Detections
Analytics

5.3.3 (L1) Ensure 'Access reviews' for privileged roles are configured

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This audit has been deprecated and will be removed in a future update.

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Information

Access reviews enable administrators to establish an efficient automated process for reviewing group memberships, access to enterprise applications, and role assignments. These reviews can be scheduled to recur regularly, with flexible options for delegating the task of reviewing membership to different members of the organization.

Ensure Access reviews for high privileged Entra ID roles are done monthly or more frequently. These reviews should include at a minimum the roles listed below:

 - Global Administrator
 - Exchange Administrator
 - SharePoint Administrator
 - Teams Administrator
 - Security Administrator

Note: An access review is created for each role selected after completing the process.

Regular review of critical high privileged roles in Entra ID will help identify role drift, or potential malicious activity. This will enable the practice and application of "separation of duties" where even non-privileged users like security auditors can be assigned to review assigned roles in an organization. Furthermore, if configured these reviews can enable a fail-closed mechanism to remove access to the subject if the reviewer does not respond to the review.

NOTE: Nessus has not performed this check. Please review the benchmark to ensure target compliance.

Solution

To remediate using the UI:

 - Navigate to Microsoft Entra admin center

https://entra.microsoft.com/

 - Click to expand Identity Governance and select Privileged Identity Management
 - Select Microsoft Entra Roles under Manage
 - Select Access reviews and click New access review
 - Provide a name and description.
 - Frequency set to Monthly or more frequently.
 - Duration (in days) is set to at most 3
 - End set to Never
 - Role select these roles: Global Administrator Exchange Administrator SharePoint Administrator Teams Administrator Security Administrator
 - Assignment type set to All active and eligible assignments
 - Reviewers set to Selected user(s) or group(s)
 - Select reviewers are member(s) responsible for this type of review.
 - Auto apply results to resource set to Enable
 - If reviewers don't respond is set to No change
 - Show recommendations set to Enable
 - Require reason or approval set to Enable
 - Mail notifications set to Enable
 - Reminders set to Enable
 - Click Start to save the review.

Note: Reviewers will have the ability to revoke roles should be trusted individuals who understand the impact of the access reviews. The principle of separation of duties should be considered so that no one administrator is reviewing their own access levels.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/17682

Item Details

Plugin: microsoft_azure

Control ID: 94aa84cd1c7c3eb0b8ee1bee0684236713b58721c1b847b8645a1d5336554717