Project page

GitHub - Week 1

Week 1 Overview

This week focused on mastering Microsoft Defender for Cloud deployment through three distinct approaches, building a solid security infrastructure foundation to support AI integration in subsequent weeks. The primary goal was to establish comprehensive deployment expertise while preparing for Week 2’s modern unified security operations platform.

Planned Activities

Deployment Mastery Approaches

• Azure Portal Deployment: Comprehensive learning path with visual interface and detailed explanations
• Modular Infrastructure-as-Code: PowerShell + Bicep templates for controlled automation
• Complete Automation: Enterprise-ready single-command deployment
• Regional Deployment Configuration: East US deployment for complete AI security coverage and Week 2 compliance

Infrastructure Foundation

• Baseline security policies and monitoring configuration
• Defender for Cloud plans enablement across all subscription services
• Virtual machine deployment for testing and validation scenarios
• Just-in-Time (JIT) access policies implementation
• Microsoft Sentinel integration for SIEM capabilities

Documentation and Validation

• Deployment comparison guide with practical recommendations
• Week 2 bridge validation for modern unified security operations readiness
• Automated decommission scripts for lab cleanup
• Learning resources compilation and organization

Key Deliverables

1. Three-Approach Deployment Mastery

Status: [COMPLETE]

Project page

GitHub - Sentinel-as-Code

Project Overview

If you’ve ever found yourself manually clicking through the Azure portal to deploy resources, what starts as a simple “quick setup” quickly becomes hours of configuration, validation, and hoping you didn’t miss a critical setting. That’s exactly the problem I set out to solve with this Infrastructure as Code automation framework.

This project represents my journey to build a comprehensive solution for deploying and managing Microsoft Sentinel environments using Azure DevOps Pipelines. The goal was simple: make security operations scalable, repeatable and easy to update.

Version: 1.0.0

Author: Marcus Jacobson

License: MIT

Repository: GitHub

Project Status

• Foundation Infrastructure: COMPLETE
• Analytics Rules (NRT): COMPLETE
• Analytics Rules (Scheduled): COMPLETE
• Watchlist Automation: COMPLETE
• Hunting Queries: Planned
• Automation Rules: Planned
• Workbooks: Planned
• Data Connectors: Available via Content Hub

Project Goal

This project provides a comprehensive automation framework for deploying and managing Microsoft Sentinel environments using Azure DevOps Pipelines. The framework enables organizations to implement security operations at scale with consistency, repeatability, and governance through Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles.

Project page

GitHub - Week 0

Week 0 Overview

This week focuses on establishing the foundational infrastructure and workflows for the 12-week AI Security Skills Challenge. The goal is to create a robust project management and documentation ecosystem that will support the entire learning journey.

Planned Activities

Project Management Setup

• Set up Azure DevOps project board
• Define sprint structure for 12-week timeline
• Create work items and backlog for each week
• Configure project tracking and reporting

Documentation Infrastructure

• Initialize GitHub repository structure
• Set up Hugo-based GitHub Pages site
• Create folder structure for prompt library
• Define prompt tagging convention and markdown templates
• Create project scaffolding in portfolio site

Prompt Library Foundation

• Organize prompt library by domain (Security, Governance, AI Agents)
• Create markdown template for prompt entries
• [ ] Set up Microsoft 365 Copilot Prompt Gallery integration
• [ ] Develop PowerShell automation for weekly prompt library backup

Note: The steps relating to the M365 prompt library are being omitted from the project since I was only able to save prompts to my personal list, with no good way available yet to save a prompt library specific for the project. Therefore GitHub will be the central source of truth for prompts.