Maybe Andrew being overly cautious, was assuming most government users didn't know these basic facts, and should be warned anyway? Was MS pushing back on his report because communicating something like this to users would probably sow too much confusion?
That would still a failure on MS's part, but would make for a much more boring story. The article makes it seem like Andrew discovered an atomic bomb and MS pushed it under the rug. The reality seems much more bland.
But still, could you elaborate on the default configuration being insecure? I know next to nothing about Azure/Entra, maybe I'm missing something important.
According to the article, that's not the reason Microsoft gave for not advising it. The reasons they gave were (1) it would make governments scared and jeopardize contracts and (2) it would let hackers know about the attack.
Also according to the article, the NYPD weren't aware of the problem until Harris warned them of it, then they quickly disabled seamless SSO:
>On a visit to the NYPD, Harris told a top IT official, Matthew Fraser, about the AD FS weakness and recommended disabling seamless SSO. Fraser was in disbelief at the severity of the issue, Harris recalled, and he agreed to disable seamless SSO.
>In an interview, Fraser confirmed the meeting.
>“This was identified as one of those areas that was prime, ripe,” Fraser said of the SAML weakness. “From there, we figured out what’s the best path to insulate and secure.”
>But still, could you elaborate on the default configuration being insecure? I know next to nothing about Azure/Entra, maybe I'm missing something important.
I'm not very familiar with Azure either. I'm getting most of this from the article. It sounds like the weakness is that by default trust federation to Microsoft 365 is enabled. Microsoft's post-Solarwinds article recommends disabling it.