Guidance for Partners on recent nation-state cyberattacks

[lapayne]

A new blog post published on December 19 provides partners with guidance about communicating with customers about the recent nation-state cyberattacks.  In the post, partners will find links to blog posts by Brad Smith, the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), and others. This blog post is aligned to the December 19 email sent to partners.  

https://blogs.partner.microsoft.com/mpn/guidance-for-partners-on-recent-nation-state-cyberattacks/

12/21 Update with MSPartner channel links:

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/msPartner/status/1340412410708992000
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6746179673455247360/
• Elevate - https://www.linkedin.com/elevate/share?broadcastId=8014749

[DeanLGross]

It has been 3 months, can you please provide an update

[lapayne]

Hi @DeanLGross apologies for the delay.  Will check for the latest status and circle back to you here in the forum with an update.  thank you!  -LP

[DeanLGross]

Thanks, this is encouraging. This has been getting a lot of attention for the past few months at our most senior levels of corporate management (we are in the Fortune 500) so any additional details would be greatly appreciated.

[lapayne]

Hi @DeanLGross just to confirm, are you referring to the Partner Admin Link (PAL) feature?  Link an Azure account to a partner ID | Microsoft Docs

"Microsoft partners provide services that help customers achieve business and mission objectives using Microsoft products. When acting on behalf of the customer managing, configuring, and supporting Azure services, the partner users will need access to the customer’s environment. Using Partner Admin Link (PAL), partners can associate their partner network ID with the credentials used for service delivery."

If the article above does not address or is unrelated to your question, please provide more information so we can assist.  thank you!

[DeanLGross]

Thanks while that is helpful, it does not appear to apply to providing services to O365 environments. Is there something similar for those tenants? It is my understanding that when our customers add our firm as a partner to O365, we can access their tenant as a Global Admin or a Helpdesk Admin. It would be better if we had the ability to use a wider variety of roles. 

[lapayne]

Hi Dean, there doesn't appear to be anything similar that's available for O365 environments at this time.  Checking to see if it is planned for the future and if not, will submit an enhancement request to the product team. 

[DeanLGross]

we need the ability to provide greater control over who can access each customer's tenant the role that they have to do the work. When are we going to get this?

[lapayne]

Hi again @DeanLGross there are plans to provide more granular control features for partners managing customer tenant scenarios (M365 and Azure). Further details are expected sometime within the next couple of months.