Blog Post

Device Management in Microsoft
2 MIN READ

MacOs Conditional Access at Microsoft

naveenak's avatar
naveenak
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Feb 05, 2020

 

Conditional access is a combination of policies and configurations from the products and services which are part of Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS). This will allow ITPros to set granular access control to keep corporate data secure, while giving users rich experience that allows them to do their best work from any device, and from any location.

 

At Microsoft, to manage devices and control access to corporate resources, we use Intune and Azure Active Directory (AAD). From Intune, we deploy compliance policies and from AAD we enforce required conditions on required apps.

 

To configure standard policies on devices, we use device restriction policies to configure password requirements and other security policies. To validate the device compliance status, we have policies to validate device password status, OS version, and device health status. Conditional access is then enforced for Office 365 apps in AAD.

 

Enrollment experience for the user

To access work email, corporate wireless network, internal apps and to use VPN services, users need to enroll their devices into Microsoft Intune.

 

  1. Users can enroll devices before accessing any Corporate resources by downloading the company portal app from company portal website.

Or

  1. users can access any corporate resource which has conditional access enforcement and they will redirect automatically to download company portal.

 

 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune-user-help/enroll-your-device-in-intune-macos-cp

 

User experience with enrollment

  • After enrollment, during first login authentication, users will be forced to change the login password if the organization has a password compliance policy targeted.
  • If the device already is enrolled and for some reason the user is required to rebuild the device, it is recommended to unenroll the device before rebuilding it.

users need to approve management profile by going to Apple menu > System Preferences, click Profiles

 

 

Best practices to improve user experience MacOS

  • If users don’t select “always allow during the authentication”, Keychain will prompt authentication multiple times.
  • If the device is enrolled multiple times, AAD will accumulate multiple records for that device and cause issues with device compliance status intermittently, It is recommended to cleanup non-active AAD records frequently.
  • Users should be made aware that they may have different experience with authentication for different app as keychain access requirements are different.
  • If any user having access issues due to conditional access policies, then it is recommended to collect details from the more info tab during the error message. This will help to investigate more accurately sing-in logs in AAD.
  • Encourage users not to unenroll reenroll device. This might corrupt require keys in Keychain.

 

Conclusion

Hopefully this post has given you some ideas on how to implement conditional access on Mac devices and improve organizational security.

 

Updated Feb 05, 2020
Version 1.0

3 Comments

  • jpanka's avatar
    jpanka
    Copper Contributor

    naveenak 

    1. Users can enroll devices before accessing any Corporate resources by downloading the company portal app from company portal website.

    But how can I enforce the company portal when the user signs in with their credentials, there must be a way to force company portal by conditional acces and not to send/share the provided (download) link with the user.

  • mistygeese77 Yes that is correct, it requires change in password irrespective of current password status, as Intune needs to evaluate the password/PIN compliance status. 

  • mistygeese77's avatar
    mistygeese77
    Copper Contributor

    naveenak wrote:
    • After enrollment, during first login authentication, users will be forced to change the login password if the organization has a password compliance policy targeted.

    naveenak So if I understand correctly, when I enroll an macOS user to Company Portal, he or she must always change his/her password? Not only if the password does not meet the complexity requirements?