Entra ID is the new name for Azure AD. It’s the backbone of identity and access management—with over 400 million Microsoft 365 users relying on it daily. Yet, with 200+ settings across various portals, securing it well feels like navigating a maze. This article aims to help simplify that complexity.
Inside this article:
Entra ID is Microsoft's cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) platform that provides a comprehensive and scalable solution for managing user identities, authentication, authorization, and security across your enterprise's applications and services. It’s designed to help IT managers effectively manage access to both cloud and on-premises resources.
A few key components and features of Entra ID include:
Entra ID Logs are Microsoft's comprehensive logging and reporting solution for Entra. It provides a wide range of features for monitoring and reporting, including activity logs, sign-in logs, audit logs, and provisioning logs.
Key log types include:
Entra ID logs can be exported to Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions via Entra Monitor or Event Hubs. This enables centralized monitoring and real-time security insights when integrated with tools like Splunk or QRadar.
Entra ID Admin Units, also known as Administrative Units (or “AUs,” for short), are logical divisions within your directory that enable targeted management and policy application. By grouping users and resources into Admin Units, organizations can delegate specific administrative tasks without granting tenant-wide access.
Admin Units are particularly valuable for:
By streamlining administrative workflows and limiting access scope, Admin Units strengthen security while simplifying user management in large or complex environments.
Dynamic membership rules automate user assignments to Admin Units based on attributes like department or job title. For example, admins can automatically assign all "Sales" employees to an Admin Unit, ensuring consistent policy enforcement without manual updates.
The Entra ID Recycle Bin is a safety feature designed to temporarily store deleted objects, such as users, groups, and application registrations, allowing administrators to recover them if needed.
Deleted objects remain recoverable for 30 days by default. After this period, they are permanently deleted and cannot be restored. This timeframe provides a critical window for recovering mistakenly deleted resources.
The Recycle Bin is especially useful for:
By leveraging the Recycle Bin, IT teams can mitigate disruptions and protect critical directory components during day-to-day operations.
As mentioned above, Entra ID offers a centralized identity management solution that allows organizations to create, store, and manage users, groups, and devices via a single location.
There are three types of Entra ID authentication methods:
Custom sign-in reports in Entra ID provide administrators with deep insights into user activities and potential security risks. By leveraging PowerShell scripts, admins can generate detailed reports to monitor authentication trends and identify anomalies.
Admins can uncover patterns such as:
For advanced analysis, tools like Microsoft Sentinel can ingest and correlate sign-in data, enabling automated threat detection, alerting, and detailed visualizations. This integration transforms raw data into actionable intelligence, so admins can proactively address vulnerabilities.
Importing and exporting users in Entra ID is a critical way to improve user management. Admins can use the Entra portal or PowerShell scripts to import and export user data in Entra ID, enabling efficient bulk updates.
These PowerShell scripts can even automate repetitive tasks like bulk user creation, role assignments, and scheduled exports, reducing manual effort and minimizing errors.
Audit logs play a crucial role in maintaining security and compliance. This section will guide you through accessing, interpreting, and leveraging Entra audit logs to uncover insights and track critical changes within your environment.
Audit logs in Entra provide a window into user activities and system events, offering valuable insights for troubleshooting and policy enforcement. By accessing and interpreting these logs, admins can swiftly detect anomalies and track changes across the platform.
These logs can uncover potential security risks, such as unauthorized admin role assignments or unexpected policy changes. For example, tracking who granted elevated permissions and when can prevent insider threats or misconfigurations from escalating.
Administrators can access and analyze audit logs directly in the Entra portal or export them for deeper insights using third-party tools or PowerShell.
To interpret audit logs effectively, administrators should focus on key attributes like the activity performed, actor identity, timestamp, and result status. Using filters and search capabilities in the Entra portal or exporting logs for analysis allows for targeted insights into specific events.
Regularly reviewing audit logs helps identify anomalies, troubleshoot issues, and ensure adherence to organizational policies.
Sync issues in Entra ID often arise from misconfigurations, network interruptions, or outdated settings in Entra ID Connect. Resolving these issues ensures seamless integration between environments.
To troubleshoot sync issues,
Utilize the Entra ID Connect Health dashboard for real-time monitoring and alerts to proactively address sync issues.
Managing Entra ID tenants effectively requires clear strategies and tools. This section explores best practices and tips for managing multiple tenants and applying and enforcing policies consistently.
Managing multiple Entra ID tenants is a complex but essential task for enterprises operating in diverse or decentralized environments. Effective multi-tenant management involves using features like cross-tenant synchronization, guest access, and delegated administration to streamline user and resource management across tenants.
Establishing clear governance policies, implementing role-based access control (RBAC), and utilizing centralized monitoring and reporting tools can help ensure consistency and compliance.
By consolidating administrative efforts and automating key processes, enterprises can efficiently manage multiple tenants while maintaining security and operational integrity.
Automatically syncing multiple Entra tenants ensures uniform access policies and seamless collaboration.
Cross-tenant synchronization in Entra ID enables automated syncing of users, groups, and roles between tenants. This is particularly useful for scenarios like ensuring contractors and partners maintain appropriate access across all relevant tenants while revoking permissions when contracts end.
And, with cross-tenant synchronization, admins can define rules to align user attributes, roles, and groups dynamically. This reduces manual intervention, improves security, and meets organizational agility demands.
Migrating from an on-premises Active Directory (AD) to Entra ID is a strategic move towards a cloud-based identity infrastructure.
But, it requires careful planning. The planning process includes assessing the current on-premises AD environment, preparing users and groups for migration, and setting up Entra ID Connect for synchronization.
This section provides best practices for securing and protecting Entra ID and planning for recovery in case of unexpected events.
Implementing security best practices in Entra ID (Entra ID) is essential for safeguarding organizational data. Top best practices include:
Developing a disaster recovery plan for Entra ID is critical for business continuity. A strong plan includes regularly backing up key configurations such as groups, roles, and policies, along with maintaining a version history of changes.
Administrators should define clear recovery procedures, including how to restore configurations and re-establish services quickly. Incorporating automated tools for backup and configuration rollback can streamline the process.
While Entra ID lacks a built-in backup solution, admins can use third-party tools to back up configuration settings, including groups, roles, and policies.
Having a backup tool is key for scenarios, such as:
Automated backups ensure quick restoration, reducing downtime and preserving operational integrity.
Managing data retention in Entra ID requires careful adherence to organizational policies and compliance requirements. By default, Entra ID retains sign-in and audit logs for 30 days, with options to extend this period up to 730 days for organizations with premium subscriptions.
However, these built-in retention policies may not suffice for enterprises with stringent regulatory requirements, as they often lack point-in-time recovery and comprehensive system coverage.
Cybercriminals now have a new attack vector: Entra app registrations. These third-party and custom apps are often granted read/write access to files, mailboxes, and more.
This enables them to rapidly elevate their privileges as seen in the Midnight Blizzard attack.
Organizations face several challenges when managing and securing Entra ID. Here are common difficulties your peers in IT face:
Entra, despite its powerful features, lacks key functions for governing and securing Microsoft 365 overall. CoreView is the easier way to manage identities, enforce security policies, and improve your user lifecycle processes.
With CoreView, you can secure and manage Entra ID (and all of Microsoft 365).
