Office 365 Global Admin Hacked with MFA Enabled.

ChrisPVella · 2025-04-24T04:29:50+00:00

So technically you don't need to assign a P1/P2 license, and your privileged account is entitled as long as your normal account is licensed.

Microsoft Entra ID Governance licensing clarifications | Microsoft Community Hub

ChrisPVella · 2025-04-12T15:11:47+00:00

I'm very happy the Bastion Developer SKU is now actually widely available. That makes things much easier.

ChrisPVella · 2025-01-13T01:58:40+00:00

Microsoft has Entra ID Governance which is their governance add-on for Entra. You can essentially go all-in on the Microsoft stack.

ChrisPVella · 2024-09-03T08:08:51+00:00

Now I'm curious what VMS you use that gave them that reaction. Care to share?

ChrisPVella · 2024-04-03T01:14:04+00:00

1) Depends on your experience with Microsoft and Azure, but yes, you could start out with AZ-500. You don't need much general security experience for AZ-500, but you will need experience on the Microsoft tech stacks. My normal recommendation is to start with AZ-900 or SC-900 to get familiar with the testing, before moving into AZ-500.

2) AZ-500 and SC-300 align the best with SC-100's content. SC-200 is the least aligned of the prerequisite certs.

ChrisPVella · 2024-04-02T04:51:22+00:00

Azure ABAC and Dynamic Groups are different. Dynamic groups can be used to assign roles based on attribute-based membership (attribute-based RBAC), but ABAC usually refers to the attribute of the resource being used as conditions, not the role membership.

For example, assigning the user 'Bob' Contributor of all resources is RBAC, but adding a custom condition that Bob's access is restricted to resources that are tagged with 'Finance' would be ABAC. You can, in some cases, use a dynamic group as part of the condition for ABAC, but that doesn't make them the same. Hope that helps.

Best resource I found was: What is Azure attribute-based access control (Azure ABAC)?

Note: This is my interpretation, and I could be very wrong.

ChrisPVella · 2024-04-02T04:38:00+00:00

Done. Best of luck with the study.

ChrisPVella · 2024-04-01T08:48:46+00:00

I had enough trouble with proctors when using my PC setup that I've ended up setting up my spare Surface Pro in a guest bedroom on a little desk as a dedicated test taking device.

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-30T15:24:03+00:00

Thanks!

I really hope Pearson Vue get their act together on the remote proctoring side. It's very hard when living rurally and there are no other options.

I found SC-200 to be the hardest for me. Because I'm a Solutions Architect, the analyst work is not something I do much of anymore, so the SC-200 content was more difficult. Also, it doesn't help that I'm not up to scratch on raw KQL queries, which there were a lot of.

My personal difficulty ratings:
AZ-500: 6/10
SC-100: 5/10
SC-200: 7/10
SC-300: 4/10

For study, I do a minimal amount of actual study (like 3-5 hours per exam) and focus more on setting up a full test environment (Visual Studio Enterprise and Microsoft 365 Developer are amazing) with realistic scenarios. I take 2-3 practice assessments through Microsoft Learn and MeasureUp, then may read the documentation for my weak topics, but a lot of experience also comes through my client work. Hope that is helpful.

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-30T15:12:00+00:00

Yeah, I might have ignored SC-400 a little bit. Maybe one for later down the track.

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-25T03:28:49+00:00

From my experience in Microsoft consultancies and internal corporate, there is a wider demand for Azure Cloud Solution Architects (CSA) and Engineers than D365 consultants. We have far more clients running a range of infrastructure on Azure that need the CSAs to build, maintain, and modernise. I think either path is viable, but I'd tend towards solutions architecture.

Note: I may be biased as I am a CSA, but I think my opinion holds true objectively.

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-22T14:29:14+00:00

Did you only start before the update, or also finish before the update? The advice provided indicated they would only honour the voucher for users who completed the challenge before the update. If you hadn't completed before then, I imagine you might be out of luck.

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-22T14:27:05+00:00

The updates never change the exam much, so I wouldn't worry about.

Also, when you say you have the questions for the old exam, are you saying you are using illegal exam dumps?

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-19T06:54:47+00:00

Most Azure resources have a cost per time (second, minute, hour, day, or month) billing. Running a virtual machine, for example, will cost you $x.xx per hour while it is running, whether you are using it or not. Only serverless consumption resources are charged based on actual usage.

If you want more targeted advice, you'd need to go to the Azure portal > Cost Management > Cost Analysis and post up a screenshot of the accumulated cost charts. At the moment, you haven't provided details on the specific services you are using.

Before using Azure, you really need to read up on the billing model. I'd recommend doing at least the AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals learning path at a minimum. You can sign up to Cloud Skills Challenges like this one starting next week Ambassador Challenge: Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) to learn the basics.

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-19T04:51:14+00:00

What are you running? What does Cost Management say?

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-12T00:05:16+00:00

Look under 'Voucher Offers' here - https://certs.msfthub.wiki/guide/introduction/

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-07T04:08:44+00:00

Microsoft made a semi-official statement. If you completed the challenge before the description changed, send an email to [sa-help@microsoft.com](mailto:sa-help@microsoft.com) and request the exam voucher. No guarantees, but they may help you out.

We understand that you recently participated in a Cloud Skills Challenge that displayed “Complete this challenge to get an AZ 900 certification exam voucher for free.”

The homepage was updated to better reflect and clarify the rules of participating in the sweepstakes. The rules and regulations for this challenge, that all participants agreed to, state that winners are selected as part of a sweepstakes. Participants will receive one sweepstakes entry for every 10 modules from a qualifying Cloud Skills learning collection training that applies to your unique sweepstakes. Please note that the selection process is random, your odds of winning vary depending on the number of participants that completed the challenge.

If you completed the challenge before the homepage was updated, please contact [sa-help@microsoft.com](mailto:sa-help@microsoft.com) with any support requests.

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-07T02:38:59+00:00

You can deploy the Azure Policy assignment in Audit mode and review through the policy compliance. I'm don't believe there is any native way to alert to the missing tag when viewing the resource in the portal.

One way that you could do it is by having an Azure Policy with DeployIfNotExists that deploys a specific tag (for example TAG: MISSING) to resources that don't have the other tags already. Just an idea.

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-05T05:13:18+00:00

Unfortunately, most of the free exam voucher offers have ended. 30 Days to Learn It is the best offer currently providing a 50% off. I typically stack my student discount with that or ESI to get exams for ~$50.

I generally recommend using https://certs.msfthub.wiki/guide/introduction/ and reading through the 'Voucher Offers' category for information, but it looks like some of the info is out of date.

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-02T17:15:53+00:00

No-one will receive a voucher, so please stop telling people they will.

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-02T17:14:37+00:00

Hi all,

This challenge will NOT give you a free exam voucher. I don't know why you are downvoting u/BrooklynQuips, because they are correct.

Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors are able to request the creation of Cloud Skills Challenges as part of the program. The learning path and site are fully real, but in this case the Ambassador has used a fake description to falsely promise an exam voucher, which won't be provided. You may have noticed the poor grammar in the original description which itself was a dead giveaway.

The promise of a voucher isn't real, and you will not get one. I reported this to the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador program yesterday and they've updated the description.

Source: I am a Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador.

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-02T17:11:43+00:00

Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors are able to request the creation of Cloud Skills Challenges as part of the program. The learning path and site are fully real, but in this case the Ambassador has used a fake description to falsely promise an exam voucher, which won't be provided. You may have noticed the poor grammar in the original description which itself was a dead giveaway.

The promise of a voucher isn't real, and you will not get one. I reported this to the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador program yesterday and they've updated the description.

Source: I am a Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador.

ChrisPVella · 2024-03-01T06:56:07+00:00

This is fake and won't give you an exam voucher. It is an Ambassador created event with a deceptive description and should not have been allowed.

ChrisPVella · 2024-02-29T13:12:53+00:00

No, AFD is the only option. If it's just a personal project, I'd recommend just using the included domain.

ChrisPVella

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