Ontinue’s announcement that its Posture Advisor Agent Core will be available through Microsoft’s new Security Store marks another tangible step in the rapid commercialization of security AI agents—promising easier deployment of identity-hardening tooling for Microsoft Entra ID tenants while raising familiar questions about agent governance, data residency, and operational risk.
Microsoft has been moving aggressively to make “agents” first-class citizens in the enterprise IT and security stack. That strategy culminated in the Microsoft Security Store (a partner-oriented storefront for security solutions and Copilot agents) and a family of product-specific agents—most notably identity-focused agents that analyze and optimize Conditional Access policies inside Microsoft Entra ID. Independent coverage of Microsoft’s Security Store rollout and reporting on the agent program underscores that Microsoft intends to centralize discovery, billing, and distribution for partner-built Security Copilot agents as part of a larger push to embed AI into security operations.
Ontinue, an MXDR provider that has publicly participated in Microsoft’s early Security Copilot and partner programs, announced it will publish a free configuration-auditing agent—Posture Advisor Agent Core—into that partner ecosystem. The agent is described as a Copilot-built auditing tool that continuously reviews Conditional Access Policies, surfaces misconfigurations, and recommends prioritized remediations to harden identity protections in Microsoft Entra ID. The company frames this release as a way to reduce identity exposure and simplify policy hygiene for customers already invested in Microsoft security controls.
Ontinue’s announcement aligns directly with that trend: its Posture Advisor Agent Core targets the same operational problem—automating the identification and prioritization of Conditional Access gaps so security teams can close windows of exposure faster. The vendor also points to its own mid‑2025 threat report, which claims identity-focused attacks and MFA-bypass techniques have become a dominant initial-access vector—an assertion consistent with other industry reporting. That convergence of vendor tools and threat telemetry explains why agent-style policy auditors are getting immediate traction.
However, the shift toward agent-based security operations also amplifies familiar enterprise risks: privilege concentration, supply‑chain exposure, automation errors, and potential hidden costs. The agent model compels security teams to treat agents as software vendors, not simple utilities—requiring vetting, runtime governance, and a human‑in‑the‑loop posture for impactful changes. Microsoft’s documentation and the Security Store design provide guardrails (report‑only modes, admin approvals, Entra agent identity traces), but these features need to be actively configured and audited.
For organizations invested in the Microsoft security stack, the path forward is pragmatic: evaluate Ontinue’s agent in a scoped pilot, validate recommendations against business context, and codify safe deployment patterns (least privilege, auditability, and manual approvals for critical changes). Done correctly, partner agents can materially reduce identity risk and shrink the window of exposure for critical cloud assets; done carelessly, they can add another vector for misconfiguration or data leakage. The technology is promising—adoption must be disciplined.
Conclusion
The arrival of Ontinue’s Posture Advisor Agent Core in Microsoft’s partner ecosystem is an example of the agent-driven security era maturing from concept to operational tooling. Organizations that treat agents as mission‑critical software—subject to vendor due diligence, careful permissioning, and phased rollout—stand to gain measurable improvements in identity hygiene. At the same time, the usual operational and supply‑chain risks remain; they require explicit attention from CISOs and identity teams as agents migrate from pilot projects into everyday security operations. Ontinue’s move is consistent with broader Microsoft strategy and market trends, but the real benefit will be determined by how well enterprises marry agent automation with governance, monitoring, and human oversight.
Source: The AI Journal Ontinue is a proud participant in the Microsoft Security Store Partner Ecosystem | The AI Journal
Microsoft has been moving aggressively to make “agents” first-class citizens in the enterprise IT and security stack. That strategy culminated in the Microsoft Security Store (a partner-oriented storefront for security solutions and Copilot agents) and a family of product-specific agents—most notably identity-focused agents that analyze and optimize Conditional Access policies inside Microsoft Entra ID. Independent coverage of Microsoft’s Security Store rollout and reporting on the agent program underscores that Microsoft intends to centralize discovery, billing, and distribution for partner-built Security Copilot agents as part of a larger push to embed AI into security operations.Ontinue, an MXDR provider that has publicly participated in Microsoft’s early Security Copilot and partner programs, announced it will publish a free configuration-auditing agent—Posture Advisor Agent Core—into that partner ecosystem. The agent is described as a Copilot-built auditing tool that continuously reviews Conditional Access Policies, surfaces misconfigurations, and recommends prioritized remediations to harden identity protections in Microsoft Entra ID. The company frames this release as a way to reduce identity exposure and simplify policy hygiene for customers already invested in Microsoft security controls.
Why this matters: Identity is the frontline
Identity systems—especially cloud identity services like Microsoft Entra ID—are now the most common path attackers use for initial access and long-term persistence. Enterprise-scale telemetry from Microsoft and many independent analysts shows identity-first attacks (phishing, token replay, OAuth consent abuse, and conditional access bypasses) rising in frequency and sophistication. Microsoft’s own Security Copilot and Entra product teams have prioritized Conditional Access automation to detect uncovered users/apps and recommend policy changes; the vendor already ships a Conditional Access Optimization agent in Entra that runs scheduled scans and proposes policy adjustments. These capabilities are now part of Microsoft’s supported tooling because Conditional Access misconfigurations are a persistent, high-impact failure mode.Ontinue’s announcement aligns directly with that trend: its Posture Advisor Agent Core targets the same operational problem—automating the identification and prioritization of Conditional Access gaps so security teams can close windows of exposure faster. The vendor also points to its own mid‑2025 threat report, which claims identity-focused attacks and MFA-bypass techniques have become a dominant initial-access vector—an assertion consistent with other industry reporting. That convergence of vendor tools and threat telemetry explains why agent-style policy auditors are getting immediate traction.
What Ontinue is shipping (product summary)
- A free configuration-auditing agent, named Posture Advisor Agent Core, published to the Microsoft Security Store Partner Ecosystem.
- Agent function: continuously evaluate Conditional Access policies in Microsoft Entra ID, detect gaps, misconfigurations, overlaps, and underutilized features, then produce actionable, prioritized reports.
- Delivery model: on-demand or scheduled reports; the vendor positions the agent as Microsoft-validated and easy to discover/purchase via the Security Store.
- Underpinned by a curated knowledge base built from Ontinue’s SecOps experience and Microsoft best practices—leveraging Security Copilot and Copilot Agent frameworks where applicable.
- Aims: reduce identity exposure, harden policy posture, and help organizations realize more value from Entra ID investments.
- Which permissions the agent requires to read and (optionally) apply suggested changes.
- Whether runs are tenant-scoped and how results are stored, archived, and purged.
- Billing and licensing implications (Microsoft Security Store listings may include metered compute or Security Copilot Security Compute Units).
- How the agent’s recommendations are surfaced—via downloadable reports, in‑portal suggestions, or as Security Copilot tiles—and whether suggestions are “apply with one click.”
Cross-checks and verifications
Key vendor claims were verified against public sources:- Ontinue’s past selection and recognition within Microsoft’s partner programs (winner of Microsoft Security Excellence/Services Innovator awards in 2023 and other partner recognitions) is documented in the company’s press archive and press releases. These awards and their timing are verifiable on Ontinue’s press pages and PR wires.
- Microsoft’s Security Copilot agent framework and the platform-level approach to agent governance, scheduling, and the Entra Conditional Access Optimization experience are fully described in Microsoft Security blog posts and Microsoft Learn documentation. These pages confirm that Microsoft expects agents to be able to scan for uncovered users/apps and to propose one‑click remediations—features Ontinue’s agent claims to complement.
- The broader market context—Microsoft consolidating agent and AI app distribution into a managed marketplace/storefront—is reported by multiple independent outlets and Microsoft partner announcements, confirming the Security Store/Marketplace strategy and the practical promise of simplified procurement and deployment.
- Ontinue’s 1H 2025 Threat Intelligence Report (the source of the company’s identity-threat claims) is an Ontinue publication and is reported by various outlets that re‑publish PR content. The report’s statistics are company-sourced; while they are credible and consistent with observed industry trends, they are self‑reported and should be treated as vendor telemetry unless corroborated by third‑party threat datasets.
Strengths and practical benefits
- Faster policy hygiene and repeatability
- Agents that continuously scan Conditional Access reduce manual audit cycles and the “discovery lag” during which new users or apps are not covered by policies.
- For teams with limited staff, a low-friction, automated report with prioritized fixes accelerates remediation cadence and reduces time-to-mitigation.
- Integration with Microsoft tooling and discoverability
- Being listed in the Security Store and built to work inside the Copilot/Entra framework lowers friction for deployment, access control, and billing—especially for customers who already centralize procurement in Microsoft partner channels.
- Operationalized best practice
- A partner-built agent that encodes Microsoft-recommended Conditional Access hygiene can help less mature Identity teams adopt Zero Trust-aligned settings and reduce reliance on tribal knowledge. When recommendations are grounded in Microsoft guidance and real-world SOC experience, they become easier to trust and act on.
- Free entry point
- Offering a free agent for the auditing path lowers the barrier to adoption and lets security teams evaluate the tooling before committing to paid services or integrations.
Risks, gaps, and unanswered questions
- Permission model and auditability
- Agents that audit and suggest changes typically require broad read access to identity configuration and sometimes delegated rights to modify policies. Customers must understand exactly which Azure AD/Entra roles the agent needs and which account triggers agent activity. Microsoft documentation shows agent runs are associated with the identity that enabled them—this creates an audit trail but also concentrates risk if that enabling account has standing privileges.
- Supply‑chain and third‑party trust
- Publishing in the Security Store simplifies procurement, but it also centralizes trust: a compromised vendor, or a poorly coded agent, could expose tenant metadata, leak sensitive configuration, or be manipulated into revealing PII. The Security Store reduces distribution friction, so enterprises must treat each agent like a vendor relationship—conduct security reviews, runtime verification, and supply‑chain checks. Independent reporting on the Store rollout highlights this as a central risk to watch.
- Over‑reliance on recommendations and automation
- AI-driven recommendations can be helpful but may miss contextual business risk or produce noisy change suggestions (false positives). Automations that apply policy changes automatically without analyst‑in‑the‑loop approvals risk unintended access disruptions. Microsoft’s agent guidance recommends report‑only modes and admin approvals; adopt these conservative defaults initially.
- Data exfiltration and prompt‑injection patterns
- Any agent that synthesizes tenant information—especially if it can answer free‑text queries—must be hardened against prompt injection and connector abuse. Guardrails must be in place to prevent the agent returning sensitive tokens, secrets, or object identifiers to unauthorized requesters.
- Licensing and hidden costs
- While an agent may be free to install, running it in a production tenant could use Security Compute Units (SCU), Security Copilot credits, or require Entra P1/P2 licensing for certain features. Clarify these costs up front to avoid surprise charges. Microsoft Learn and partner announcements describe such billing and licensing points for agent experiences.
- Data residency, retention, and compliance
- Ensure the agent’s report storage and telemetry retention conform to corporate and regulatory requirements: where are scan results stored, who can access them, and how long are they retained? Security Store listings do not obviate enterprise compliance responsibilities.
Practical deployment checklist for CISOs and Identity teams
- Read the Security Store listing and vendor documentation carefully
- Confirm the exact permissions requested, the account used to start the agent, and whether the agent can act autonomously or only propose changes.
- Start in a non‑production or report‑only mode
- Run the agent against a test tenant or a subset of users/apps. Validate findings manually before enabling any automated remediation.
- Use principle of least privilege for agent enablement
- Create a dedicated, monitored service account to enable and run the agent—not a Global Admin or an account that requires PIM elevation.
- Review audit trails and change ownership model
- Verify that all actions and approvals are clearly logged and attributable to a named admin account. Microsoft documents the audit association behavior for Entra agents; make sure this meets internal audit requirements.
- Validate recommendations against business context
- Some Conditional Access adjustments can break legitimate integrations (third‑party apps, service principals, automation). Cross-reference each suggested change with application owners.
- Confirm billing and compute unit consumption
- Ask the vendor and review Microsoft Marketplace listing for any metered SCU or Security Copilot billing implications.
- Implement vendor review and runtime monitoring
- Treat the agent as a production service: vulnerability scanning, penetration testing (where allowed), and periodic re‑validation of outputs.
- Maintain human‑in‑the‑loop controls for high‑impact remediations
- Require approvals for policy changes that affect large groups or critical services.
Strategic considerations for security leaders
- Short term: Deploying an agent like Posture Advisor Agent Core provides immediate value for baseline hardening and faster identification of uncovered identities/apps. Prioritize tenants with large app sprawl, many external collaborators, or dense IAM complexity.
- Mid term: Build agent outputs into existing ticketing and change-management workflows so that recommended changes become part of standard ops rather than ad‑hoc interventions.
- Long term: Combine agent-driven hygiene with continuous validation (chaos/auth exercises, OAuth app inventories, and token revocation drills). Ultimately, identity resilience is a process—not a one-time cleanup—and agents are accelerants, not substitutes, for governance and process maturity.
Final assessment — balancing promise and prudence
Ontinue’s Posture Advisor Agent Core, published to Microsoft’s Security Store Partner Ecosystem, is a practical, well‑timed tool that addresses an urgent operational need: continuous, actionable visibility into Conditional Access configurations in Microsoft Entra ID. The product sits squarely in the direction Microsoft itself has prioritized—agents that reduce toil for identity teams and scale policy hygiene across thousands of users and applications. Microsoft’s agent architecture, the Security Copilot program, and the newly consolidated Security Store make discoverability, procurement, and deployment easier for enterprise buyers; that consolidation is confirmed by Microsoft’s blog and independent coverage.However, the shift toward agent-based security operations also amplifies familiar enterprise risks: privilege concentration, supply‑chain exposure, automation errors, and potential hidden costs. The agent model compels security teams to treat agents as software vendors, not simple utilities—requiring vetting, runtime governance, and a human‑in‑the‑loop posture for impactful changes. Microsoft’s documentation and the Security Store design provide guardrails (report‑only modes, admin approvals, Entra agent identity traces), but these features need to be actively configured and audited.
For organizations invested in the Microsoft security stack, the path forward is pragmatic: evaluate Ontinue’s agent in a scoped pilot, validate recommendations against business context, and codify safe deployment patterns (least privilege, auditability, and manual approvals for critical changes). Done correctly, partner agents can materially reduce identity risk and shrink the window of exposure for critical cloud assets; done carelessly, they can add another vector for misconfiguration or data leakage. The technology is promising—adoption must be disciplined.
Conclusion
The arrival of Ontinue’s Posture Advisor Agent Core in Microsoft’s partner ecosystem is an example of the agent-driven security era maturing from concept to operational tooling. Organizations that treat agents as mission‑critical software—subject to vendor due diligence, careful permissioning, and phased rollout—stand to gain measurable improvements in identity hygiene. At the same time, the usual operational and supply‑chain risks remain; they require explicit attention from CISOs and identity teams as agents migrate from pilot projects into everyday security operations. Ontinue’s move is consistent with broader Microsoft strategy and market trends, but the real benefit will be determined by how well enterprises marry agent automation with governance, monitoring, and human oversight.
Source: The AI Journal Ontinue is a proud participant in the Microsoft Security Store Partner Ecosystem | The AI Journal
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