Account/Authentication - Azure Active Directory - Use Just in Time Privileged Access to Office 365 Roles

 

Summary

It can be used to permit just in time activation of roles, grant periodic role attestation, and audit roles. The permanent members should be removed from privileged Office 365 roles, and should be made eligible through a JIT activation workflow.

Reason

Although organizations are keen to minimize the number of people with access to secure information or resources, in order to lessen the chance of malicious attacks, or an authorized user's unintentional impact on a sensitive resource, but, users are still required to carry out privileged operations in Azure AD and Office 365. Hence, they can provide the users with just-in-time (JIT) privileged accessed roles and since oversight of what those users are doing with their administrator privileges, PIM will help to mitigate the risks of excessive, unnecessary, or misused access rights. 

What If?

Implementing JIT privileged access will definitely change the administrator routine as they will be granted access to administrative roles only when required. While requesting for role activation, administrators will need to specify the reason for requiring the role access, anticipated time to have the access, and to reauthenticate to enable access.

How to?

To configure sensitive Azure AD roles for Privileged Identity Management Role activation, use the following steps:

1. Sign-in to Azure portal as global administrator via https://portal.azure.com.
2. Now, click Services and then search as well as choose Azure AD Privileged Identity Management.
3. Under Manage click on Azure AD Roles.
4. Under Manage click on Roles.
5. Now, inspect the following sensitive roles. For each of the members that have an ASSIGNMENT TYPE of Permanent, click on the .... and select Make eligible:                              

• Application Administrator
• Authentication Administrator
• Billing Administrator
• Cloud Application Administrator
• Compliance  Administrator
• Customer Lock Boc Access Approver 
• Device  Administrators
• Exchange  Administrators
• Global  Administrators
• Helpdesk  Administrator
• Information Protection Administrator
• Intune Service  Administrator
• Kaizala  Administrator
• License  Administrator
• Password  Administrator
• PowerBI Service  Administrator
• Privileged Authentication  Administrator
• Privileged Role  Administrator
• Security  Administrator
• SharePoint Service  Administrator
• Skype for Business  Administrator
• Teams Service  Administrator
• User  Administrator

Monitor:

To verify if Privileged Identity Management is being used for Role activation, use the following steps:

1. Sign-in to Azure portal as global administrator via https://portal.azure.com.
2. Now, click Services and then search as well as choose Azure AD Privileged Identity Management.
3. Under Manage click on Azure AD Roles.
4. Under Manage click on Roles.
5. Now, inspect the following sensitive roles to make sure that the members are Eligible and not Permanent:                             
• Application Administrator
• Authentication Administrator
• Billing Administrator
• Cloud Application Administrator
• Compliance  Administrator
• Customer Lock Boc Access Approver 
• Device  Administrators
• Exchange  Administrators
• Global  Administrators
• Helpdesk  Administrator
• Information Protection Administrator
• Intune Service  Administrator
• Kaizala  Administrator
• License  Administrator
• Password  Administrator
• PowerBI Service  Administrator
• Privileged Authentication  Administrator
• Privileged Role  Administrator
• Security  Administrator
• SharePoint Service  Administrator
• Skype for Business  Administrator
• Teams Service  Administrator
• User  Administrator