Require multifactor authentication for admins accessing Microsoft admin portals

Microsoft recommends securing access to any Microsoft admin portals like Microsoft Entra, Microsoft 365, Exchange, and Azure. Using the Microsoft Admin Portals app organizations can control interactive access to Microsoft admin portals.

Microsoft recommends you require phishing-resistant multifactor authentication on the following roles at a minimum:

  • Global Administrator
  • Application Administrator
  • Authentication Administrator
  • Billing Administrator
  • Cloud Application Administrator
  • Conditional Access Administrator
  • Exchange Administrator
  • Helpdesk Administrator
  • Password Administrator
  • Privileged Authentication Administrator
  • Privileged Role Administrator
  • Security Administrator
  • SharePoint Administrator
  • User Administrator

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 lockout due to policy misconfiguration. In the unlikely scenario where all administrators are locked out, your emergency access administrative account can be used to sign in and recover access.
  • Service accounts and Service principals, such as the Microsoft Entra Connect Sync Account. Service accounts are noninteractive accounts that aren't tied to any specific user. They're typically used by backend services to allow programmatic access to applications, but they're also used to sign in to systems for administrative purposes. Calls made by service principals aren't blocked by Conditional Access policies scoped to users. Use Conditional Access for workload identities to define policies that target service principals.
    • If your organization uses these accounts in scripts or code, replace them with managed identities.

Template deployment

Organizations can deploy this policy by following the steps outlined below or by using the Conditional Access templates.

Create a Conditional Access policy

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal as at least a Conditional Access Administrator.
  2. Browse to Microsoft Entra ID > Security > Conditional Access.
  3. Select Create new policy.
  4. Give your policy a name. We recommend that organizations create a meaningful standard for the names of their policies.
  5. Under Assignments, select Users or workload identities.

    1. Under Include, select Directory roles and choose at least the previously listed roles.

      Warning

      Conditional Access policies support built-in roles. Conditional Access policies are not enforced for other role types including administrative unit-scoped or custom roles.

    2. Under Exclude, select Users and groups and choose your organization's emergency access or break-glass accounts.

  6. Under Target resources > Resources (formerly cloud apps) > Include, Select resources, select Microsoft Admin Portals.
  7. Under Access controls > Grant, select Grant access, Require authentication strength, select Multifactor authentication, then select Select.
  8. Confirm your settings and set Enable policy to Report-only.
  9. Select Create to create to enable your policy.

After confirming your settings using policy impact or report-only mode, move the Enable policy toggle from Report-only to On.

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