What Are The Benefits Of Using Conditional Access In IT Security?

Conditional access in IT security is an access control system that acts as a critical added layer of protection for your network.

It strengthens your security defenses by dynamically adjusting access permissions for parts of your infrastructure, depending on risk factors such as user role, device health, geographic location, time of day, and the sensitivity of the resource being accessed.

Each day, your business gets flooded with access requests—most are legitimate, but some may be malicious.

An access control system is designed to serve as a real-time security gatekeeper to help protect your network against bad actors looking to gain unauthorized access.

In this article, we’ll explain what conditional access is and how it works. After reading this article, you’ll have a complete understanding of why conditional access is integral part of helping to keep your business safe.

What Is Conditional Access?

Conditional access is a security control. Microsoft implements conditional access within Microsoft Entra.

Conditional access is used to evaluate risky sign-ins from unapproved locations, unmanaged devices, or systems with out of date or unsecure software to name a few policies. Conditional access also allows for controls to be applied for trusted users as well so that verified users aren't frequently presented with two-factor requests.

Your internal network administrator or managed IT service provider (MSP) creates your access policy based on pre-determined criteria and conditions.

For instance, an employee might be working remotely and trying to access your network using their mobile device or laptop. The system would be able to quickly check the signals for the user and device and determine the right access controls to apply.

Related Article: Why A Weak Or Outdated Cybersecurity Policy Puts Your Business At Risk

Administrators can pick and choose from a wide range of Microsoft applications, including Microsoft 365, various Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, your on-premises resources, and third-party applications that are integrated with Entra.

Your administrator can later add, change, or revoke access privileges—for instance when an employee leaves your company, when you hire new staff, or when you replace company IT equipment like laptops or desktops, for example.

How Does Conditional Access Work?

Rather than grant broad permissions, conditional access allows your network administrator to develop the specific criteria or privileges for accessing parts of your infrastructure.

This means that your IT resources aren’t readily accessible to any and everyone. Instead, the system checks signals to see if the pre-set conditions are met before granting access to approved users, devices, applications, systems, workloads, services, and other networks.

If a potential threat is identified on a device, for instance, then a second method of verification may be required.

Related Article: How Secure Are Chrome, Edge Browser Extensions? Best Practices For Use

The system can be set to automatically or manually block access, or it can quarantine potential threats until they can be evaluated further by your IT team or managed IT provider.

For example, if your employee takes their work laptop with them to attend an out-of-town conference and tries to log on from an unfamiliar location, then the system may initially flag the device as noncompliant and deny access.

It would then prompt the employee to use another identity verification method, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), before granting access.

In another example, say you want to safeguard your proprietary designs for a new product rollout or your year-end revenue projections. You could use conditional access to add a secondary security control to the information to the confines of your on-premises network or to select company officials.

What Role Does Conditional Access Play In IT Security?

Conditional access is critical to IT security because it offers robust protections against would-be threat actors looking to exploit a cybersecurity weakness within your environment.

Conditional access can be used to evaluate different risk factors in real-time to determine whether or not to grant access to specific resources.  

In this way, it helps safeguard your users, data, and systems. It is also the primary method of mitigating token theft. 

Related Article: How Token Theft Bypasses MFA & How Conditional Access Can Reduce Risk

While there is no foolproof way to prevent a cyber incident, these security systems can significantly lessen the chances of an attacker sneaking into your systems by gaining unauthorized access.

Conditional access adds multiple safeguards, such as:

1. Enhances Zero Trust Architecture

• Conditional access is a cornerstone of Zero Trust because it follows the Zero Trust principle of least privilege access and its motto of “never trust, always verify.”
  
  
• A Zero Trust security strategy ensures that users, devices, and other requests for access are authenticated before granting access to your IT assets.
  
  
• Prevents unauthorized access of your IT resources

Related Article: What Are The Pillars Of Zero Trust? How Zero Trust Architecture Works

2. Works With Existing Security Tools

• Conditional access works hand in hand with other cybersecurity solutions, such as MFA, antivirus and anti-malware software, next-generation firewalls, and endpoint security
  
  
• Ensures a comprehensive security posture against potential threats
  
  
• Can stop potential cyberattacks from spreading
  
  
• Allows for a faster response when unusual activity is detected, such as unusually high network traffic, or an excessive number of sign-on attempts from a device

3. Helps Maintain Data Security and Integrity

• Restricts access to allow access to only trusted/known users based on pre-defined criteria
  
  
• Blocks certain sensitive information from being downloaded or transferred

4. Satisfies Regulatory Requirements

• Conditional access is increasingly becoming a security standard for satisfying many cybersecurity, data privacy, and insurance requirements
  
  
• Requires extra authentication for sensitive information or for certain user behaviors, helping to restrict access to such data

Related Article: New Proposed HIPAA Rule Change: What Healthcare Providers Need To Know

How Can Managed IT Help You Implement Conditional Access Policies To Protect Your Business?

A managed IT service provider (MSP) can develop and implement conditional access policies tailored to your business.

An MSP can develop an effective best practices strategy that includes the following:

1. Establish an IAM policy

• Establish a comprehensive user identity and access management strategy to determine exactly who should be allowed to access which specific resources on your network, and define the conditions that need to be met for permission to be granted.

Your policy should cover:

• • the MFA methods you’ll use
    
    
  • your risk-based access strategy and privileged access requirements
    
    
  • device management to ensure devices meet security and configuration requirements
    
    
  • session policies, such as requiring re-authentication after a certain amount of time
    
    
  • service accounts used for authenticating and granting access to your IT resources
    
    
  • access policies for guests/external users accessing your network

2. Implement multi-factor authentication

• Require MFA for specific applications, including MFA for admin portals such as Microsoft 365 and Azure. This adds an extra layer of protection to prevent unauthorized access.
  
  
• Use role-based access control (RBAC) for granular permissions within certain applications, such as SharePoint

3. Automate access blocks

• Set permissions to dynamically adjust permissions and automatically block or require additional verification from unknown or untrusted devices/users, unusual geographic locations, time zones, etc.
  
  
• Block legacy authentication from older devices that could be used to get around the controls you’ve put in place

4. Establish exceptions

• To minimize employee frustration, establish conditional access exceptions for certain groups when possible, such as when company officials are traveling abroad

5. Create an emergency access

• Ensure you have a “break glass” backup that allows you to bypass your access controls in an emergency—such as when your sole network administrator leaves the company or when your access policy is misconfigured—to avoid being locked out.

6. Perform regular tests

• Perform regular tests of your conditional access policies to ensure that it is properly configured and is working as it should to protect your network and the IT resources connected to it.

The Bottom Line With Conditional Access Policies

After reading this article, you now know what conditional access is and why it has become a critical part of many organizations’ overall security strategy to add an extra layer of protection.

You also understand how it can help satisfy requirements of data privacy and cybersecurity regulations such as NIST, CMMC, DFARS, and HIPAA.

We write articles like this to provide information small and medium-sized business owners like you can use to help you make the best IT decisions for your business.

At Kelser, we have years of experience providing expert guidance to small and medium-sized businesses to help them develop and implement the right cybersecurity solutions. 

If you need help establishing an effective conditional access policy for your business or have other IT concerns, reach out to us by clicking the button.

One of our team members will respond promptly to schedule a brief chat to learn more about your IT challenges and see how we can help you solve them.