Microsoft Intune posture, checked against best practice

Intune manages your devices. Senserva audits whether your compliance and configuration policies actually harden them.

Microsoft Intune is the cloud engine for device management and endpoint security across Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. It enrolls devices, pushes compliance policies and configuration profiles, drives update rings, and integrates with Conditional Access and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. Intune is excellent at applying configuration. Independently verifying that configuration, ranking the gaps by risk, mapping them to compliance, and tying device patch state to real CVEs is a second job, and that is where Senserva comes in.

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How Senserva makes it better

Senserva runs standalone for full Microsoft 365 posture across configurations, logs, and CVEs, or right alongside Microsoft Intune.

What Microsoft Intune does wellWhere teams want more
Cross-platform MDM and MAM across Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.Intune applies settings; it does not independently grade them by severity with evidence and a fix.
Compliance policies, configuration profiles, and security baselines.Mapping device posture to MCSB, CISA SCuBA, or CIS benchmarks is manual.
Update rings, Windows Update for Business, and Windows Autopatch.Tying missing patches to specific CVEs, KEV status, and exploit likelihood is out of scope.
Tight integration with Entra ID Conditional Access and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.Unassigned or conflicting profiles can quietly hide real exposure.

Side by side

CapabilityMicrosoft IntuneSenserva
Device configuration and profilesCore strengthIndependent verification and scoring
Severity-ranked findings with fixesLimited650+ checks, evidence and remediation
Compliance mapping (MCSB, SCuBA, CIS)ManualNative on every scan
Patch coverage verificationSelf-reportedAzure Update Manager, Intune, Defender TVM
CVE risk rankingNot nativeMSRC, CISA KEV, EPSS
Device-to-CVE exposureNoGraph relationships

Comparison reflects general capabilities at time of writing and is provided for research. Vendor features change; verify current specifics with each vendor.

A complete Microsoft 365 dataset for the AI of your choice

Senserva builds a complete, structured Microsoft 365 security dataset, configuration, identity, devices, logs, CVEs, and compliance mappings, as one connected graph, and opens all of it to the AI of your choice through the Claude MCP and the Senserva SDK. Bring your own model, there is no AI markup. Point Claude, or any AI you run, at the whole dataset and it can audit, threat-hunt, explain, and remediate from your real findings, not a vendor summary.

That is the part most tools do not give you. Many have no AI at all, or a closed built-in assistant you cannot point at your own model, or they keep their findings in a dashboard you cannot query. Where a tool does expose its data to your AI, Senserva runs right alongside it and adds the rest of the Microsoft 365 picture. Either way, the data stays with you, nothing is locked in a vendor cloud.

A closer look

Device compliance policies versus configuration profiles

Intune splits endpoint posture into two ideas that are easy to confuse. Compliance policies decide whether a device is considered healthy, minimum OS build, encryption on, antivirus active, and feed that signal into Conditional Access. Configuration profiles and security baselines actually apply the settings. The common failure mode is not a wrong setting but an unassigned or conflicting one: a profile that targets the wrong group, a baseline superseded by a custom profile, or a compliance policy with no Conditional Access consuming its result. Auditing assignment and effective state, not just the policy that exists, is what turns a tidy console into real assurance.

Attack surface reduction, BitLocker, and Defender hardening

The settings attackers care about most live in Windows endpoint hardening. Attack surface reduction (ASR) rules block common techniques, Office child-process and macro abuse, credential theft from LSASS, ransomware behavior, and untrusted USB executables, and each rule can sit in audit, block, or off. BitLocker covers system, fixed, and removable drives, with recovery-key escrow and rotation that are frequently overlooked. Microsoft Defender Antivirus settings (real-time protection, cloud-delivered protection, PUA, tamper protection) and the three firewall profiles (domain, private, public) round out the baseline. A single ASR rule left in audit can be the gap that matters.

Patching with Intune: update rings, Windows Update for Business, and Autopatch

Intune drives Windows patching through update rings built on Windows Update for Business: quality and feature update deferrals, active hours, deadline and grace periods, and pause windows. Windows Autopatch extends this with managed, staged rollouts and reporting, and driver and firmware update policies handle the hardware layer. The questions that decide real exposure are operational: are rings assigned to every device, are deferrals so long that critical fixes lag, and are devices stalled on a feature update that has reached end of servicing.

Third-party app patching and the Win32 gap

Microsoft Update keeps Windows and Microsoft apps current, but the software attackers exploit most, browsers, runtimes, PDF readers, conferencing clients, is third-party. Intune Enterprise App Management and Win32 app packaging let you deploy and update these, and tools like PatchMyPC, ManageEngine, Automox, Action1, and Ivanti publish their catalogs into Intune so third-party patching can converge with Windows patching. The long tail is where coverage usually breaks down, and where an independent inventory of installed versus patched versions earns its keep.

From a missing patch to real CVE risk

A list of missing KBs is not a risk assessment. Microsoft's Security Response Center (MSRC) maps each KB to the CVEs it fixes; those CVEs carry CVSS severity, a CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) flag when they are being exploited in the wild, and an EPSS score estimating exploit probability. Joining device patch state to that enrichment turns raw counts into a ranked list: these specific machines are missing a patch for an actively exploited, high-EPSS vulnerability, fix them first. That device-to-CVE view is the difference between patch reporting and vulnerability management.

Frequently asked

Does Senserva replace Microsoft Intune?

No. Intune manages and configures devices; Senserva independently audits the resulting posture, ranks it by severity, maps it to compliance, and verifies patch coverage with real CVE context.

How does Senserva check Intune device patching?

It reads patch state through Microsoft's own APIs, Azure Update Manager for Azure and Arc-enabled machines, Intune via Microsoft Graph, and Microsoft Defender vulnerability management, so it confirms the result on the device regardless of how the update was delivered.

Can Senserva tie a device to a specific CVE?

Yes. It links devices to missing patches and missing patches to the CVEs they fix, enriched with CVSS scores, CISA KEV exploited status, and EPSS exploit probability, so you can answer which devices are exposed to a given vulnerability.

Which Intune areas does it cover?

Compliance policies, configuration profiles, attack surface reduction rules, BitLocker and disk encryption, Microsoft Defender antivirus and firewall, application control, the Windows security experience, update rings and driver updates, and device ownership and support state, roughly 190 device-management checks.

Do I need to install agents or grant broad access?

No agents and no cloud service. Senserva reads your tenant through Microsoft's APIs and runs on Windows or Mac. You can explore the whole product first on the free Advanced Microsoft 365 Security Simulator, with no access to your environment at all.

How does Senserva use AI, and does it cost extra?

Senserva is built for AI from the ground up and also runs fully without it. Turn it on for AI-enhanced reports and to run the product from Claude, or the AI of your choice, via our market-leading MCP. You bring your own model, so there is no AI markup, and the rich data model keeps calls and cost low.

What customers say about Senserva

"For MSPs especially, it's the kind of engine that can turn a complicated tenant review into actionable next steps."

Simon Ronald, Cybersecurity & IT Director, Brave North Technology