The first half of 2025 brought significant updates to Defender, Intune, and Entra ID. Here's the digest every NZ MSP client should know about — and what Optimyze has already deployed.
The pace of change in Microsoft 365 Business Premium has made it essential for MSPs to maintain a regular update cadence for client tenants. Here's a summary of the most significant changes in the first half of 2025 and what they mean for NZ businesses.
Defender for Business: Automatic attack disruption improvements
Microsoft expanded the scope of automatic attack disruption in H1 2025. The AI-driven response now covers a broader range of attack patterns, including business email compromise (BEC) scenarios where a compromised account is being used to send fraudulent payment requests. When the pattern is detected, the user account is automatically restricted and the MSP is alerted — often before the business realises there's an issue.
Intune: macOS management improvements
For clients with Mac users, Intune's macOS management capabilities improved significantly in H1 2025. Software update management for macOS is now closer to the Windows experience — Intune can enforce macOS version requirements and push updates with deferral windows. This closes a significant gap for mixed-fleet clients.
Entra ID: Per-user MFA retirement
Microsoft continued encouraging the migration from legacy per-user MFA to Conditional Access-based MFA. Per-user MFA will be fully retired in future — any tenant still using it should migrate to Conditional Access MFA policies as soon as possible. Optimyze migrated all managed clients from per-user MFA to Conditional Access during H1 2025.
Purview: NZ Privacy Act alignment
Microsoft Purview's data classification library has been updated with NZ-specific sensitive information types — IRD numbers, NZ passport numbers, and NZ bank account patterns. This makes it easier to configure DLP policies that protect NZ-specific personal information in SharePoint and email. Optimyze has updated DLP policies for healthcare and finance clients accordingly.
