit.
The fallout?
- A formal compliance review;
- Emergency PowerShell scripts to disable comments across the tenant;
- A new provisioning routine to enforce social feature settings;
- Mandatory training for site owners on page settings and governance.
Best Practices for Disabling Social Features
- Disable Comments Per Page: Use the page settings UI or PowerShell (Set-PnPClientSidePage -CommentsEnabled $false);
- Hide the Social Bar: Use custom page templates or SPFx extensions to remove Likes, Views, and Save for Later. Check out the SharePoint Frameworks SPFX examples;
- Automate at Scale: Include social feature settings in your site provisioning scripts or site designs;
- Educate Site Owners: Make social feature governance part of your SharePoint training and onboarding;
- Define the Environments. In a SharePoint / Teams instance mixed environment, split your governance based on the kind of collaboration needed. Things like Like and Comments are ‘post’ oriented and more related to the Teams Client than a SharePoint page.
My final thoughts to project to you 😊
In SharePoint, not every feature is a fit and ‘yes plonk every feature’ for every site. ‘Likes’ and ‘Comments’ are a part of Community / Project environments such as Microsoft Teams (Posts in Channels) or say Yammer-integrated pages. For policy repository based sites, policy pages, compliance dashboards, and formal communications – a governance liability.
Disable them by default. Enable them only with intent
This post was originally published on this site.
A major wave of updates has landed: integration with the new Sentinel data lake and graph, new ready-made and custom agents, and the debut of the Microsoft Security Store.
Let’s take a look at what’s new.
Microsoft Sentinel and Security Copilot integration delivers deeper context and smarter AI
Sentinel data lake is now generally available, and new capabilities like Sentinel graph and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) server are in public preview, bringing in a new level of integration with Security Copilot. Agents can now access richer, more connected data from across Sentinel, combining graph, structured, and semantic context to reason and act with greater precision. This enhanced foundation transforms AI-driven detection and response, helping teams resolve incidents faster and uncover deeper insights across their environments.
Read more in the Sentinel announcement blog: Introducing Microsoft Sentinel graph
Build your own Security Copilot agents, no coding required
Now anyone on your team can create custom Security Copilot agents. Use a no-code portal or developer tools to design, test, and deploy agents that automate the workflows you need most. Your team controls how they work and what they do.
Learn more: Build your own Security Copilot agent
New Microsoft and partner ready-made agents for real challenges
These new agents help teams address common security and IT challenges faster and smarter:
- Access Review Agent in Microsoft Entra: Streamline access reviews, flag unusual patterns, and reduce fatigue for security and compliance teams. It helps maintain governance and compliance by automatically analyzing ongoing access reviews and highlighting potential risks.
o Learn more: The Microsoft Entra agent for smarter access governance: Access Review Agent
- Phishing Triage Agent in Microsoft Defender saves nearly 200 hours a month: In this new customer spotlight, St. Luke’s is seeing the impact of integrating Security Copilot agents into their daily workflows. ACISO Krista Arndt says, “The Phishing Triage Agent is a game changer. It’s saving us nearly 200 hours monthly by autonomously handling and closing thousands of false positive alerts.” With routine triage automated, security teams can shift from reactive response to proactive threat hunting, freeing up time for higher-value work and faster threat mitigation.
The launch of 30 new partner-built agents that can be found on the Microsoft Security Store with solutions like:
- Forensic Agent by glueckkanja AG: Delivers deep-dive analysis of Defender XDR incidents to accelerate investigations and uncover root causes faster.
- Privileged Admin Watchdog Agent by glueckkanja AG: Helps enforce zero standing privilege principles by removing persistent admin identities, reducing risk, and strengthening administrative security.
- Ransomware Kill Chain Investigator Agent by adaQuest: Automates ransomware triage to quickly detect and respond to threats, enabling security teams to focus on high-priority incidents.
- Entity Guard Investigator Agent by adaQuest: Investigates Defender incidents and provides actionable insights to accelerate incident resolution and strengthen security posture.
- Admin Guard Insight Agent by adaQuest: Analyzes administrative activity, detects anomalies, evaluates risk exposure and compliance, and delivers actionable guidance to improve administrative security.
- Identity Workload ID Agent by Invoke: Empowers identity administrators and security teams to manage and secure Workload Identities in Microsoft Entra, reducing risk, strengthening compliance, and controlling identity sprawl.
o Find these agents and more in the Microsoft Security Store
Microsoft Security Store – one, centralized place to find agents and SaaS solutions
The Microsoft Security Store makes it simple to discover, deploy, and buy Security Copilot agents and partner solutions. Start using any of the 30 new agents or 50 SaaS solutions to power your SOC, IT, privacy, and compliance workflows.
Read more in the announcement blog: Introducing Microsoft Security Store
Stay tuned and explore more!
Security Copilot is transforming how security and IT teams operate – bringing AI-powered insights, automation, and decision support into everyday workflows. With new capabilities landing every month, the pace of innovation is accelerating.
We’ll be back in November with more updates. Until then, explore these resources to get hands-on, deepen your understanding, and see what’s possible:
Don’t miss Microsoft Ignite – we’ll be announcing exciting new capabilities for Security Copilot and sharing what’s next in AI-powered security.
This post was originally published on this site.
Introduction
Microsoft Security Exposure Management (MSEM) provides the Cyber Defense team with a unified, continuously updated awareness of assets exposure, relevant attack paths and provides classifications to these findings. While MSEM continuously creates and updates these finding, the Security Operations Center (SOC) Engineering team needs to reach to this data and interact with it as a part of their proactive discovery exercises.
Microsoft Security Copilot (SCP) on the other hand, acts as an always-ready AI-powered copilot to the SOC Engineering team. When combined, the situational awareness from MSEM and the quick and consistent retrieval capabilities of SCP, MSEM and SCP empower the SOC Engineers with a natural-language front door into exposure insights and attack paths, this combination also opens the door to include MSEM content, and the reasoning over this content in Security Copilot prompts, in prompt books and allows the use of this content in automation scenarios that leverage security copilot.
Traditionally, a SOC person needs to navigate to Microsoft Security Advanced Hunting, retrieve data related to assets with a certain level of exposure, and then start building plans for each asset to reduce its exposure, a plan that needs to take into consideration the nature of the exposure, the location the asset is hosted and the characteristics of the asset and requires working knowledge of each impacted system. This approach:
- Is a time-consuming process, especially when taking into consideration the learning curve associated with learning about each exposure before deciding on the best course of exposure reduction; and
- Can result in some undesired habits like adapting a reactive approach, rather than a proactive approach; Prioritizing assets with a certain exposure risk level; or attending to exposures that are already familiar to the person reviewing the list of exposures and attack paths.
Overview of Exposure Management
Microsoft Security Exposure Management is a security solution that provides a unified view of security posture across company assets and workloads. Security Exposure Management enriches asset information with security context that helps you to proactively manage attack surfaces, protect critical assets, and explore and mitigate exposure risk.
Who uses Security Exposure Management?
Security Exposure Management is aimed at:
- Security and compliance admins responsible for maintaining and improving organizational security posture.
- Security operations (SecOps) and partner teams who need visibility into data and workloads across organizational silos to effectively detect, investigate, and mitigate security threats.
- Security architects responsible for solving systematic issues in overall security posture.
- Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and security decision makers who need insights into organizational attack surfaces and exposure in order to understand security risk within organizational risk frameworks.
What can I do with Security Exposure Management?
With Security Exposure Management, you can:
- Get a unified view across the organization
- Manage and investigate attack surfaces
- Discover and safeguard critical assets
Reference links:
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Overview
Get started
Concept
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How-To Guide
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Overview of Security Copilot plugins and skills
Microsoft Security Copilot is a generative AI-powered assistant designed to augment security operations by accelerating detection, investigation, and response. Its extensibility through plugins and skills enables organizations to tailor the platform to their unique environments, integrate diverse data sources, and automate complex workflows.
Plugin Architecture and Categories:
Security Copilot supports a growing ecosystem of plugins categorized into:
- First-party plugins: Native integrations with Microsoft services such as Microsoft Sentinel, Defender XDR, Intune, Entra, Purview, and Defender for Cloud.
- Third-party plugins: Integrations with external security platforms and ISVs, enabling broader telemetry and contextual enrichment.
- Custom plugins: User-developed extensions using KQL, GPT, or API-based logic to address specific use cases or data sources.
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Plugins act as grounding sources—providing context, verifying responses, and enabling Copilot to operate across embedded experiences or standalone sessions. Users can toggle plugins on/off, prioritize sources, and personalize settings (e.g., default Sentinel workspace) to streamline investigations.
Skills and Promptbooks
Skills in Security Copilot are modular capabilities that guide the AI in executing tasks such as incident triage, threat hunting, or policy analysis. These are often bundled into promptbooks, which are reusable, scenario-driven workflows that combine plugins, prompts, and logic to automate investigations or compliance checks.
Security analysts can create, manage, and share promptbooks across tenants, enabling consistent execution of best practices. Promptbooks can be customized to include plugin-specific logic, such as querying Microsoft Graph API or running KQL-based detections.
Role-Based Access and Governance
Security Copilot enforces role-based access through Entra ID security groups:
- Copilot Owners: Full access to manage plugins, promptbooks, and tenant-wide settings.
- Copilot Contributors: Can create sessions and use promptbooks but have limited plugin publishing rights.
Each embedded experience may require additional service-specific roles (e.g., Sentinel Reader, Endpoint Security Manager) to access relevant data. Governance files and onboarding templates help teams align plugin usage with organizational policies.
Connecting Exposure Management with Security Copilot
There are multiple benefits of connecting MSEM with Security Copilot (as explained in section 1 [Introduction] of this paper). We wrote a plugin with two skills to harness the Exposure Management insights within Security Copilot and to eventually understand the exposure of assets hosted in a particular cloud platform by your organization and of assets belonging to a specific user.
A high-level architecture of the connectivity looks like this:
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The two skills of the plugins correspond to the following two use cases:
- Obtain exposure of an asset hosted on a particular cloud platform by your organization
- Obtain exposure of an asset belonging to a specific user
As a user you could also specify the exposure level for which you want to extract the data, in each of the above use cases.
Plugin Code (YAML)
GitHub – Microsoft Security Exposure Management plugin for Security Copilot – YAML
Proof of Concept (screen video)
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Conclusion
Here, we proposed an alternative approach that drives up the SOC’s efficiency and helps the organization reduce the time from exposure discovery to exposure reduction. The alternative approach proposed allows the SOC person to retrieve assets that fit a certain profile, i.e. prompt Security Copilot to “List all assets hosted on Azure with Low Exposure Level” and after all affected assets are retrieved, the user can then prompt Security Copilot to “For each asset, help me create a 7-days plan to reduce these exposures” and can then finally conclude with the prompt “Create an Executive Report, start by explaining to none-technical audience the risks associated with the identified exposures, then list all affected assets, along with a summary of the steps needed to reduce the exposures identified”. These prompts can also be organized in a promptbook, further reducing the burden on the SOC person, and can also be made using Automation on regular intervals, where the automation can later email the report to intended audience or can be further extended to create relevant tickets in the IT Service Management System.
An additional approach to risk management is to keep an eye on highly targeted personas within the organization, with the proposed integration a SOC person can prompt Security Copilot to find “What are the exposure risks associated with the devices owned by the Contoso person john.doe@contoso.com”. This helps the SOC person identify and remediate attack paths targeting devices used by highly targeted persons, where the SOC person can, within the same session, start digging deeper into finding any potential exploitation of these exposures, get recommendations on how to reduce these exposures, and draft an action plan.
This post was originally published on this site.
This week at Microsoft Secure, we announced the next big step forward in agentic security. In addition to Microsoft and partner-built agents, you can now create your own Security Copilot agents, extending the growing ecosystem of agents that help teams automate workflows, close gaps, and drive stronger security and IT outcomes.
Why it matters: no two environments are the same. Out-of-the-box agents give you powerful starting points, but your workflows are unique. With custom agents, you get the flexibility to design and deploy solutions that fit your organization.
Two ways to build: Your choice, your workflow
Security Copilot gives you options. Analysts can easily build with a no-code interface. Developers can stay in their preferred coding environment. Either way, you end up with a fully functional, testable, and deployable agent.
For full documentation and detailed guidance on building agents, check out the Microsoft Security Copilot documentation. But now, let’s walk through the key steps so you can get started building your own agent today.
Option 1: Build in Security Copilot, no coding required
Step 1: Create in natural language
Click ‘Build’ in the left nav, describe what you want your agent to do in plain language, and submit. Security Copilot will engage in a back-and-forth conversation to clarify and capture your intent so you start with precision.
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Step 2: Auto-generate the configuration
Security Copilot instantly creates a starter setup, giving you:
- An agent name and description
- Clear instructions and input parameters
- Recommended tools pulled from the catalog, including Microsoft, partner, and Sentinel MCP tools
This saves time and generates a strong foundation you can build on
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Step 3: Customize to fit your needs
Tailor the configuration to your needs, you can edit any part. Update instructions, swap tools, or add new ones from the tool catalog. If the right tool isn’t available, you can create one in natural language or a form-based experience. You’re in full control of how your agent works.
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Step 4: Keep YAML and no-code views aligned
Every change you make is automatically reflected in the underlying YAML code. This ensures consistency between the no-code visual and code views, so both analysts and developers can work with confidence. Toggle on ‘view code’ to see it live.
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Step 5: Test and elevate with autotune instruction optimization
Run full end-to-end tests or test individual components to see how your agent performs. Security Copilot shows detailed outputs and a step-by-step activity map of the agent’s dynamic plan, including the tools, inputs, and outputs.
While you can test without it, turning on autotune instruction optimization delivers major advantages:
- Refined instruction recommendations you can copy directly into your config
- AI quality scoring on clarity, grounding, and detail to ensure your agent is effective before publishing
- Faster iteration with confidence your agent is tuned for real-world use
Explore the activity graph tab to view a visual node map of the run, and click any node to see details of what happened at each step.
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Step 6: Publish and share
When you’re ready, publish the agent into your Security Copilot instance at either a user or workspace scope (depending on admin permissions). If you’re a partner, you can also download the agent code, publish to the Microsoft Partner Center and contribute it to the Microsoft Security Store for broader visibility and adoption by customers.
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Benefit: Build production-ready agents in minutes without writing a single line of code.
It’s that easy to build an agent tailored to your unique workflows, and you are not limited to the Security Copilot portal. If you prefer a developer-friendly environment, you can build entirely in VS Code using GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Sentinel MCP tools. You still get AI-powered guidance, YAML scaffolding, and testing support, along with rich context from Sentinel data and the full platform toolset, all while staying in the environment that works best for you.
Option 2: Build in VS Code using GitHub Copilot + Microsoft Sentinel MCP Tools
Step 1: Set up your development environment
Enable the Microsoft Sentinel MCP server in VS Code. This gives you direct access to the collection of Security Copilot agent creation MCP tools and integrates with GitHub Copilot for code generation – all while staying in your preferred workspace.
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Step 2: Define agent behavior from natural language with platform context
Describe the agent you want to build in natural language. GitHub Copilot interprets your intent, selects the relevant MCP tools, find relevant skills and tools in Security Copilot for your agent, and crafts the agent instructions. The agent YAML gets generated and outputted back to you. Because your agent is built on Microsoft Security Copilot and Sentinel, it automatically leverages rich data and tooling across the platform for context-aware, more effective results.
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Step 3: Iterate, customize and extend your agent
Modify instructions, add tools, or create new tools as needed. Use prompts to vibe code your edits or copy the YAML into the code editor and directly modify the agent YAML there. GitHub Copilot keeps the chat and code in sync.
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Step 4: Deploy to Security Copilot for testing
Once you’re ready to test your agent YAML, prompt GitHub Copilot to deploy the agent to your user scope. Then head to the Security Copilot portal to test and optimize your agent with autotune instruction optimization. Take advantage of detailed outputs, activity maps, and AI scoring to refine instructions and ensure your agent performs effectively in real-world scenarios.
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Step 5: Publish and share your agent
Once validated, publish the agent into your Security Copilot instance at either user or workspace scope (depending on admin permissions). Partners can also download the agent code, publish to the Microsoft Partner Center, and contribute it to the Microsoft Security Store for broader discoverability and adoption.
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What you get: Full code-level control and the same AI-powered agent development experience while staying in your preferred workspace.
Whichever approach you choose, you can build, test, and deploy agents that fit your workflows and environment. Microsoft Security Copilot and Microsoft Sentinel give you the tools and advanced AI guidance to create agents that work for your organization.
Explore the Microsoft Security Store
Automate your workflows with pre-built solutions. The Microsoft Security Store gives you a central place to discover and deploy agents and SaaS solutions created by Microsoft and partners. Browse ready-to-use solutions, learn from proven approaches, and adapt them with your own customizations. It’s the quickest way to expand your ecosystem of agents and accelerate impact. More resources about the Security Store: What is Security Store? Microsoft Learn
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Build, deploy, defend
Security Copilot puts the power of agentic AI directly in your hands. Start with ready-to-use agents from Microsoft and partners, or create custom agents designed specifically for your environment and workflows. These agents streamline decision-making, surface critical insights, and free your team to focus on strategic security initiatives – making operations faster, smarter, and more responsive.
Join us at Microsoft Ignite, online or in-person, for hands-on demos and insights on how Security Copilot agents empower teams to act faster and protect better.
More resources on building Security Copilot agents:
Special thanks to my co-authors, Namrata Puri (Principal PM, Security Copilot) and Sherie Pan (PM, Security Copilot), for their insights and contributions
This post was originally published on this site.
Microsoft Security Copilot is redefining how security and IT teams operate. Today at Microsoft Secure, we’re unveiling powerful updates that put genAI and agent-driven automation at the center of modern defense. In a world where threats move faster than ever, alerts pile up, and resources stay tight, Security Copilot delivers the competitive edge: contextual intelligence, a growing network of agents, and the flexibility to build your own.
The announcements focus on three key areas: building your own Security Copilot agents for tailored workflows, expanding the agent ecosystem with new Microsoft and partner solutions, and improving agent quality and performance. These updates build on the agents first introduced in March while giving security and IT teams more flexibility and control. This is the blueprint for the next era of agentic defense, and it starts now.
Build your own Security Copilot agents, your way
While we already offer a growing catalog of ready-to-use agents built by Microsoft and partners, we know that no two environments are alike. That’s why Security Copilot empowers you to create custom agents your way for tailored workflows – whether you’re an analyst with limited coding experience or a developer using your favorite platform – you can build agents that fit your needs.
Build agents in the Security Copilot portal
Users can now build agents with a simplified, no-code interface in the standalone Security Copilot experience. Simply describe the task or workflow in natural language, and Copilot automatically generates the agent code. You can edit components, add any additional tools, including Sentinel MCP tools from our rich tool catalog, test the agent, optimize its instructions, and publish directly to your tenant. Create dynamic, ready-to-use agents in minutes – without writing any code.
Build agents in a preferred MCP server-enabled development environment
For teams with experienced developers, you can also use natural language and vibe-coding to build agents in a preferred MCP server-enabled coding platform, such as VS Code using GitHub Copilot. By enabling the Sentinel MCP server, developers can access MCP tools to build, refine, and deploy custom agents directly within their workspace. This approach gives full control over code, tools, and deployment while keeping the process within familiar development platforms.
These options empower both technical and non-technical teams to rapidly create, test, and deploy custom Security Copilot agents. Organizations can automate workflows faster, design agents to their unique needs, and improve security and IT operations across the board.
Discover new Security Copilot agents
Since Security Copilot agents were first introduced in March, we have delivered more than a dozen Microsoft and partner-developed agents that help organizations tackle real challenges in security and IT operations. Analysts using the Conditional Access Optimization Agent in Microsoft Entra have been able to quickly uncover policy gaps, closing an average of 26 gaps per customer in just one month, with 73% of early adopters acting on at least one recommendation. The Phishing Triage Agent in Microsoft Defender has allowed analysts to shift from reactive sifting to proactive resolution, reducing triage time by up to 78%. Read how St Lukes University saves nearly 200 hours monthly in phishing alert triage and creating incident reports in minutes instead of hours.
The Phishing Triage Agent is a game changer. It’s saving us nearly 200 hours monthly by autonomously handling and closing thousands of false positive alerts.
– Krista Arndt, ACISO, St. Luke’s University Health Network
We’re continuing to build on this momentum with new agents designed to address additional security and IT scenarios.
The new Access Review Agent in Microsoft Entra tackles a common challenge: reduce access review fatigue and approving access without review. It analyzes ongoing reviews, flags anomalies or unusual access patterns, and delivers actionable guidance in a conversational interface. Reviewers can approve, revoke, or request more details right in Microsoft Teams, helping them focus on the riskiest access, make faster decisions, and strengthen compliance. With innovations like this, we’re not just reducing fatigue—we’re redefining how access governance is done, setting the standard for security agents that adapt to the way people work. Learn more about the Access Review Agent here.
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And, with the growing range of agentic use cases, the new Microsoft Security Store is your one-stop shop to discover, purchase, and deploy Security Copilot agents built by Microsoft and trusted partners. Find solutions aligned for SOC, IT, privacy, compliance, and governance teams, all in one place. By uniting discovery, deployment, and publishing in a single experience, Security Store powers a thriving ecosystem that gives your team a unique advantage: access to an ever-expanding range of agent capabilities that evolve as fast as the challenges they face.
In addition to helping customers find the right solutions, Security Store also enables partners to bring their innovations to market. Partners can build and publish Security Copilot agents and SaaS solutions to grow their business and reach new customers. Today, we are announcing 30 new partner-built agents as well as 50 partner SaaS solutions in the Security Store.
The launch of 30 new partner-built agents brings forward solutions like:
- A Forensic Agent by glueckkanja AG delivers deep-dive analysis of Defender XDR incidents to accelerate investigations, while their Privileged Admin Watchdog Agent helps enforce zero standing privilege principles by getting rid of persistent admin identities. These innovations, along with their other 6 agents in the Security Store today, demonstrate how glueckkanja AG is empowering organizations to tackle a wide range of security and IT challenges.
- 3 agents from adaQuest focused on automating investigation and response to focus security teams on what matters. A Ransomware Kill Chain Investigator Agent by adaQuest automates ransomware triage, an Entity Guard Investigator Agent by adaQuest investigates Defender incidents, and an Admin Guard Insight Agent analyzes administrative activity, detects anomalies, evaluates risk exposure and compliance, offering actionable insights to improve administrative security posture.
- An Identity Workload ID Agent by Invoke empowers identity administrators and security teams to manage and secure Workload Identities in Microsoft Entra, helping to reduce risk, strengthen compliance, provide more control over identity sprawl.
To learn more about all new partner-built agents as well as partner SaaS offerings, read the blog or head to the Microsoft Security Store.
Smarter, faster Security Copilot agents
High-quality LLM instructions are critical to agent performance, yet manually fine-tuning them is time-consuming and error-prone. We’re excited to introduce tools that help improve custom-built agent quality and performance, starting with autotune instruction optimization. Autotune eliminates the need for manual tuning by automatically analyzing and refining agent instructions for optimal performance. Simply enable autotune during testing and submit, then receive a detailed results report with suggested prompt changes boost your agent’s AI quality score quickly and effortlessly. This optimization not only delivers better outcomes faster, but it also ensures that every agent in our ecosystem is always evolving – making them smarter, sharper, and more effective over time.
But instructions are only part of the picture. To truly empower agents, context and data is key. By combining rich security signals from Microsoft Sentinel with advanced AI reasoning, Microsoft is setting a new standard for what agents can achieve—resolving incidents faster, optimizing workflows, and delivering deeper, more actionable insight. Security Copilot leverages a unified foundation of structured, graph, and semantic data from Sentinel to give agents the context they need to connect the dots across your environment. This deep integration transforms what AI can do, enabling agents to reason, adapt, and act with precision at machine speed. Read the Sentinel graph announcement here.
Get Started Today
With Security Copilot, the power of AI is now in your hands. Deploy ready-to-use agents from Microsoft and partners, or design custom agents built for your environment and workflows. These agents accelerate decision-making, surface critical insights, and let teams focus on strategic security work – turning complexity into clarity and speed. Explore Security Store today to experience how agentic automation is reshaping security operations and unlocking the full potential of your team. Learn more about how to create your own agents.
Deep dive into these innovations at Microsoft Secure on Sept. 30, Oct. 1 or on demand. Then, join us at Microsoft Ignite, Nov, 17–21 in San Francisco, CA or online—for more innovations, hands-on labs, and expert connections.
🐝 SharePoint CoPilot Governance and Beekeeping: A Buzz-Worthy Comparison
In the world of digital collaboration, SharePoint is the hive—teeming with activity, rich with resources, and vital to collaboration. But just like a real hive, it doesn’t thrive on chaos. That’s where governance comes in. And oddly enough, the best way to understand SharePoint governance might just be… beekeeping.
Let’s suit up and explore how Microsoft Copilot and good governance practices keep your SharePoint buzzing smoothly—without getting stung.
🧭 The Queen Bee: Governance Strategy
In a beehive, the queen sets the tone. She doesn’t micromanage, but her presence ensures order, purpose, and continuity. In SharePoint, your governance strategy is the queen. It defines:
- Who can do what (permissions and roles)
- Where things go (site architecture and taxonomy)
- How things are maintained (lifecycle policies and compliance)
Without a clear strategy, your SharePoint hive risks fragmentation, duplication, and data sprawl. Copilot helps by surfacing governance insights, suggesting policy improvements, and guiding admins toward best practices—like a seasoned beekeeper whispering to the queen.
🛠️ Worker Bees: Users and Automation
Worker bees are the backbone of the hive. They gather data (nectar), build structures (combs), and keep things clean. In SharePoint, your users and automated workflows play this role.
But without guidance, even the most diligent workers can create clutter—unlabelled files, orphaned sites, or sensitive data exposed. Copilot steps in with intelligent nudges:
- “This document hasn’t been accessed in 6 months—should we archive it?”
- “This site has no owner—want to assign one?”
- “These permissions look risky—want to review them?”
It’s like having a smart smoker tool to calm the hive and keep things orderly.
🧹 Hive Hygiene: Lifecycle and Cleanup
Beekeepers regularly inspect hives, remove dead combs, and prevent disease. SharePoint governance needs the same vigilance:
- Retention policies ensure old content doesn’t clog the system
- Metadata standards keep search efficient
- Site reviews prevent zombie sites from haunting your intranet
Copilot assists by automating cleanup suggestions, flagging stale content, and even helping enforce naming conventions. It’s your digital hive toolset—always ready to tidy up.
🛡️ Guard Bees: Security and Compliance
Every hive has guard bees—protecting the entrance and repelling threats. In SharePoint, governance ensures your data is secure and compliant:
- Sensitivity labels protect confidential info
- Audit logs track who did what, when
- Access reviews prevent privilege creep
Copilot helps admins monitor these defences, offering real-time insights and proactive alerts. It’s like having a swarm of vigilant guards, minus the stingers.
🌼 Pollination: Collaboration and Growth
Healthy hives don’t just survive—they pollinate. They spread value across ecosystems. SharePoint governance, when done right, enables:
- Seamless collaboration across teams
- Discoverability of knowledge
- Scalable growth without chaos
Copilot enhances this by making governance approachable—turning complex policies into conversational guidance, and empowering users to self-serve without breaking the rules.
🐝 Final Buzz
Beekeeping isn’t just about honey—it’s about harmony. SharePoint governance, aided by Copilot, ensures your digital hive is productive, secure, and sustainable. So whether you’re an IT admin or a curious contributor, remember: good governance is the nectar that keeps collaboration sweet.
Now go forth and tend your hive—with Copilot as your trusty smoker and bee suit.
This post was originally published on this site.
Integrating Microsoft Security Copilot with Azure Logic Apps enables security teams to automate investigations, orchestrate fast incident response, and unify workflows across the modern enterprise. By leveraging the unique strengths of both platforms, organizations can achieve scalable, efficient, and actionable security automation.
Why Integrate Security Copilot with Logic Apps?
Security Copilot brings AI-powered reasoning, automation, and natural language-to-action workflow capabilities. When paired with Logic Apps, it enables:
- Seamless orchestration: Launch incident investigations or automated email analysis with a single trigger.
- Advanced automation: Integrate across Microsoft and third-party security tools without heavy coding.
- Consistent, repeatable outcomes: Use Security Copilot’s prompts and promptbooks for security-centric routines and reduce potential for error .
Common scenarios include incident response initiation, scheduled security reports, and automated threat intelligence gathering.
Best Practices for designing robust workflows:
- Identify your use case
Not all scenarios require automation. Likewise, not all use cases benefit equally from combining automation with AI enrichment. The first step in unlocking value from Azure Logic Apps and Security Copilot is selecting the right use cases—those that align with both operational needs and the capabilities of these tools.
To identify a suitable use case, we suggest the following guidelines:
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- Start with repetitive tasks: Look for tasks that are performed frequently and follow a predictable pattern, such as alert enrichment, ticket creation, or user access reviews. These are ideal candidates for automation via Logic Apps.
- Assess the complexity of decision-making: If a task involves nuanced decision-making or contextual analysis—like investigating suspicious sign-ins or correlating threat indicators—Security Copilot’s AI capabilities can add significant value.
- Evaluate data availability and integration points: Ensure the use case involves systems and data sources that Logic Apps can connect to easily (e.g., Microsoft Sentinel, Entra ID, Office 365 E-mail). While it is possible to build your own custom, connectors, the availability of built-in connectors is a key consideration for the success of the integration.
- Consider the impact on security operations: Prioritize use cases that reduce manual effort, accelerate response times, or improve accuracy in threat detection and remediation.
- Check for existing playbooks or templates: Use cases that align with existing Logic Apps templates or Security Copilot skills are easier to implement and test. Microsoft’s GitHub repository for Copilot for Security or the Sentinel GitHub repos are great places to start.
- Validate with stakeholders: Collaborate with SOC managers, incident responders, and IT admins to confirm that the selected use case addresses a real pain point and fits within current workflows.
- Optimize for performance, cost, and scale
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- Leverage direct skill invocation: This has the effect of cost reduction and faster execution as the planning process that natural language prompts must go through is bypassed.
- Optimize Security Copilot calls: Limit Copilot calls within workflows to actions that benefit from AI-value addition such as reducing cognitive load on the Security Analyst or providing reasoning over disparate sets of facts while taking advantage of the investigation context powered by the wide range of Security Copilot skills that are native to the product
- Logic App tuning: Fine-tune trigger frequency and need for AI-value addition i.e. you may only need to attach a Logic App that submits security copilot prompts as part of its flow based on the complexity of the expected incidents vs all detection rules and resulting incidents
Pro Tips
i. Prototype cost-effective, complex workflows
Prototype complex workflows with test data before deploying to production environments. You can do this by simulating Security Copilot prompts by using variable instead of actual calls to Security Copilot during the testing phase. Follow the following steps to do this:
a. Run the prompt or promptbook within Security Copilot to obtain the desired payload
b. In this example we need to execute the following promptbook as part of a workflow that involves extraction of firewall device names and their owners so that we can send them an e-mail, alerting them to block public IPs exhibiting suspicious behaviors:
Fig. 1 : Sample Promptbook for demo
c. Execute the promptbook
Fig 2. Sample promptbook run
d. Next, we prompt Security Copilot to generate an output that can be used to generate a JSON formatted payload which we will eventually use to create a schema for our Logic App ParseJSON step.
Fig 3. Output from promptbook run
e. Next, use a LLM, preferably an enterprise grade one such as Microsoft 365 or Security Copilot to generate the JSON payload
Fig. 4: Generated sample payload
f. Next, use the sample payload to create the input schema for the ParseJSON step in the Logic App
Fig. 5: Generate the schema using the sample payload
g. Initialize a variable and save the sample JSON-this will act as simulated output Parsed from the EvaluationResult of the Promptbook from Security Copilot-effectively avoiding any costs involved with submitting the promptbook multiple times while you test and refine your Logic App
Fig. 6 Image showing initialization and saving of variable
h. You can now run the Logic App several times without submitting any prompts to Security Copilot . If you must test with payloads that vary considerably you can still do that by not saving it in the variable, and selecting the “Run with payload” option then pasting your payload in the resulting box
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Fig. 7 Logic App snippet showing manual execution of Logic App
i. Once happy with Logic App flow and output you can replace the variable with the actual Security Copilot connection for your prompt or promptbook
Fig. 8 Partial snapshot of sample Logic App
ii. Session management: Use the Session Id field to maintain investigative context—enabling multiple prompts within a workflow to share data without re-authentication. However, you can also spawn new sessions which allows for parallel execution of tasks without dependency on current session content
iii. Provide descriptive connector names: Rename default connector names as you build out your logic app. This helps to troubleshoot the Logic App or maintain it, especially if it is being done by someone other than the one that built the original one. Example below describes exactly what the step does vs the default connector names:
Fig. 9. Partial snapshot of Logic App showing descriptive names for Logic App connectors
iv. Use custom code: Enhance workflows with inline Python or Function App steps for specialized operations, such complex text transformations or data extractions. In the example below, a function app is used to apply a regex operation to extract the e-mail GUID. This comes in handy when you do not have a built-in connector for specific requirements or existing ones are not as efficient tor flexible as a function app would be.
Fig. 9 Logic App snippet showing use of the Function connector
v. Secure your Logic App workflows
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- Managed identities: Leverage managed identities across all connectors that support this authentication method whenever you use them in your flows.
- Obfuscate secrets in run histories: Actions that handle passwords, secrets, keys, or other sensitive information are visible by default from the run history of the Logic App. For example, if your logic app gets a secret from Azure Key Vault to use when authenticating an HTTP action, you may want to hide that secret from view by enabling the toggle button for supported actions. See below:
Fig. 10 showing toggle set to “on” to enable securing of outputs
You may also use source IP addresses to perform access restrictions to this data. See details in this document
Log and monitor activities: Enable logging for action taken by Logic Apps in your environment for greater visibility and control. If using Microsoft Sentinel, you can send Logic App activities to your Log Analytics workspace and benefit from queries such as the one below:
SentinelHealth
| where TimeGenerated > ago(30d)
| where SentinelResourceType == “Playbook”
| extend triggeredBy = ExtendedProperties.TriggeredByName.UserDisplayName
vi. Use parameters
Parameters allow workflows to be dynamic and reusable by enabling the injection of context-specific data—such as usernames, incident IDs, or IP addresses—at runtime. This flexibility means a single Logic App can serve multiple scenarios without hardcoding values, improving maintainability and scalability. Additionally, parameters help enforce security best practices by supporting secure input/output handling, which protects sensitive information during execution.
Conclusion
Security Copilot and Logic Apps together unlock a flexible, AI-powered automation platform for any security operations team. By following these best practices—efficient prompt design, session context management, robust security controls, and scheduled automation—organizations can level up their security response and proactivity. To go even further, explore Microsoft’s official documentation, the Security Copilot Adoption Hub, Techcommunity blog portal and our GitHub repo. I f you have any feedback or ideas on how you think we can further improve the value delivered by these solutions working together, please reach out. Always happy to hear back from you.
Additional resources
Security-Copilot/Logic Apps
Microsoft Security Copilot – Microsoft Adoption
Category: Security Copilot | Microsoft Community Hub
Thoughtless SharePoint Site Provisioning: The Hidden Cost of Convenience
In the age of rapid collaboration and cloud-first strategies, provisioning SharePoint sites has never been easier. But with great power comes great potential for chaos. When sites are created without proper analysis, planning, or governance, organisations often find themselves buried under a mountain of sprawl, broken workflows, and compliance nightmares.
Let’s unpack why this practice is risky—and explore real-world examples where it’s gone wrong.
🚨 The Problem: Convenience Over Strategy
Provisioning a SharePoint site is just a few clicks away. But when those clicks happen without:
- Purpose definition
- Information architecture planning
- Governance alignment
- Security and compliance review
…you’re not building a solution—you’re planting a ticking time bomb.
🔍 Real-World Failures from Poor Site Provisioning
- The ROT Tsunami: Redundant, Obsolete, Trivial Data
A global consultancy allowed unrestricted site creation across departments. Within a year, they had over 2,000 SharePoint sites—many duplicating the same content. The result?
- 20%+ of their data was ROT (Redundant, Obsolete, Trivial)1
- Search performance degraded
- Storage limits were exceeded, triggering Microsoft’s read-only mode
- Cleanup took six months and required external consultants
“We thought we were empowering teams. We ended up drowning in digital clutter.” — IT Manager, anonymous case study
- Broken Provisioning Templates: The Automation Trap
An IT manager at a mid-sized firm used a custom provisioning tool to create sites based on PnP templates. Unfortunately, the tool wasn’t tested for edge cases. Several sites failed to provision correctly, leaving users with half-configured environments and broken permissions2.
- No document libraries were created
- Navigation links pointed to non-existent pages
- Users lost trust in the platform
“We had to manually rebuild sites and reapply templates via PowerShell. It was a governance nightmare.” — Microsoft Q&A thread2
- The Collaboration Mirage: Failed Adoption
At a large enterprise, a SharePoint site was provisioned to replace an existing intranet without stakeholder input. The new site had:
- No migration plan
- No redirect strategy
- No training or onboarding
Despite its modern design, users clung to the legacy site. Adoption stalled, and the new site became a ghost town.
“We built a beautiful site. Nobody came.” — Curtis Hughes, Collab365 Summit3
🧭 Why Thoughtful Provisioning Matters
✅ 1. Purpose-Driven Architecture
Every site should serve a defined purpose—project, department, community—with clear content types and lifecycle expectations.
✅ 2. Governance Alignment
Provisioning should trigger automated policies for:
- Retention
- Sensitivity labels
- External sharing controls
- Audit logging
✅ 3. Information Architecture Planning
Define:
- Navigation structure
- Metadata taxonomy
- Content types
- Permissions model
✅ 4. User Experience and Adoption
Involve stakeholders early. Design with their workflows in mind. Provide training and feedback loops.
🛠️ Geoff’s Governance Checklist for Site Provisioning
Before provisioning a site, ask:
| Question |
Why It Matters |
| What is the site’s purpose? |
Prevents duplication and ROT |
| Who owns the site? |
Enables lifecycle and compliance tracking |
| What content types will be stored? |
Drives metadata and retention policies |
| Who needs access? |
Ensures proper permissions and security |
| How will the site be maintained? |
Avoids orphaned or abandoned sites |
| Is this replacing an existing site? |
Triggers migration and redirect planning |
🧩 Final Thoughts
Provisioning a SharePoint site is not just a technical task—it’s a governance decision. Without thoughtful analysis, you risk building digital silos, eroding user trust, and violating compliance standards.
Sources:
References (3)
- 5 ways Teams and SharePoint sprawl is hurting your organisation. https://www.sprobot.io/blog/5-ways-teams-and-sharepoint-sprawl-is-hurting-your-organisation
- Sharepoint Online – Provisioning Failure – Microsoft Q&A. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/98401/sharepoint-online-provisioning-failure
- 7 Deadly Sins of SharePoint: Planning Successful Implementations and …. https://collab365.com/7-deadly-sins-of-sharepoint-planning-successful-implementations-and-avoiding-project-failure/