Common Conditional Access policy: Require a compliant device, Microsoft Entra hybrid joined device, or multifactor authentication for all users
Organizations who deploy Microsoft Intune can use the information returned from their devices to identify devices that meet compliance requirements such as:
- Requiring a PIN to unlock
- Requiring device encryption
- Requiring a minimum or maximum operating system version
- Requiring a device isn't jailbroken or rooted
Policy compliance information is sent to Microsoft Entra ID where Conditional Access decides to grant or block access to resources. More information about device compliance policies can be found in the article, Set rules on devices to allow access to resources in your organization using Intune
Requiring a Microsoft Entra hybrid joined device is dependent on your devices already being Microsoft Entra hybrid joined. For more information, see the article Configure Microsoft Entra hybrid join.
User exclusions
Conditional Access policies are powerful tools, we recommend excluding the following accounts from your policies:
- Emergency access or break-glass accounts to prevent tenant-wide account lockout. In the unlikely scenario all administrators are locked out of your tenant, your emergency-access administrative account can be used to log into the tenant to take steps to recover access.
- More information can be found in the article, Manage emergency access accounts in Microsoft Entra ID.
- Service accounts and service principals, such as the Microsoft Entra Connect Sync Account. Service accounts are non-interactive accounts that aren't tied to any particular user. They're normally used by back-end services allowing programmatic access to applications, but are also used to sign in to systems for administrative purposes. Service accounts like these should be excluded since MFA can't be completed programmatically. Calls made by service principals won't be blocked by Conditional Access policies scoped to users. Use Conditional Access for workload identities to define policies targeting service principals.
- If your organization has these accounts in use in scripts or code, consider replacing them with managed identities. As a temporary workaround, you can exclude these specific accounts from the baseline policy.
Template deployment
Organizations can choose to deploy this policy using the steps outlined below or using the Conditional Access templates.
Create a Conditional Access policy
The following steps help create a Conditional Access policy to require multifactor authentication, devices accessing resources be marked as compliant with your organization's Intune compliance policies, or be Microsoft Entra hybrid joined.
- Sign in to the Azure portal as a Conditional Access Administrator, Security Administrator, or Global Administrator.
- Browse to Microsoft Entra ID > Security > Conditional Access.
- Select Create New policy.
- Give your policy a name. We recommend that organizations create a meaningful standard for the names of their policies.
- Under Assignments, select Users or workload identities.
- Under Include, select All users.
- Under Exclude, select Users and groups and choose your organization's emergency access or break-glass accounts.
- Under Target resources > Cloud apps > Include, select All cloud apps.
- If you must exclude specific applications from your policy, you can choose them from the Exclude tab under Select excluded cloud apps and choose Select.
- Under Access controls > Grant.
- Select Require multifactor authentication, Require device to be marked as compliant, and Require Microsoft Entra hybrid joined device
- For multiple controls select Require one of the selected controls.
- Select Select.
- Confirm your settings and set Enable policy to Report-only.
- Select Create to create to enable your policy.
After administrators confirm the settings using report-only mode, they can move the Enable policy toggle from Report-only to On.
Note
You can enroll your new devices to Intune even if you select Require device to be marked as compliant for All users and All cloud apps using the previous steps. Require device to be marked as compliant control does not block Intune enrollment and the access to the Microsoft Intune Web Company Portal application.
Known behavior
On Windows 7, iOS, Android, macOS, and some non-Microsoft web browsers, Microsoft Entra ID identifies the device using a client certificate that is provisioned when the device is registered with Microsoft Entra ID. When a user first signs in through the browser the user is prompted to select the certificate. The end user must select this certificate before they can continue to use the browser.
Subscription activation
Organizations that use the Subscription Activation feature to enable users to "step-up" from one version of Windows to another and use Conditional Access policies to control access need to exclude one of the following cloud apps from their Conditional Access policies using Select Excluded Cloud Apps:
Universal Store Service APIs and Web Application, AppID 45a330b1-b1ec-4cc1-9161-9f03992aa49f.
Windows Store for Business, AppID 45a330b1-b1ec-4cc1-9161-9f03992aa49f.
Although the app ID is the same in both instances, the name of the cloud app depends on the tenant.
For more information about configuring exclusions in Conditional Access policies, see Application exclusions.
When a device is offline for an extended period of time, the device might not reactivate automatically if this Conditional Access exclusion isn't in place. Setting this Conditional Access exclusion ensures that Subscription Activation continues to work seamlessly.
Starting with Windows 11, version 23H2 with KB5034848 or later, users are prompted for authentication with a toast notification when Subscription Activation needs to reactivate. The toast notification shows the following message:
Your account requires authentication
Please sign in to your work or school account to verify your information.
Additionally, in the Activation pane, the following message might appear:
Please sign in to your work or school account to verify your information.
The prompt for authentication usually occurs when a device is offline for an extended period of time. This change eliminates the need for an exclusion in the Conditional Access policy for Windows 11, version 23H2 with KB5034848 or later. A Conditional Access policy can still be used with Windows 11, version 23H2 with KB5034848 or later if the prompt for user authentication via a toast notification isn't desired.