Brian Desmond

Brian Desmond

Brian is a principal at Ravenswood Technology Group where he leads a team of professionals focused on delivering best-in-breed consulting services for the Microsoft security and identity management ecosystem. Brian has been recognized annually as a Microsoft MVP since 2003 and is the author of the fourth and fifth editions of Active Directory from O'Reilly.

Password Spray Attack Defense with Azure AD

Until passwordless authentication is a more viable option, we must take steps to defend against password spray attacks. Azure Active Directory can help.

Protect Your Business with Azure Identity Protection

Ensuring that your user identities are protected from modern attack vectors such as phishing schemes and credential leaks should be a critical part of your enterprise security strategy. When attackers gain access to a

What Is Azure Multi-Factor Authentication?

Passwords are an insecure authentication mechanism. They are often easily guessed, and the computing power necessary to crack passwords is readily available. Although many organizations have the goal of switching to an entirely password-less

What Is an Active Directory Health Check?

Our automated AD DS health check process looks at hundreds of configuration settings, including DNS, FSMO roles, replication, sites and subnets, Group Policy, performance indicators, backup procedures, security settings, patching, operating system settings, and more. Through automated data collection, we can quickly gather all of this data to analyze it and make remediation recommendations.

Reduce Help Desk Calls with Self-Service Password Reset

Forgotten passwords are a key driver of Help desk calls for many organizations. They are also a major cost factor. Azure Active Directory (AD) Premium includes a Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR) solution that is completely hosted in the cloud and accessible from anywhere, including on mobile devices.

Three Things to Plan for When You Add Single Sign-On

Enabling single sign-on (SSO) for SaaS applications adds convenience for end users, as well as reduces security risks and enables you to better meet compliance requirements. Using Azure Active Directory (AD) Premium to add SSO to your applications can solve these challenges, but there are a few things you need to plan for.