How to Analyze Conditional Access Policy Sign-in Impacts with Entra ID

Monitoring report-only mode Conditional Access policies are crucial for Microsoft 365 admins to avoid disruptions. By running policies in this mode, admins can see potential impacts, such as work disruptions, user blocks, or unexpected MFA challenges, without enforcing them. It ensures that the policies apply correctly to users and devices when activated.

Here are the steps to find sign-ins evaluated by report-only mode Conditional Access policies.

The report displays which conditions matched, did not match, were not configured, and which access controls were satisfied or blocked. Reviewing conditions such as user, application, device, location, client app, and more helps admins to identify potential issues or misconfigurations. This comprehensive overview ensures that admins can fine-tune policies to optimize security and user experience.

The main drawback of using native methods to monitor report-only mode sign-ins is the short retention period of sign-in logs in Microsoft Entra. This period is 30 days or less, depending on the licensing. As a result, the historical data available for analysis is limited, making it difficult to track long-term trends and impacts.

• The Sign-ins Failed by Report-only Policy Requirement report from AdminDroid simplifies the process and helps you stay on top of your security measures.
• These reports detail sign-in time, signed-in user, app, authentication requirement, applied report-only mode CA policies, device, location, and more, allowing you to pinpoint sign-in failures and fine-tune your CA policies effectively.

Handy Hint: Easily schedule reports to regularly analyze Conditional Access policies in the report-only mode without hassle. Just click the clock icon ⏰ in the top right corner to set it up.

Analyze sign-ins that failed to meet Conditional Access conditions to understand how these policies impact user access in Microsoft 365. Conditional Access (CA) policies add an extra layer of security by defining conditions under which users can access services, such as requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) or blocking access from certain locations or devices.

Monitoring sign-in failures where users do not meet Conditional Access (CA) requirements is crucial for protecting your organization against security breaches. Additionally, it helps minimize disruptions that could impact critical operations.

By following these steps and analyzing the conditions, you can effectively investigate sign-ins failed by Conditional Access policies, ensuring a secure and smooth user experience in Microsoft 365.

Tip 💡: Check the Basic info tab for failure reasons, additional details, and troubleshooting steps to diagnose sign-in issues.

• The details pane of a sign-in event in AdminDroid’s Users failed to fulfill CA requirements report describes every aspect of how Conditional Access policies impacted that event.
• The report outlines the CA policies behind the sign-in failure and highlights key data like user information, location specifics, risk detections, device details, MFA status, and more.
• These insights help admins pinpoint vulnerabilities, adjust policies, and prevent future sign-in failures, reinforcing security and ensuring seamless access control.

Did you know that sign-ins can fail even when they meet CA policies if those policies include block controls? Yes, when these policies are triggered, they result in sign-in failures. Identifying sign-ins blocked by these policies are essential for resolving access issues, improving both security and user experience.

However, Microsoft does not clearly indicate when a sign-in attempt has failed, even if the Conditional Access policy was successfully applied. These are often categorized as errors, with the failure reason simply stating, "Access has been blocked by Conditional Access policies" without detailing the CA policy conditions in the Sign-in logs.

To find these blocked sign-ins, go to the Microsoft Entra sign-in logs page and set the Conditional Access filter to Failure. Specifically, look for sign-in events with error code 53003 and the corresponding failure reason. However, this limitation results in a time-consuming process for monitoring sign-ins and lacks comprehensive details or easy-to-read reports.

• The Sign-ins Successfully Blocked By CA Policy report from AdminDroid provides details on conditions such as user identity, application, location, device, and the specific CA policy that caused the block.
• These reports streamline your workflow, enhance visibility into access issues, and improve the overall security posture of your Microsoft 365 environment.

Locking down Microsoft 365 requires more than passwords - enabling MFA is a must! Deploying MFA with Conditional Access policies demands careful configuration, and ensuring these policies operate smoothly and securely is absolutely critical.

Monitoring MFA-prompted sign-ins helps evaluate the effectiveness of your Conditional Access policies. For instance, if an attacker gains access to an employee's password, MFA can prevent unauthorized access. Tracking MFA-based sign-ins enforced by Conditional Access policies is crucial. It ensures that multi-factor authentication is applied effectively, allows admins to detect unusual or suspicious login attempts, and identifies users who may try to bypass MFA or face difficulties with the process.

Microsoft 365 doesn't provide an explicit way to monitor MFA-prompted sign-ins enforced by Conditional Access policies. However, you can use filters to analyze these sign-in events closely.

• The MFA Prompted Conditional Access Sign-ins report identifies users configured for MFA enforcement by CA policies.
• The report details sign-in time, signed-in user, application name, device name, MFA status, applied CA policies, location, and more, allowing you to identify and respond to unusual activity quickly.

Conditional Access is crucial for providing granular access control in Microsoft 365, but monitoring its configurations is essential. Missing critical users, devices, or locations in your CA policies can lead to significant work disruptions and security issues. Identifying gaps in your Conditional Access policies in Entra ID is vital to maintain a secure and efficient environment.

To simplify this process, Microsoft offers the Conditional Access gap analyzer workbook. This Entra ID workbook generates charts and reports to visualize missed configurations in Conditional Access policies.

This pre-built workbook includes five sections to identify potential gaps in Conditional Access policies:

By leveraging the Conditional Access gap analyzer workbook, you can proactively identify and address gaps in your CA policies, enhancing your organization's overall security posture. However, this analyzer is limited to five sections. Are you worried that you won't get all the details you need?

The 'What If' tool in Microsoft Entra lets you evaluate Conditional Access sign-ins by simulating user scenarios, avoiding the need for multiple manual sign-ins. Instead of testing CA policies in a live environment, it generates a report predicting how policies will apply to a simulated sign-in, making it a valuable tool for identifying potential access issues proactively.

The 'What If' tool allows you to investigate how your Conditional Access policies impact specific accounts individually. This is particularly useful when you want to focus on critical accounts, such as executive accounts, guest user accounts, third-party vendor accounts, work-from-home employee accounts, emergency accounts, service accounts, and more. By using this tool, you can precisely evaluate the effects on these key accounts without having to review all Conditional Access policy sign-ins.

The results will show which Conditional Access policies will apply to the selected user and scenario, as well as those that won’t apply. The results will also include details on the grant and session controls that will be enforced and provide explanations for why specific policies are not applied.

Overall, the "What If" tool provides a safe and effective way to test and validate Conditional Access policies sign-ins, helping maintain a secure and efficient access management system.