Entra Chat is a weekly podcast hosted by Merill Fernando and delivers practical insights for Microsoft administrators and security professionals through conversations with identity experts who've been in the trenches.
Episodes feature seasoned Entra practitioners sharing real-world deployment experiences and Microsoft Entra team members who build the features you use daily.
Get the inside track on best practices, implementation strategies, and upcoming capabilities directly from those who design and deploy Microsoft identity solutions.
Join us for actionable takeaways you can apply immediately in your Microsoft 365, Azure, and Entra environments.
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Entra.Chat, its content and opinions are my (Merill Fernando) own and do not reflect the views of my employer (Microsoft). All postings are provided “AS IS” with no warranties and is not supported by the author. All trademarks and copyrights belong to their owners and are used for identification only.
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If You Manage Entra Permissions, Watch This Before Deploying Agents
Episode 58
Saturday, May 9, 2026 • Duration 44:31
Microsoft Entra Agent ID Just Went GA Here’s What You Need to Know About Agent Permissions
If you’ve been waiting for the dust to settle on Microsoft Entra Agent ID before diving in, the wait is over. Agent ID hit General Availability on May 1st, and in this episode of Entra Chat, Erin Greenlee, a PM in the the Entra AuthN team joins to break down one of the trickiest parts of the new model: how permissions actually work.
The three-tier model you need to understand
The biggest mental shift with Agent ID is moving from the familiar single app registration model to a three-tier hierarchy. Here’s the short version:
* Agent Blueprint → the template for your agent. Think of it as a souped-up app registration that lives in one tenant and defines how the agent behaves. Every agent needs one, even if you’re only ever creating a single instance.
* Blueprint Principle → the identity that represents the blueprint inside each tenant it’s deployed to. This is the middle tier, and it has a superpower: permissions granted here cascade down to all current and future agent identity instances automatically.
* Agent Identity → the actual running instance of the agent. This is what authenticates, what shows up in your tenant logs, and what can hold its own individual permissions on top of whatever it inherits.
Required Resource Access is a hint, not a grant
One thing that trips people up early: adding permissions to the blueprint’s Required Resource Access (RRA) doesn’t actually grant anything. It’s a signal to admins adopting your agent. A polite list of “here’s what this agent will need to function.” The real grant happens later, either upfront during adoption or dynamically as the agent needs it. Expect agents to lean more on dynamic consent than traditional apps have, since agents evolve and request new permissions as tasks change.
Inheritance only works if you set it up
Permissions granted on the Blueprint Principle will only cascade down to agent identities if the resource app (e.g. Microsoft Graph) is explicitly marked as an inheritable resource on the blueprint. It’s an easy thing to miss, and if you skip it, your Blueprint Principle grants won’t flow through to your instances.
A free tool to visualise all of this
Erin built an interactive web app — using GitHub Copilot, no less — that makes all of the above click visually. It has a no-sign-in tutorial that walks you through the object relationships, a permission matrix view, and even generates the PowerShell or Graph API scripts to apply your configuration in real life. No changes are made to your tenant unless you explicitly ask it to. The source code is being open-sourced too, so you can fork and customise it if you want.
Watch the full episode to see Erin walk through the tool live, including how permission inheritance works in practice and a real-world debugging scenario that inspired the whole thing.
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇
About Erin Greenlee
Erin is a member of the Entra AuthN team working on AI and Agent ID at Microsoft. She previously joined Entra Chat to discuss app permissions and consent, and she loves building tools that make complex identity concepts easier to understand.
In Microsoft Entra ID, small visibility gaps lead to outages and delays. Expired secrets break integrations, while unclear ownership and excessive permissions slow access decisions. Teams still struggle to answer:
* Which apps access Microsoft 365 data?
* Is that access still justified?
* Who owns it?
AppGov Score helps you quickly identify these gaps. ENow App Governance Accelerator then exposes app-specific credential risks, permission issues, and ownership gaps before they disrupt operations.
Start with your AppGov Score, then upgrade to a 7-day free trial to take action.
Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at entra.news/subscribe
How to Secure Copilot Agents, Azure DevOps & Defender (+ more) with Maester 2.1 (Full Breakdown)
Episode 57
Saturday, May 2, 2026 • Duration 01:01:46
Maester is back with one of its biggest release since launch. In this episode, we are joined by Sam Erde, Architect at Patriot Consulting and one of Maester’s core maintainers, to walk through everything that’s landed in Maester 2.1.
Since the December release, the community has shipped 540 new commits, grown the test suite from 128 to 168 tests, and added coverage across entirely new product areas.
Here’s a taste of what’s covered:
🤖 Securing Your AI Agents (Copilot Studio) With Microsoft’s Agent 365 going GA and organisations rapidly deploying Copilot Studio agents, Maester now includes tests based directly on Microsoft’s own recommendations for securing agents. Think orphaned agents with no owner, missing authentication on MCP connections, dormant agents, risky HTTP configurations, and agents shared too broadly. If you’re deploying agents in your tenant, these tests should be running.
🔧 AI That Writes Its Own Security Tests One of the most exciting developments in this release isn’t a test, it’s a custom AI skill that writes Maester tests for you. Sam built a GitHub Copilot agent skill that understands Maester’s structure, coding conventions, and contributor guide. You describe a security check in plain English, and within minutes you get a properly structured test, helpers, and documentation. No VS Code required! You can do it straight from GitHub’s Agents tab or even the mobile app. The barrier to contributing to Maester just got a lot lower.
🛡️ Defender for Endpoint Coverage Maester now includes 24 community-contributed MDE tests covering antivirus configuration, endpoint policy posture, cloud protection, behaviour monitoring, and PUA protection. Getting these tests into shape required the new AI skill to refactor months of pending work and it delivered.
🔑 Azure DevOps Security (37+ New Tests) With AI-generated code accelerating supply chain risks, securing your DevOps pipeline has never been more critical. Maester 2.1 ships with 37+ new Azure DevOps tests, checking OAuth config, PAT token policies, external guest access, collection admin hygiene, and more.
Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at
What an ID Governance Consultant Wishes You Knew About Entra
Episode 56
Saturday, April 25, 2026 • Duration 46:40
Identity Governance is often treated as a “nice-to-have” compliance checkbox, but as ID Governance expert Sandra Saluti reveals, it is actually the foundation of a secure, scalable environment. In this technical deep dive, we move past the marketing slides to discuss some of the common real-world “gotchas” that break Entra ID deployments.
In this episode, you will learn:
* The Golden Rule of Automation: Why you must stop using “presentation data” (like UPNs or Email addresses) as your anchor. We explain why the Object ID is the only immutable truth for your automation.
* The “Marriage Bug”: A cautionary tale of how a simple name change can break hybrid joins and lead to accidental laptop wipes and how to prevent it.
* The “Unsexy” Side of Governance: Why the most important part of your job isn’t writing PowerShell, but interviewing HR and stakeholders to map out process flow diagrams before you ever touch the portal.
* Closing the “Rehire Gap”: How to solve the common crisis where contractors lose access for 48 hours during a renewal because of lifecycle synchronization delays.
* Directory Extensions vs. Exchange Attributes: Technical advice on where to store your identity metadata for the most reliable governance.
Sponsored by:
Entra ID Gaps That Cause Outages
In Microsoft Entra ID, outages often start small: an expired client secret, a lapsed certificate, or a suddenly failing integration. Traditional controls don’t track credential expiry or enforce application ownership, so issues appear only after something breaks.
Teams are left asking:
* Which applications can access Microsoft 365 data?
* Is that access still appropriate?
Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at
Stop Leaving the Door Open: The Entra ID Hardening Checklist Security Experts Actually Use
Episode 56
Saturday, April 18, 2026 • Duration 59:31
Microsoft Entra security is evolving and the way organizations think about identity protection needs to evolve with it. In this episode, I’m joined by Sean Metcalf, one of the foremost identity security experts in the industry, whose work has helped shape how many organizations approach securing both Active Directory and Microsoft Entra.Sean shares the hardening steps many teams still overlook, and why advances in AI are making it easier for both defenders and attackers to work faster than ever before. From MFA and application controls to protecting privileged accounts and reducing unnecessary exposure, this conversation offers a practical look at where strong identity security starts and why getting the fundamentals right matters more than ever.
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇
About Sean Metcalf
Sean Metcalf is the Identity Security Architect at TrustedSec and a renowned expert in Microsoft identity security. He holds the rare Certified Master in Active Directory certification and has spoken at major security conferences including Black Hat, DEF CON, and BlueHat on how to defend cloud and hybrid environments.
Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at
How to Design Bullet-Proof Conditional Access Policies in Microsoft Entra ID
Episode 55
Saturday, April 11, 2026 • Duration 56:46
If you can’t immediately name your break glass accounts and the last time you tested them → you’re already at risk.
In this episode of Entra Chat, Microsoft MVP Per Torben walks through the conditional access mistakes he sees even large enterprises making, and the practical framework he actually uses with customers.
You’ll learn how to set up emergency access accounts the right way, why your CA policies should be built more like a firewall than a checklist, and the one naming convention that makes managing dozens of policies actually manageable.
🎧 Hit play, your tenant will thank you.
Sponsored by:
Entra ID Gaps That Cause Outages
In Microsoft Entra ID, outages often start small: an expired client secret, a lapsed certificate, or a suddenly failing integration. Traditional controls don’t track credential expiry or enforce application ownership, so issues appear only after something breaks.
Teams are left asking:
* Which applications can access Microsoft 365 data?
* Is that access still appropriate?
* Who owns the app?
Unclear answers stall reviews, weaken accountability, and slow delivery.
ENow App Governance Accelerator closes these gaps by highlighting expiring credentials, surfacing permission risks, and identifying ownership gaps before they disrupt operations. New Standard Tier pricing makes it accessible for organizations under 10,000 users, typically $3,500–$9,500 annually.
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇
About Per Torben
Per Torben is a Senior Architect at Crayon and a Microsoft MVP for Identity and Access. Based in Norway, he frequently writes highly-read posts featured on Entra.News and runs the collaborative tech blog “Agder in the Cloud”.
Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at
5 Entra ID Updates You Can’t Afford to Ignore in 2026 (Backup, Governance, CA Agent & Risk Score Exposed)
Episode 54
Saturday, April 4, 2026 • Duration 01:00:21
Microsoft just dropped a massive wave of features for Entra, and the rules of Tenant Governance have officially changed.
Join us as we talk to three world-class MVPs about their hands-on experience with the new Entra Backup and Recovery and Tenant Governance features.
Our Microsoft MVP guests Nathan McNulty, Ru Campbell, and Thomas Naunheim break down the most exciting new features in Microsoft Entra.
In this episode, we explore:
* The “Shadow Tenant” Problem: One org found 700+ Entra tenants they didn’t know they had.
* Version Control for Admins: Why “Difference Reports” are a total game-changer for troubleshooting.
* Recovery Safeguards: How to protect your tenant from accidental deletions and “sneaky” background changes.
* Backup & Recovery: The truth about Entra Backup vs. Third-Party ISV tools.
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇
About The Guests
Nathan, Ru, and Thomas are highly experienced MVPs specializing in identity security, governance, and Microsoft Entra.
Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at
Finding Every MFA Gap: Testing 250 Million Conditional Access Combinations in Under 20 Minutes
Episode 54
Saturday, March 28, 2026 • Duration 01:01:54
Emilien Socchi, Cloud Security Research Engineer at Storebrand, joins us to discuss CA Insight and AZTier.
Two open-source tools Emilien built to find gaps in Conditional Access policies and categorize Azure/Entra roles based on attack paths.
Learn how CA Insight evaluates 250 million sign-in combinations offline in minutes instead of days, why the What If API doesn't scale, and how AZTier helps defenders and pen testers understand privilege escalation risks across Entra ID, Azure, and Microsoft Graph.
Together, these projects help security teams move from reactive log monitoring to a proactive defense strategy.
What’s Breaking and Slowing Your Entra ID Environment?
In Microsoft Entra ID, the same visibility gaps cause two problems:
* Things break
* Work slows down
Expired client secrets disrupt integrations. Certificates lapse and authentication fails. New apps appear with excessive permissions and no clear ownership. At the same time, teams struggle to answer basic questions, which applications have access to Microsoft 365 data, whether that access is still required, and who is responsible for it.
When answers are not immediate, reviews stall and projects slow down.
For organizations under 10,000 users, pricing ranges from $3,500 to $9,500 annually through March 31, 2026.
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇
About Emilien Socchi
Emilien Socchi is a Cloud Security Research Engineer at Storebrand (Oslo, Norway) focusing on the proactive discovery of security issues. With an extensive background in application and cloud penetration testing, Emilien has published practical research and tooling used by defenders. He also maintains several open‑source projects, including Azure administrative tiering models and Entra ID role‑monitoring utilities.
Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at
From FIM/MIM to Cloud Sync: Complete Identity Journey with Australia’s Top Identity MVP Darren “Doc” Robinson
Episode 53
Saturday, March 21, 2026 • Duration 55:17
Darren Robinson, Identity and Zero Trust Strategy and Architecture Capability Lead at Increment, shares his extensive experience in identity governance and administration.
In this episode Merill sits down with Darren “Doc” Robinson – Microsoft MVP since 2017, former SailPoint Ambassador and one of Australia’s most experienced identity architects.
Darren takes us on a 25+ year journey from Novell networks to modern Microsoft Entra ID, reveals why he’s building custom ECMA2 connectors, and shares the exact PowerShell tools he just open-sourced (Granfeldt uplift, ECMA2 Host Tools, Provision On-Demand module).
We also compare Entra ID Governance vs SailPoint and dive into his latest obsession: MCPs for Entra News and personal AI agents.
Whether you’re migrating legacy apps or levelling up your IGA strategy, this episode is pure gold.
Would you bet your reputation on your current Microsoft 365 security posture?
Sure, you’ve checked Purview. Maybe tightened Conditional Access. We all do that.
But it’s usually the quiet stuff that bites... permissions that expanded, policies that drifted, exceptions nobody revisited.
You could assume it’s fine.
Or you could run the Microsoft 365 Security Posture Check.
It’s free.
It runs locally.
And no, it doesn’t send your tenant data back to us.
We’ll even help you set it up.
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇
Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at
How to Migrate from Legacy VPNs to Entra Private Access (Real Strategies from a Veteran)
Episode 52
Saturday, March 14, 2026 • Duration 42:53
Richard Hicks wrote the book on DirectAccess. Then he wrote the one on Always On VPN. Now he’s here to tell you it’s time to move on from both (and other legacy VPNs). Over the last two years, Richard has helped numerous enterprise customers navigate the shift from legacy VPN to Microsoft Entra Private Access, and he’s collected some hard-learnt lessons along the way that most migration guides won’t tell you.
In this episode, Richard - enterprise security consultant and early Entra Private Access insider - breaks down why traditional VPN is fundamentally broken for today’s threat landscape, how Entra Private Access works under the hood, and the exact crawl-walk-run playbook he uses to migrate enterprise customers without disruption. Plus: his hot take on the Microsoft E7 announcement and why it just changed the pricing conversation forever.
In this episode you’ll learn:
* Why your VPN tunnel is a security liability — and how a single compromised device can expose your entire corporate network
* How Entra Private Access works differently to traditional VPN, and why that architectural shift matters for security
* The “Quick Access” migration strategy that lets you get off legacy VPN fast, without locking everything down on day one
* How to deploy the Global Secure Access client alongside your existing VPN — so you can migrate field-based workers without a single disconnection
* What most teams get wrong about the Entra Private Network Connector — and the scaling pitfalls that catch enterprises off guard
* Why Conditional Access knowledge, not connectivity, is the real key to a successful zero trust migration
* The current limitations of Entra Private Access and how to plan around them
* We also discuss the new ‘E7’ which includes Entra Private Access
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇
Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at
Passkeys, Conditional Access, Hard-match updates, GSA BYOD: What Entra Admins Need To Know
Episode 51
Saturday, March 7, 2026 • Duration 01:09:23
I am back home in Melbourne today, and joining me are Nathan McNulty from Alaska and Daniel Bradley from the UK as we dive into all the massive Entra updates that dropped last month. We are breaking down the controversial shift to syncable passkeys , why your Conditional Access policies might suddenly start blocking apps , and the absolute necessity of moving privileged accounts away from on-prem AD. We’re also geeking out over some incredible new Global Secure Access (GSA) features and how AI is completely transforming the way we work with Graph API. You won’t want to miss the under-the-radar changes that could impact your tenant’s security architecture overnight.
Here’s a quick overview of all the topics we covered in this episode (links below).
Sponsored by:
Scan, Score, and Secure Your Applications in Entra
Application identities represent one of the largest attack surfaces in Entra and are often among the least consistently governed.AppGov Score helps IT and Security teams understand where risk exists. The 24-check assessment evaluates Entra ID application integrations against Microsoft-recommended governance practices, analyzing:
* App registrations and enterprise apps for excessive permissions
* Expired or unmanaged secrets
* Ownerless apps
* Risky consent grants, and
* Privileged service principals
Results are delivered as a clear, defensible risk score with actionable findings. No scripts. No manual inventory. Just a fast, read-only scan that reveals app sprawl, identity misconfigurations, and blast radius so you can prioritize remediation and strengthen your security posture with confidence.
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇
Get full access to Entra.News - Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra at
🔗 Linked Identity Checks for Privileged Accounts A new test surfaces a common blind spot: privileged admin accounts that remain active after their linked standard user account is disabled. If someone leaves your organisation and their cloud admin account stays enabled, Maester will now catch it.
📋 CIS Benchmark Refresh & Conditional Access Improvements Community contributor Morten has refreshed the CIS benchmark tests to reflect the latest changes, plus improved the logic behind several conditional access policy checks — including automated tracking of Entra ID roles used in XSPM and commercial access quality checks.
There’s a lot more covered in the full episode, including multi-tenant reporting updates, the new dev container for contributors, a surprisingly entertaining story about two AI models dissing each other’s code reviews, and a teaser for what’s coming in the next release.
👉 Listen to the full episode for the deep dives, the war stories behind getting community PRs across the line, and Merill and Sam’s take on where AI fits into the future of security testing.
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇
About Sam Erde
Sam is an Architect at Patriot Consulting who focuses on performing security assessments, securing and deploying Microsoft 365, and writing PowerShell. He has been a critical pillar for the Maester community over the last year, helping heavily refactor the codebase and streamlining community contributions.
Unclear answers stall reviews, weaken accountability, and slow delivery.
ENow App Governance Accelerator closes these gaps by highlighting expiring credentials, surfacing permission risks, and identifying ownership gaps before they disrupt operations. New Standard Tier pricing makes it accessible for organizations under 10,000 users, typically $3,500–$9,500 annually.
Subscribe with your favorite podcast player or watch on YouTube 👇
About Sandra Saluti
Sandra Saluti is a consultant at Epical working with Microsoft Entra ID and identity governance. She helps organisations design secure and practical identity solutions with a focus on governance, access management, and Zero Trust.
Darren is highly accomplished in digital identity and cybersecurity specialising in Identity & Access Management for over three decades. Darren is renowned for driving Digital Identity innovation, building global offerings, and leading high-impact teams to deliver cutting-edge solutions that enhance security posture, operational efficiency, and business value.
The foundation of Microsoft’s identity strategy dates back to the acquisition of Zoomit in 2000. This introduced the Metaverse—not a VR world, but a “hologram” or central representation of a user that exists across multiple systems like SQL databases and LDAP directories. By correlating these identities into one object, organizations can maintain consistency across a fragmented environment.
2. The Modern Bridge: ECMA and SCIM
As organizations move to the cloud, the “heavy” sync engines like MIM (Microsoft Identity Manager) are being replaced by Entra Cloud Sync. The modern approach uses:
* A Light Shim: A small on-premises component that acts as a member of the domain.
* SCIM Instructions: The Entra provisioning service sends instructions via the SCIM protocol to this shim.
* ECMA Connectors: The Extensible Connector Management Agent (ECMA) translates these cloud instructions into a language legacy on-prem apps can understand, such as SQL or Oracle updates.
3. Scaling with PowerShell 7
One of the biggest hurdles in legacy identity management was performance. Darren Robinson recently uplifted the popular Granfeldt PowerShell Management Agent to support PowerShell 7. This update allows for:
* 64-bit Processing: Handling larger datasets with ease.
* Parallelism: Sending multiple identity updates in parallel rather than waiting for individual “gets,” significantly speeding up sync times.
4. Managing the “Cache”
A common pain point for administrators is the lack of visibility into the ECMA host cache. To solve this, Darren developed a new module that allows practitioners to programmatically query the cache, back up configurations, and document every connector and parameter in the system.
Key Takeaway: Whether you are migrating from legacy solutions like Novell or managing a complex hybrid Entra environment, the goal remains the same: automated, secure, and visible identity lifecycles.
📗 Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:22 The Evolution of Directory Services and Synchronization
08:05 Understanding Sync Engines and the Metaverse
Richard Hicks is the founder and principal consultant at Richard M. Hicks Consulting, Inc. A Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) with more than 30 years of experience implementing secure remote access and public key infrastructure (PKI) solutions, he is a widely recognized enterprise mobility and security infrastructure expert sought after by organizations worldwide. His mission is to help companies provide visibility, control, and assurance for their field-based users and devices, ensuring the highest level of security and productivity for today’s highly mobile workforce.
Senior Security Solutions Architect at Patriot Consulting and Microsoft MVP in security. Nathan is the practice lead for identity and has extensive experience with endpoint deployments and everything Entra.
Senior Solution Architect for CDW down in the UK and an MVP in Identity Security and M365 for Graph API. Daniel specializes in pre-sales, mergers, acquisitions, and the highly technical migration space.
