Cloud attach - Endpoint Managers silver lining - part 6 Enabling conditional access

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Introduction

This is part 6 in a series of guides about cloud attach in Microsoft Endpoint Manager, with the aim of getting you up and running with all things cloud attach. This part will focus on enabling the compliance policies workload. This series is co-written by Niall & Paul, both of whom are Enterprise Mobility MVP’s with broad experience in the area of modern management. Paul is 4 times Enterprise Mobility MVP based in the UK and Niall is 10 times Enterprise Mobility MVP based in Sweden.

In part 1 we configured Azure AD connect to sync accounts from the on premise infrastructure to the cloud. In part 2, we prepared Azure resources for the Cloud Management Gateway, in part 3 we created the cloud management gateway and verified that everything was running smoothly. In part 4 we enabled co-management. With co-management, you retain your  existing processes for using Configuration Manager to manage PCs in your organization and you gain the additional advantage of being able to transfer workloads to the cloud via Endpoint Manager (Intune). In part 5 we enabled the compliance policies workload and reviewed how that affected a co-managed computer. In this part we will enable conditional access and see how that can be used to deny access to company resources.

Conditional access is easy to use when you enable co-management. It requires moving the Compliance Policies workload to Intune. We've already completed both of those activities in the previous 2 parts. Now we will configure conditional access and we'll use it to deny access to company resources unless the device is encrypted with BitLocker.

Conditional Access makes sure that only trusted users can access organizational resources on trusted devices using trusted apps. It's built from scratch in the cloud. Whether you're managing devices with Intune or extending your Configuration Manager deployment with co-management, it works the same way. Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/comanage/quickstart-conditional-access

Below you can find all parts in this series.

 

• Cloud attach - Endpoint Managers silver lining - part 1 Configuring Azure AD connect
• Cloud attach - Endpoint Managers silver lining - part 2 Prepare for a Cloud Management Gateway
• Cloud attach - Endpoint Managers silver lining - part 3 Creating a Cloud Management Gateway
• Cloud attach - Endpoint Managers silver lining - part 4 Enabling co-management
• Cloud attach - Endpoint Managers silver lining - part 5 Enabling compliance policies workload
• Cloud attach - Endpoint Managers silver lining - part 6 Enabling conditional access <- you are here
• Cloud attach - Endpoint Managers silver lining - part 7 Co-managing Azure AD devices
• Cloud attach - Endpoint Managers silver lining - part 8 Enabling tenant attach
• Cloud attach - Endpoint Managers silver lining - part 9 Renewing expiring certificates
• Cloud attach - Endpoint Managers silver lining - part 10 Using apps with tenant attach

License requirements

Using this feature requires an Azure AD Premium P1 license. To find the right license for your requirements, see Comparing generally available features of the Free, Basic, and Premium editions. Customers with Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses also have access to Conditional Access features. Sign-in Risk requires access to Identity Protection

Step 1. Add some users to an Azure AD group

To test conditional access we'll first create an Azure AD group and populate it with some test users. In Microsoft Endpoint Manager, select Groups, then select + New Group, give it a suitable name such as Conditional Access pilot users. Add some test users by clicking on No members selected, select the users you want to test conditional access with and then click on Create.

 

Step 2. Configure conditional access

Now you'll create your first conditional access policy, to do so in Microsoft Endpoint Manager, select devices and then select Conditional Access from the Policy node (shown below).

In the Conditional Access pane, click on + New Policy, give it a suitable name such as Require Compliance

In the Assignments section click on 0 users and groups selected, in the pane that appears select Include, and select select users and groups and add the Azure ad group created in step 1.

 

For the Cloud apps or actions selection, select No cloud apps or actions selected and then choose select apps and select a suitable app such as Office 365.

For the Conditions selection, select 0 conditions selected and select the following conditions, Device platforms, select select device platforms and select Windows as shown here and then select Done.

 

Note: You could use other conditions to fine grain the conditional access rules such as trusted locations, use modern authentication only etc but this is just an example.

Next, select the Access controls you wish to apply to this policy. For Grant select that the device is marked as Require device to be marked as compliant. Click Select when done.

 

Finally, we will set the policy to Report-only for now so we can test the rule in case we have negative impact on the targeted users which can later be remedied before switching the policy On. Finally, click on Create.

 

For more details on the Report-only setting see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/conditional-access/concept-conditional-access-report-only

 

Step 3. Testing conditional access

Note: Make sure that the devices you use for testing are targeted with the compliance policy created in Part 5 before continuing by adding them to that Configuration Manager collection which we enabled for sync to the cloud (co-managed compliance policy devices) or targeting the assignment to those devices.

Below you can see our test devices.

And here you can see that the device in question MININT-08FAO5S is Co-managed and with a compliance state of not compliant.

On a computer that is not encrypted with BitLocker encryption and therefore not compliant, login as a user that is in the group created in step 1.

Once done, open a web browser and browse to https://www.office.com

In portal.azure.com select Azure Active directory and scroll down to Sign-ins. This will list all sign-ins for that tenant.

Select the latest sign-in for the test user testuser1 (which is added to the azure ad group we created in step 1).

As this conditional access policy is in report-only mode, select the Report-only tab and you'll see a report of what happened and it's status as shown here:

Now that we've verified it works, let's flip the compliance policy to On and click Save.

On the test computer, sign out of office and once again try and browse to https://www.office.com you should see that conditional access blocks access to that resource !

 

And back in Azure AD, if you check the sign-ins and this time select the Conditional Access tab... you can see that it's correctly reported as a failure.

At this point, you can go ahead and encrypt the device with BitLocker, so that it becomes Compliant in Intune.

Here we can see the device is listed now as Compliant.

Now that it is compliant, verify that it can access Office while using Conditional Access. It should work just fine.

And you can verify that too, in the Azure AD sign-ins, using the Conditional Access tab, here you can see that for the policy named Require compliance, with a grant controls of require compliant device it has a result of Success.

Job done, you've successfully enabled your first Conditional Access policy and reviewed how it functions on a co-managed device.

Please join us in the part 7 where we'll take an Azure AD joined device and add make it co-managed.

Related reading

• Quick start conditional access - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/comanage/quickstart-conditional-access
• What is Conditional Access in Azure Active Directory - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/conditional-access/overview