Securing Privileged Roles with Azure AD PIM

Enhance your organization's security posture through Just-In-Time access management.

In today's cloud-centric world, managing access to sensitive resources is paramount. Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) plays a crucial role in identity and access management for cloud and on-premises applications. However, granting users permanent privileged roles can expose your organization to significant security risks. This is where Azure AD Privileged Identity Management (PIM) comes in, offering a robust solution for managing, controlling, and monitoring access to critical resources.

What is Azure AD Privileged Identity Management (PIM)?

Azure AD PIM is a service that helps you manage, control, and monitor access to important resources in Azure AD and Azure resources. It's designed to minimize the risks associated with giving "just-enough" access to users when they need it. PIM enables you to enforce policies such as Just-In-Time (JIT) access, Just-Enough-Access (JEA), role eligibility, and approval workflows.

Key benefits of using PIM include:

  • Reduced Privileged Access Risk: Minimizes the attack surface by limiting standing administrative access.
  • Improved Auditing and Compliance: Provides comprehensive audit logs for all privileged role assignments and activations.
  • Enhanced Operational Efficiency: Streamlines the process of granting and revoking privileged access.
  • Enforced Access Controls: Ensures that users have the necessary permissions only when they need them, with multi-factor authentication requirements.

Core Concepts in Azure AD PIM

Roles

Azure AD PIM supports managing both Azure AD roles and Azure resource roles. These roles define the set of permissions a user has within a specific scope.

Privileged Role Administrators

This is a dedicated role in Azure AD that can manage PIM for all roles in Azure AD and Azure resources, including managing assignments and settings. Users assigned this role can delegate management of PIM to others.

Activation

Instead of having permanent access, users with eligible assignments must activate their role. This activation can be configured to require approval and to enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Assignments

  • Eligible Assignments: Users are assigned a role but must take an explicit action to activate it before they can use it. This is the recommended assignment type for most privileged roles.
  • Active Assignments: Users have permanent access to the role. This should be used sparingly for critical roles where immediate access is always required.

Configuring Azure AD PIM

Setting up PIM involves several steps:

  1. Enable PIM: PIM is usually enabled by default for most Azure AD tenants. If not, it can be provisioned.
  2. Assign Privileged Role Administrator: Ensure at least one user or group has the Privileged Role Administrator role.
  3. Discover and Assign Roles: Identify critical roles and assign users either eligible or active assignments.
  4. Configure Role Settings: For eligible assignments, define activation policies, such as assignment duration, requiring justification, enforcing MFA, and setting approval workflows.

Example: Configuring Eligible Assignment for Global Administrator

To make the Global Administrator role a Just-In-Time role, you would:

  1. Navigate to Azure AD in the Azure portal.
  2. Go to Privileged Identity Management.
  3. Select Azure AD roles.
  4. Find the Global Administrator role.
  5. Go to Settings and click Edit.
  6. Under the Assignments tab, ensure that Maximum assignment duration (days) is set appropriately for eligible assignments (e.g., 1 day) and that Require activation to take place is selected.
  7. Under the Activation tab, configure requirements like duration of activation, requiring justification, and mandating MFA.
  8. Assign users as Eligible for the Global Administrator role.
Azure AD PIM Dashboard Example

Monitoring and Auditing

PIM provides extensive audit logs. You can review:

  • Who is assigned which role (eligible or active).
  • When roles were activated and deactivated.
  • Who approved or rejected activation requests.
  • Changes to role settings.

These logs are crucial for security analysis, compliance audits, and incident response.

Security Best Practice: Regularly review privileged role assignments, enforce Just-In-Time access for high-privilege roles, and leverage PIM's auditing capabilities to maintain a strong security posture.

Conclusion

Azure AD Privileged Identity Management is an indispensable tool for modern cloud security. By implementing JIT access and robust management policies, organizations can significantly reduce the risks associated with privileged accounts, ensuring that only authorized individuals have temporary access to critical resources when absolutely necessary. Investing time in configuring and leveraging PIM is a strategic move towards a more secure and compliant cloud environment.