This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

The linked blog post was originally published on the Microsoft Security Blog on November 6th, 2023. We are sharing it again on the SMB Tech Community blog channel to ensure that all of our partners, who manage customer tenants and their conditional access policies, are informed about the upcoming policy changes.


 


Microsoft announced the automatic rollout of Conditional Access polices in Entra ID back in November 2023.


This feature automatically creates new Conditional Access policies in report-only mode for eligible customers of Microsoft Entra ID P1/P2 (M365 E3/M365 E5/M365 Business Premium). Between November 9th, 2023, and December 31st, 2023, policies were created in all eligible tenants. Customers will have at least 90 days to review the policy’s impact, manage exclusions, turn the policy on, or turn it off if necessary. 


 


This 90-day period is ending soon, and enforcement will begin on a rolling basis in February and March 2024.


 


Recommended actions


 


To avoid any potential disruption to users’ access and to ensure these policies meet your organization’s needs, take the following actions within 90 days of their creation, before they’re moved to the On state:



  • Read the original blog announcement By Alex Weinert, Vice President, Identity Security

  • Review the effects and benefits of the new policies. If you don’t want us to enable them automatically, set them to Off. Or, you may set them to On at any time.

  • Customize these policies according to your specific needs, such as excluding emergency access accounts. If you require more extensive customizations, you can clone a policy and then make as many changes as you want.

  • Verify that all users covered by these policies have enabled and registered at least one multifactor authentication method. If necessary, run a registration campaign to set up the Authenticator app.


Learn more: Automatic Conditional Access policies in Microsoft Entra streamline identity protection | Microsoft Security Blog

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.