#Modern Workplace

Starting with version 111 of Google Chrome, organizations can leverage conditional access policies natively using  CloudAPAuthEnabled . Before this release, Conditional access policies were only supported on Google Chrome by using additional extensions like Windows Accounts and Office Online . If you want to know more about the use of these extensions, then you can read all about it over here . Let's see the new policy involving  CloudAPAuthEnabled in a little detail and how can organization configure it using enterprise device management solutions. CloudAPAuthEnabled   is a setting that can be configured using the policy  Configures automatic user sign-in for accounts backed by a Microsoft® cloud identity provider .  By setting this policy to 1 (Enabled), users who sign into their computer with an account backed by a Microsoft cloud identity provider or who have added a work or school account to Microsoft Windows, can be signed into web properties using that ...

  While working with Google Chrome admx policies, a feature called  Safe Browsing  caught my attention. After doing some research I decided to blog my thoughts on it and how it can be enabled using Intune. What is Safe Browsing? Safe Browsing helps in protecting against phishing, social engineering, malware, unwanted software, malicious ads, intrusive ads, and abusive websites or extensions. Chrome contacts Google's servers periodically or real-time (depending on the protection level) to download the most recent Safe Browsing list of unsafe sites and is stored locally in the system. Chrome checks the URL of each site visited or file that is downloaded against this local list.  When Chrome starts, and on each update of the Safe Browsing list, Chrome scans extensions installed in the browser against the Safe Browsing list. If an extension on the list is found, Chrome will disable the extension. Different levels of Protection are -  Enhanced protection (Recomm...

Just like Microsoft provides security benchmark for Edge, Google does the same for Chrome. Well sort of. While Microsoft provides .admx templates along with readily importable GPO xml files, Google just provides admx templates. Unless you manage chrome browser settings using Google's own browser cloud management service , you are pretty much left with the task of configuring these settings manually. I recently configured the settings as part of security hardening process for browsers in general and thought of sharing the details here to make it convenient for others. Let's see how you can configure these settings using Intune. ADMX template in Intune Ever since Microsoft added Google's admx templates in Intune settings catalog in March 2022, things have never been simpler. If you are unfamiliar with this addition then you can head over to one of my previous blog  posts to know more about it. Chrome Browser Enterprise Security Controls Google has shared an enterprise securi...

  Microsoft releases security baseline for Microsoft 365 apps every 6 months keeping in with the release cadence of Microsoft 365 apps semi-annual channel which normally happens in June and December. At the time of writing this blog, following are the available deployment methods: Cloud policies - Can be deployed with the Office cloud policy service for policies in HKCU.  Cloud policies apply to a user on any device accessing files in Office apps with their AAD account. ADMX policies - Can be deployed with Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM) for both HKCU and HKLM policies. These settings are written to the same place as Group Policy, but managed from the cloud in MEM using either Administrative templates or the settings catalog. Group Policy - Can be deployed with on premise AD DS to deploy Group Policy Objects (GPO) to users and computers. Note: Depending on the deployment method, registry keys will be written accordingly and they will be observed in order of precedence:...