Detections
Analytics

5.2.2.6 (L1) Enable Identity Protection user risk policies

Warning! Audit Deprecated

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

View Next Audit Version

Information

Microsoft Entra ID Protection user risk policies detect the probability that a user account has been compromised.

Note: While Identity Protection also provides two risk policies with limited conditions, Microsoft highly recommends setting up risk-based policies in Conditional Access as opposed to the "legacy method" for the following benefits:

 - Enhanced diagnostic data
 - Report-only mode integration
 - Graph API support
 - Use more Conditional Access attributes like sign-in frequency in the policy

With the user risk policy turned on, Entra ID protection detects the probability that a user account has been compromised. Administrators can configure a user risk conditional access policy to automatically respond to a specific user risk level.

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

Solution

To remediate using the UI:

 - Navigate to the Microsoft Entra admin center https://entra.microsoft.com.
 - Click expand Protection > Conditional Access select Policies.
 - Create a new policy by selecting New policy.
 - Set the following conditions within the policy:
 - Under Users choose All users
 - Under Target resources choose All resources (formerly 'All cloud apps')
 - Under Conditions choose User risk then Yes and select the user risk level High.
 - Under Grant select Grant access then check Require multifactor authentication or Require authentication strength . Finally check Require password change.
 - Under Session set Sign-in frequency to Every time.
 - Click Select.

 - Under Enable policy set it to Report-only until the organization is ready to enable it.
 - Click Create or Save.

Note: Break-glass accounts should be excluded from all Conditional Access policies.

Impact:

Upon policy activation, account access will be either blocked or the user will be required to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) and change their password. Users without registered MFA will be denied access, necessitating an admin to recover the account. To avoid inconvenience, it is advised to configure the MFA registration policy for all users under the User Risk policy.

Additionally, users identified in the Risky Users section will be affected by this policy. To gain a better understanding of the impact on the organization's environment, the list of Risky Users should be reviewed before enforcing the policy.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/20006

Item Details

References: CSCv7|16.13

Plugin: microsoft_azure

Control ID: 7a6cba34b3d7697e1d47dbc27068dca4598335b5b9433fdcd45e17c1986488e8