Security

Privileged Identity Management is a great feature within Azure AD to provide just-in-time access to your admin roles and Azure resources. But some roles may require an extra level of security, for the simple fact the role is highly privileged, and (hopefully) rarely used. With the current capabilities, you are able to activate an approval step, but that is only limited to one approver. In this article, I will show you how you can use Azure AD Identity Governance to create… 

I was recently invited by the Dutch Virtual Desktop User Group to present a session about Identity Security. Now, because this was in Dutch (my native language), I decided to do a ‘short’ write-up in English, so everybody can benefit from this. I shared 10 tips on how to secure your identities, but not before I showed how easy it is to phish Office 365 credentials, even if they are protected with MFA. You can also check the recording in… 

This blog post is for all those organizations out there with stale, overprivileged accounts having standing access to Azure AD roles, that nobody knows about, far away from the HR systems and on/offboarding processes. This is often a huge problem and the elephant in the (security) room. Now, what can we do about it? I assume you are already aware of Azure AD Privileged Identity Management, and the great features that it brings. In short: with PIM you can reduce… 

One of the requirements to use FIDO2 security keys with your Microsoft 365 or Azure Active Directory account is multi-factor authentication. So if the user has not added an authentication method, they need to do that first, in order to add the FIDO2 security key to the account. That is sort of a chicken and egg situation. To work around that, we can use Azure Active Directory’s Temporary Access Pass (TAP) to onboard the user. Using this method, TAP will… 

With all the new improvements to the Microsoft Authenticator App, this seems a good time to highlight a new capability in Azure AD: Registration Campain, also known as the nudge feature. Also, organizations should move away from phone transports for authentication. If your users use text (SMS) for second-factor authentication, they have very little context, and therefore might be confusing. On top of that, attackers use SIM jacking techniques to bypass those phone methods. By far the most secure way… 

Update 26-11-2021 As this feature is now in public preview, you can also manage those settings via the Azure portal now. You can find the new settings under Azure Active Directory -> Security -> Authentication methods -> Authenticator App. By default, both settings are managed by Microsoft. You can either enable or disable the feature. Learn more from the Microsoft docs: Use number matching in multifactor authentication (MFA) notifications (Preview) – Azure Active Directory | Microsoft DocsUse additional context in… 

Today’s post is about Role Assignable Groups. Are you new to this? Please check out this post first. If you are already familiar with Role Assignable Groups, you might know, these types of groups have an immutable property ” isAssignableToRole” that cannot be changed. Therefore, you cannot convert existing groups into Role Assignable Groups and vice versa. Role Assignable Groups do not support group nesting, and the group cannot be dynamic as well. So you have two options: Start from… 

Disclaimer: this is a proof of concept, not something that is supported or recommended by me or Microsoft. Needless to say, don’t do this in your, or your customers’ (production) environment. This article points to internal API’s, and those are most likely be changed over time. With that out of the way: on with the show! What are we looking at? As discussed before, there are a lot (and counting) ways to enroll for multi-factor authentication in Azure AD. Two… 

I have used this feature from the very beginning, but now that it reached GA (General Availability) in August 2021, it seemed like a good moment to talk about Role Assignable groups, and how they can help on our Zero Trust adventure. Before this feature existed, Azure AD roles could only be assigned to individual user accounts. Since only Global- and Privileged Role Administrators can assign roles, this is a very cumbersome process. Especially when you are working with larger…