Enable Additional context together with Number matching in Microsoft Authenticator Notifications using Entra

-


"We will remove the admin controls and enforce the number match experience tenant-wide for all users of Microsoft Authenticator push notifications starting May 8, 2023.
We highly recommend enabling number matching in the near term for improved sign-in security. Relevant services will begin deploying these changes after May 8, 2023 and users will start to see number match in approval requests. As services deploy, some may see number match while others don't. To ensure consistent behavior for all users, we highly recommend you enable number match for Microsoft Authenticator push notifications in advance."

Number matching is a key security upgrade to traditional second factor notifications in Microsoft Authenticator. So it is a no brainer to have this enabled by default for all users. However, I will recommend enabling additional context together with number matching to improve sign-in security and protect against MFA fatigue based attacks.

There are some pre-requisites for both number matching and additional context.

- Your organization needs to enable Microsoft Authenticator passwordless and push notifications for some users or groups by using the new Authentication methods policy.

- If your organization is using AD FS adapter or NPS extensions, upgrade to the latest versions for a consistent experience.

If you haven't enabled  number matching and additional context as yet, then you can do it through Entra which is Microsoft's latest modern identity and access management solution.

1. In the Entra portal, click Protect & secure > Authentication methods > Microsoft Authenticator.

2. On the Enable and Target tab, click Yes and All users to enable the policy for everyone or add selected users and groups. Set the Authentication mode for these users/groups to Any or Push.


Note: Only users who are enabled for Microsoft Authenticator here can be included in the policy to require number matching for sign-in, or excluded from it. Users who aren't enabled for Microsoft Authenticator can't see the feature.

3. On the Configure tab, for Require number matching for push notifications, change Status to Enabled and choose who to include or exclude from number matching.


4. Next up is to configure for Show application name in push and passwordless notifications. To do this change Status to Enabled and choose who to include or exclude from the policy.



5. Do the same for Show geographic location in push and passwordless notifications and then save.



End user experience

When user is challenged with MFA, they will be asked to enter a number and additional context details will be shown.


Conclusion

That's it. Admin control for number matching will be removing based on Microsoft's recent communication. However, admin control around additional context is available now and it is a good time to test the functionality and plan out the rollout in production.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to force escrowing of BitLocker recovery keys using Intune

-
Image
Every now and then it so happens that BitLocker recovery keys do not escrow in AAD. The usual culprits are incorrect BitLocker policies and\or the device hardware configuration failing to meet the minimum requirements. The other scenario and something I recently experienced is when everything is setup right and still the recovery key doesn’t escrow in AAD. As I understand, this can happen if the escrow process got interrupted the first time due to network or local devices related issues and the process could not resume. To circumvent this issue, one can simply push a PowerShell script to the devices to force the escrow of the recovery keys to AAD. Here is a script to do so. try{ $BitlockerVol = Get-BitLockerVolume -MountPoint $env:SystemDrive         $KPID=""         foreach($KP in $BitlockerVol.KeyProtector){             if($KP.KeyProtectorType -eq "RecoveryPassword"){                 $KPID=$KP.KeyProtectorId                 break;             }         }        $o
Read more

Intune: Configure Printers for Non-Administrative Users

-
Image
Configuring printers for end users or giving them the ability to do it themselves is a normal requirement for organizations. Now if your users are Administrators, then the configuration can be straight forward, but in case of Non-Administrators there are additional steps required as Non-Administrators will not be able to add a driver in the driver store despite being able to install a printer. In this blog, I will cover the steps that I took to address this requirement using Intune. The setup involves 2 steps -  1. Setup registries. 2. Install the driver and configure the printer Setting up registries – The registries that need to be configured are actually part of a GPO setting – Allow non-administrators to install drivers for these device setup classes It can be found under: Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Driver Installation I used a Powershell script to set the values and wrapped it in a Win32 application. $Path1
Read more

Intune: UAC Elevation Prompt Behavior for Standard Users

-
Image
Implementing and maintaining a good security posture is an integral part of overall IT security governance for most organizations now. While you want to harden the security of infrastructure and give least number of privileges to your end users, sometimes you may need to cut back on the restrictions to ensure a good user experience and an effective IT support process. Recently, I had a requirement where the customer wanted to ease the restriction on the end user devices to make the helpdesk support process more efficient. This involved easing the UAC level access for the Standard users and if you are managing your devices using Intune, then this blog may just help you. Let us see what all is involved and some of the ways that you can use to implement this easily. Policy CSP – LocalPoliciesSecurityOptions LocalPoliciesSecurityOptions has many CSP settings and if you are managing these settings at an individual level, then the CSP that we need to concern ourselves with here is U
Read more