Azure AD Identity Protection

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Identity Protection is a cloud-based identity and access management service that provides the following key capabilities:

• Detecting vulnerabilities: Identifies and remediates identity-based risks throughout the identity lifecycle.
• Detecting threats: Detects a variety of threats, including impossible travel, unfamiliar locations, malware linked IPs, and leaked credentials.
• Responding to threats: Automates the response to detected risks by using policies to trigger workflows and remediation actions.

It leverages Microsoft's vast threat intelligence to provide comprehensive protection for your organization's identities.

Risk Detection

Identity Protection offers a wide range of risk detections, including:

• User risk: Risks associated with a specific user account, such as leaked credentials or impossible travel.
• Sign-in risk: Risks associated with individual sign-in attempts, such as sign-ins from unfamiliar locations or malicious IP addresses.

Identity Protection Policies

You can configure policies to automatically respond to detected risks. These policies can enforce actions such as:

• Requiring users to perform multi-factor authentication (MFA).
• Requiring users to reset their password.
• Restricting user access to specific applications or resources.
• Blocking sign-ins entirely.

Reporting and Dashboards

Identity Protection provides rich reporting and dashboards to help you understand your organization's risk posture and monitor detected threats.

To get started with Azure AD Identity Protection, ensure you have the appropriate Azure AD license (Premium P1 or P2). Follow these steps:

1. Enable Identity Protection: Navigate to the Azure AD portal and enable Identity Protection.
2. Configure Risk Policies: Define your user risk and sign-in risk policies based on your organization's security requirements.
3. Monitor and Remediate: Regularly review the dashboards and reports to identify and address any detected risks.

• Preventing Credential Compromise: Automatically detect and respond to sign-ins using leaked credentials.
• Securing Remote Access: Enforce MFA for sign-ins from unfamiliar locations or devices.
• Protecting Against Bot Attacks: Block sign-ins from known malicious IP addresses.
• Reducing Insider Threats: Identify unusual user behavior that might indicate a compromised account or malicious activity.

Identity Protection offers comprehensive visibility into your security posture through various reports:

• Risky Users: A list of users who have experienced risky sign-ins or whose accounts are at risk.
• Risky Sign-ins: A detailed log of all sign-in attempts, flagged with their associated risk level.
• Vulnerability Report: Identifies misconfigurations and security weaknesses that could be exploited.

These reports can be exported or integrated with SIEM solutions for further analysis.

Identity Protection seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft security services:

• Azure Sentinel: Ingest Identity Protection logs into Azure Sentinel for advanced threat hunting and incident response.
• Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps: Use Identity Protection signals to enhance the security of your cloud applications.
• Conditional Access Policies: Leverage Identity Protection risk levels as conditions within your Azure AD Conditional Access policies to enforce granular access controls.

• Start with Monitoring: Initially, configure policies to alert rather than block to understand your environment's risk profile.
• Tune Policies: Regularly review and tune your risk policies based on your organization's specific needs and risk tolerance.
• Enable MFA: Make multi-factor authentication a core part of your security strategy.
• Educate Users: Inform users about the importance of security practices and how Identity Protection helps them.
• Regularly Review Reports: Stay informed about your security posture by regularly examining the Identity Protection dashboards and reports.

Licensing Issues: Ensure your Azure AD tenant has the appropriate Premium P1 or P2 licenses assigned.

Policy Not Applying: Verify that the Conditional Access policies that use Identity Protection risk are correctly configured and that users are included in their scope.

For further assistance: Refer to the official Microsoft Azure documentation or contact Microsoft Support.