Microsoft Defender for Cloud: What Do You Actually Get When You Pay?

Discover insights into Microsoft Defender for Cloud as a CNAPP that combines CSPM (posture, recommendations, inventory) and CWPP (workload protection) — and learn what is truly free vs what unlocks with paid plans.

Learn the practical difference between Foundational CSPM and Defender CSPM, including attack path analysis, Cloud Security Explorer, Data & AI posture (DSPM / AI-SPM), and how risk-based prioritisation changes the way you act on findings.

Understand what the CWPP modules actually catch in real life (not marketing terms): examples like MITRE ATT&CK-style App Service threats, SQL injection/anomalous logins, storage exfiltration patterns, Kubernetes runtime threats + CI/CD image gating, Key Vault misuse, suspicious ARM control-plane operations, OWASP API threats, and GenAI risks like prompt injection and wallet abuse.

Uncover a decision framework for “what’s worth paying for” in your environment by mapping protections to business risk and tooling overlap (e.g., WAF vs App Service signals, Foundry guardrails vs Defender for AI Services, XDR integration value, and when log-based DIY monitoring is enough). This is a conference-first session: we’ll run quick audience-driven scenarios and do live walk-through style demos where participants choose the attack path, workload, and budget constraints.

I’m excited about this topic because I keep seeing organisations either enable everything blindly or avoid the platform entirely due to cost uncertainty. My goal is that you leave with a clear, actionable “starter pack” of modules, a prioritised upgrade path, and the confidence to explain the spend to both engineers and decision-makers — without turning security into a licence guessing game.

When AI Goes Rogue: Real-World Security Lessons from the Trenches

Discover insights into the pitfalls of deploying AI solutions through four real-world case studies, each drawn from diverse customer environments. In this session, you'll learn what not to do—from securing the end-user interface to establishing a robust overall cloud security posture, and even detecting "rogue" AI deployments. Attendees will gain actionable strategies to fortify AI infrastructures and safeguard sensitive data while avoiding common security missteps. Designed exclusively for IT professionals in a conference setting, this engaging presentation promises live demos and practical takeaways that empower you to build more resilient AI systems. Join me as I share the lessons I’ve learned on the front lines, fueled by a genuine passion for creating secure, innovative AI solutions.

Information Management in Emergencies - How you can use your skills for good

Understanding the scale and needs of an emergency is pivotal for successful response planning when a crisis occurs. Whether it's a natural disaster, a health crisis, or an armed conflict, information management plays a crucial role in operations. It involves collecting, cleaning, processing, analyzing, and visualizing data to make informed decisions. This field can encompass technical roles or focus on developing processes and capabilities.

Mika, who has been deployed multiple times in various emergencies for the Red Cross, will share his experiences in aiding those most in need. Attendees will learn through real-life examples how IT professionals can leverage their skills for humanitarian aid and make a positive impact in the world.

Passwordless 2026: Navigating the Present, Sunset Paths, and Future-Ready Authentication

Discover the evolving landscape of passwordless authentication as we explore what’s available today, what’s on the way out, and how to design future-ready identity strategies. In this technically-focused session, we’ll break down the current state of authentication solutions across Microsoft Entra ID and beyond, including FIDO2, biometrics, passkeys, and mobile-based MFA methods. We’ll clarify what’s being deprecated (like SMS-based MFA), examine what’s gaining traction, and highlight preview features to watch.

You’ll gain real-world insights into deployment architectures, security trade-offs, and how to drive user adoption in hybrid or cloud-native environments. We’ll also cover key considerations for firstline workers, legacy app access, and compliance implications. Expect architectural diagrams, live demos, and war stories from actual rollouts—making this session highly practical for architects and identity specialists planning their next move in modern authentication.

Azure Copilot Agents: Hype, Reality, and What’s Next

Discover what Azure Copilot agents actually are today, which agent scenarios are available now, and where they already provide real value. This session focuses on Azure Copilot agents themselves: what they can do today in areas like migration, observability, optimization, resiliency, and troubleshooting, and how Microsoft is starting to bring more agentic operations into Azure.

Learn where Azure Copilot agents are genuinely useful today, where they are still evolving, and how to separate practical value from marketing noise. We will look at how these agents can reduce manual work, support investigations, and help teams operate Azure more effectively, while also being honest about current limitations and maturity.

The goal is to give attendees a clear and realistic understanding of Azure Copilot agents: what exists now, what is worth paying attention to already, and what is likely coming next as Azure continues moving toward more intelligent and agent-driven operations.

I’m excited about this topic because Azure Copilot agents represent a real change in how cloud environments can be understood, operated, and improved. This session cuts through the hype and focuses on the capabilities that actually matter.

Who is your agent, really?

Your tenant already has agents in it. Some came from Copilot Studio, some from Azure AI Foundry, some from code nobody reviewed. Each one authenticates, holds permissions and touches data, and nobody can name most of them. So who is your agent, really?

This session answers that by following three agents through Microsoft Agent 365 and the Microsoft Entra Agent ID model. Reconciler is an autonomous Foundry agent that reads invoices from Storage and posts to an ERP overnight, no user in sight. Inbox assistant lives in Teams and summarizes your mail, acting on your behalf and never beyond it. Deskmate has its own mailbox and answers when you @mention it. Same identity machinery underneath, three very different tokens.

Live demos carry the session: we discover the agents already in a tenant, run Reconciler end to end from managed identity to blueprint to token to data, watch Inbox assistant act for a signed-in user under Conditional Access, and finish with the kill switch: one shared identity, every agent exposed, one switch to stop them all.

You leave able to inventory your agents, design blueprints per trust boundary, put permissions on the agent identity instead of the blueprint, and explain why publishing is a security boundary. With EU AI Act obligations landing in 2026, this is not a someday problem.

Level 300
~ 45 mins, depending on demos.

After this session, participants can:
Inventory the agents already in their tenant and treat each one as a non-human identity.
Design Entra Agent ID blueprints per trust boundary and scope agent permissions before deploying.
Tell on-behalf-of from own-identity access, and budget agents as identities, not seats.

When Agents Get the Keys: Securing AI Assistants That Read Email and Take Action

Discover how to secure the next generation of AI agents: assistants that can read email, understand intent, call tools, update systems, and trigger workflows.

Copilot Studio and other low-code agent platforms make it possible for business users to create powerful automations without deep technical knowledge. That creates huge productivity potential, but it also changes the security model. An agent that can access a mailbox and take action in another system is no longer just answering questions. It is operating with real permissions, real data, and real consequences.

In this session, we will explore the practical risks of user-created agents, including over-permissioned access, prompt injection, data leakage, unsafe connectors, unintended actions, unclear ownership, and missing audit trails. Using realistic examples, we will look at how an innocent-looking email assistant can become a security and compliance problem if it is not designed with the right guardrails.

You will learn practical ways to reduce risk without blocking innovation: identity and permission design, connector governance, Data Loss Prevention policies, human approval for sensitive actions, environment strategy, monitoring, auditing, and lifecycle management. Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft 365 will be used as concrete examples, but the principles apply to any platform where end users can build agents that access data and use tools.

The session will include a hands-on threat-modelling walkthrough of an agent that reads email and takes action. Together, we will identify what can go wrong and map those risks to controls that IT, security, and platform teams can actually implement.

The goal is to help organisations say yes to useful agents safely: with clear ownership, least privilege, visible actions, approval points, and enough monitoring to know what agents are doing after they are published.

After this session, participants will be able to:
1 Understand how action-taking agents change the security model compared to traditional chatbots and workflow automations.
2 Identify the main risks of agents that can read email, use connectors, access enterprise data, and perform actions on behalf of users.
3 Apply practical guardrails for agent safety, including least privilege, identity design, connector governance, environment strategy, Data Loss Prevention policies, and action approval.

Level 200-300
45 mins + questions

Shadow Automation 2.0: When User-Created AI Agents Get the Keys

Discover how to create practical technical guardrails for AI agents built by end users in Copilot Studio and other low-code agent platforms.
Shadow IT and shadow automation are not new problems, but AI agents change the scale and risk. Business users can now create assistants that read email, access business data, use connectors, create tickets, send messages, update records, and trigger workflows. These agents may start as personal productivity tools, but they can quickly become unmanaged automation with real permissions, real data, and real business impact.
In this session, we will explore how organisations can move from reactive case-by-case approval to a policy-driven guardrail model. Instead of relying on every user to make the right technical decision, IT and security teams need safe defaults, permission boundaries, connector policies, environment separation, approval requirements, monitoring, and clear ownership.
The focus is on practical technical policy: what should be allowed by default, what should require review, and what should be blocked entirely. We will cover common risk areas such as mailbox access, prompt injection through email content, over-permissioned connectors, maker-owned credentials, unmanaged actions, data leakage, weak ownership, and missing audit trails.
Using Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft 365 as concrete examples, we will discuss guardrails that also apply to other agent platforms: Data Loss Prevention policies, connector classification, environment strategy, identity and credential models, action risk levels, human approval points, logging, lifecycle management, and exception handling.
The goal is not to stop users from creating agents. The goal is to make safe agent creation the default path. Participants will learn how to design a governance model where users can innovate inside clear technical boundaries, while IT and security teams retain visibility and control over data access, tools, actions, and risk.

After this session, participants will be able to:
Identify where user-created AI agents become a governance risk, especially when they can access email, use connectors, read business data, and take actions across systems.
Design practical technical guardrails for agents, including environment strategy, connector policies, permission boundaries, credential choices, approval requirements, monitoring, and lifecycle controls.
Apply a simple allow / restrict / review / block model to decide which agent capabilities should be enabled by default, which require approval, and which should be prevented entirely.

Level 200-300
45 minutes + questions