Microsoft published a post Monday arguing that AI agents are now “your newest insiders” and need to be secured the way you’d secure an employee, per the Microsoft Security blog. The core idea: each agent gets its own identity in Microsoft Entra Agent ID instead of borrowing a person’s rights, so you can tell what a person did from what an agent did on their behalf. Microsoft announced three controls built on that: Dynamic Permissions (access scoped to the task, time-limited, and never more than the user has), Dynamic Agent Risk (a running score based on what the agent can reach and whether it’s drifting from its job), and Dynamic Conditional Access for agents (which can step access down, for example keeping read access while blocking writes, or stop the agent entirely). It also described “Guardian Agents” in its Project Perception playbooks to help security teams investigate and contain risky agents. Security Affairs covered the announcement today. Microsoft’s post doesn’t say when these controls are available or which licenses include them.
Small-business owners: you don’t need to wait for these products. If anyone on your team uses an AI assistant or agent that can read email, files or the company card, three rules cover most of the risk: give it its own account rather than someone’s personal login, give it only the access its job needs, and make sure a person approves anything that sends, spends or deletes. Know how to switch it off.
IT managers: inventory the agents and AI apps already connected to your Microsoft 365 or Google tenant (Entra Enterprise applications is a good start), note who owns each one, and remove broad permissions that aren’t tied to a current task.
ConnectWise update. ConnectWise said Monday it has strengthened admin-access protections, reset accounts and replaced application credentials as it responds to the unauthorized access to application identities tied to Cloud Backup (formerly SkyKick), per The Hacker News. Cloud Backup remains suspended, along with SaaS Security and Cloud Management as a precaution. ConnectWise stresses that its own findings don’t establish whether any individual Microsoft 365 tenant was affected: “Reviewing each potentially affected tenant remains essential.” Its guidance: preserve evidence before making changes, and “do not reconnect affected applications until ConnectWise provides formal restoration instructions.” In a later update the same day, ConnectWise said it had completed the account and credential reset in the affected Cloud Backup environment and is “preparing for phased service restoration.” Update, 5:45 AM PT Oct 21: ConnectWise now says it has begun restoring services in controlled phases and expects restoration to take several days, with capabilities returning in stages, per its Cloud Backup advisory. Its guidance hasn’t changed: keep affected app connections disabled until it publishes formal reconnection instructions for your service. Its next update is due by 12:00 PM PT today. Huntress said in an update that it has now seen the same pattern on a second tenant, where the app gave itself Global Administrator and added new secrets to a few other apps, though it saw no signs of mailbox or file tampering.
IT managers and MSPs: keep the ConnectWise/SkyKick apps disabled (not deleted), finish the tenant-by-tenant review from yesterday’s briefing, and keep an alternate Microsoft 365 backup running until ConnectWise publishes reconnection instructions; the phased restart doesn’t mean you can reconnect yet.
Small-business owners: if you haven’t yet, ask your IT provider whether they use ConnectWise or SkyKick backup and whether they’ve checked your account. Personal Microsoft accounts aren’t involved.
Nothing to do at home today.