Microsoft Defender for Identity helps Active Directory admins defend against advanced persistent threats (APTs) targeting their Active Directory Domain Services infrastructures.

It is a cloud-based service, where agents on Domain Controllers provide signals to Microsoft's Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to detect and report on attacks. Its dashboard allows Active Directory admins to investigate and remediate (potential) breaches related to advanced threats, compromised identities and malicious insider actions.

Microsoft Defender for Identity was formerly known as Azure Advanced Threat Protection (Azure ATP) and Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA).

What's New

In December 2022, one new version of Microsoft Defender for Identity was released: Version 2.195. This version was released on December 7, 2022.

This release introduced the following functionality:

Availability in the Australia East region

Defender for Identity data centers are now also deployed in the Australia East region.

Improvements and bug fixes

Version 2.195 includes improvements and bug fixes for the internal sensor infrastructure.