Microsoft Entra IDOverview
This recommendation ensures that users accessing the Microsoft Admin Portals (i.e., Microsoft 365 Admin, Microsoft 365 Defender, Exchange Admin Center, Azure Portal, etc.) must use multifactor authentication (MFA) credentials when logging into an Admin Portal.
Rationale
Administrative Portals for Microsoft Azure should be secured with a higher level of scrutiny for authenticating mechanisms. Enabling multifactor authentication is recommended to reduce the potential for abuse of Administrative actions and to prevent intruders or compromised admin credentials from changing administrative settings.
IMPORTANT: While this recommendation allows exceptions to specific Users or Groups, they should be very carefully tracked and reviewed for necessity on a regular interval through an Access Review process. This rule must be built to include "All Users" to ensure that all users not specifically excepted will be required to use MFA to access Admin Portals.
Impact
Conditional Access policies require Microsoft Entra ID P1 or P2 licenses. Similarly, they may require additional maintenance overhead if users lose access to their MFA. Any users or groups that are granted an exception to this policy should be carefully tracked and be granted only minimal necessary privileges, and conditional access exceptions should be regularly reviewed or investigated.
Default Value
MFA is not enabled by default for administrative actions.
Remediation guidance
From Azure Portal
- Open Conditional Access | Policies.
- Click
+ New policy. - Enter a name for the policy.
- Click the blue text under
Users. - Under
Include, selectAll users. - Under
Exclude, checkUsers and groups. - Select users or groups to be exempted from this policy (e.g., break-glass emergency accounts and non-interactive service accounts), then click the
Selectbutton. - Click the blue text under
Target Resources. - Under
Include, click theSelect appsradio button. - Click the blue text under
Select. - Check the box next to
Microsoft Admin Portals, then click theSelectbutton. - Click the blue text under
Grant. - Under
Grant access, check the box forRequire multifactor authentication, then click theSelectbutton. - Before creating, set
Enable policytoReport-only. - Click
Create.
After testing the policy in report-only mode, update the Enable policy setting from Report-only to On.
Multiple Remediation Paths
SERVICE-WIDE (RECOMMENDED when many resources are affected): Apply organization/tenant-level guardrails and baseline policies for the entire platform.
ASSET-LEVEL: Fix only the affected resources identified by this control.
PREVENTIVE: Add preventive policy checks to CI/CD and periodic posture scans.
References for Service-Wide Patterns
- Platform policy/governance and preventive control patterns should be applied tenant-wide where supported.
Query logic
These are the stored checks tied to this control.
Entra Conditional Access - MFA for Microsoft Admin Portals
Connectors
Covered asset types
Expected check: eq []
{
connectors(
where: {
conditionalAccessPolicies_NONE: {
conditions: {
includeUsers: ["All"]
NOT: { OR: { excludeUsers: [], excludeGroups: [], excludeRoles: [] } }
includeApplications: ["MicrosoftAdminPortals"]
clientAppTypes: ["all"]
}
grantControls: { builtInControls: ["mfa"] }
}
}
) {
...AssetFragment
}
}
