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Stein-Erik Alvestad

Stein-Erik Alvestad · Identity | Security | CISSP

Field notes on identity, security & the Microsoft cloud.

Practical insights on cloud, identity and cybersecurity. Real-world lessons on zero trust, modern work and securing the digital workplace.

15 min read

Agent 365: an approval lifecycle for agents in Entra Agent ID

Conditional Access for agents only has one grant: Block, so the pattern is an allow-list driven by a custom security attribute. Microsoft documents the mechanism. What I couldn’t find was the lifecycle around it: who moves an agent from New to IT_Approved, what takes it back, and how it relates to the other approvals and lifecycle features in Entra and Agent 365. Here’s the map I drew, the approval lifecycle behind the attribute, and how I built it in my lab.

25 min read

Measuring the NSM ICT Security Principles in Microsoft 365 with Maester

NSM raised Norway’s cyber risk level to HØYT. Here’s one way an organisation can turn NSM’s 118 measures into something it measures every week: Microsoft controls per platform, a Maester pack for Entra ID, Microsoft 365 and Intune, and a simple internal view on NSM’s own scale. For engineers who build it, and for the leaders, risk owners and auditors who have to answer for confidentiality, integrity and availability.

2 min read

Upgrade Packer JSON template to HCL2 for Azure Virtual Desktop

How to upgrade a Packer JSON template to the newer HCL2 format for building Azure Virtual Desktop images.

3 min read

Azure Virtual Desktop Published Application and Scaling issues with DPI

Solving DPI scaling problems with a published line-of-business application on Azure Virtual Desktop RemoteApp.

3 min read

Troubleshooting Azure Virtual Desktop Monitoring

Troubleshooting Azure Virtual Desktop performance issues with Azure Monitor and Log Analytics after users reported connection errors.

10 min read

Azure Image Builder or Packer for Azure Virtual Desktop

Comparing Packer and Azure Image Builder for automating Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) image creation, with the trade-offs of each approach.