Table of Content
- What is conditional access?
- Why is conditional access crucial?
- More about Zero Trust and its implementation in conditional access
- What components make up conditional access?
- How can you tighten security with conditional access?
Data powers everything, especially the internet. Your data opens the door to everything you are and know : your identity, preferences, and activities.
When you show up to work, you may first verify your identity with an ID card at the entrance. Similarly, you are verified with your credentials while logging in to your computer.
Your identity unlocks more than just your workspace— your biometrics, address, and other personal details are strongly linked to your identity. And without robust security, identity theft is among the nefarious things that can exploit your identity and data.
That's why systems in your organization can't trust just any source. They may not even trust you—and that's a good thing. By playing the bad cop, conditional access helps secure your data.
What is conditional access?
Conditional access is a security feature that enables organizations to grant access to resources based on specific factors (e.g., identity, location, device health, and various sources) and conditions that are set up to verify the request. It works by using an if-else statement to grant access based on certain conditions having to be met by the user.
Zero Trust approach
Conditional access uses the Zero Trust model by continuously verifying authentication requests based on numerous contextual factors—user identity, device health, location, and application risk. It also enforces least privilege along with multi-factor authentication (MFA) to enable minimal access to resources.
With Zero Trust, every access request or authentication attempt is considered potentially malicious by default, aligning with the model's basic principles by using identity as the core boundary to enable granular access control. In essence, it's being extra careful—at every step—before finally granting access to the right entity.
Why is conditional access crucial?
Unauthorized access is one event you'll want to avoid; a data breach is a whole other disaster that follows it up. This one-two punch can lead to financial losses from stolen funds and assets. Moreover, the resulting recovery costs and legal fees burn an even bigger hole in your pocket. To calm the nightmare, conditional access helps ensure you keep safe what's rightfully yours. And that's only one of the several reasons you need it badly.
Compliance
With conditional access, your organization takes full and in-depth control over data access and enforce rules based on contextual factors. The good news is that these measures support compliance with regulations like HIPAA, the GDPR, and the PCI DSS, which all mandate the protection of organizational data.
Conditional access also automates compliance checks and generates audit trails through sign-in logs, policy evaluations, and detailed reporting tools.
Enhanced security
Conditional access along with Zero Trust ensures that only authorized users access your sensitive data. I ntegrating this approach with MFA takes security up a notch, requiring additional verification when necessary.
By authorizing and authenticating users and devices from any location , you can easily respond to emerging threats.
Enforcing least privilege
The principle of least privilege requires entities to be granted limited access only to resources that are needed to carry out specific tasks. Here, data breaches can be reduced by limiting access to the minimum of what's required. For instance, database users are given permission only for specific operations they need to perform, such as reading from or editing particular tables, rather than full access to the system's database.
Yet, how does conditional access enforce least privilege? All the access is controlled and includes minimizing access to a notch above zero access.
Just-in-time access is enabled by allowing temporary elevated privileges only when required. For example, a network administrator that needs to perform maintenance on a critical server normally doesn't have privileged access. When maintenance is needed, they submit a request through a self-service portal. Then their contextual factors are assessed and verified. Access is granted, after which they're closely monitored. The moment the task is done, the elevated access is automatically revoked.
Role-based access control aids in implementing the principle of least privilege by assigning only necessary permissions to each role. This ensures that users have the right amount of access to carry out their functions and no more.
Moreover, device compliance and MFA are required to restrict access from potentially compromised endpoints. With device compliance, you ensure devices gain access only after they meet certain security standards and prevent access from potentially vulnerable devices to avoid any chances of unauthorized access, or worse—a data breach.
MFA is applied for privileged users and is combined with device compliance checks, allowing flexible implementation to balance security with user experience.
Centralized management
Having centralized management allows you to create, modify, and implement access policies from one location. With this advantage, you can ensure consistent policy application across all entities, automatically implement policies, and change or update policies immediately.
This approach paves the way for instant troubleshooting. When access issues occur, administrators can quickly identify and modify the relevant policies affecting a user or resource. As your organization grows, you can scale this feature up with little effort, accommodating new users and resources without reconfiguration.
More about Zero Trust and its implementation in conditional access
Zero Trust is employed in conditional access by making use of features like the principle of least privilege and just-in-time access. This helps to minimize access specifically based on the purpose behind the access.
Here's how conditional access implements Zero Trust principles:
- Verify explicitly: With the Zero Trust approach in conditional access, every access request is considered malicious and must be explicitly verified via all the contextual factors of the access request before access is granted. Every access request requires authorization and authentication regardless of its location and network.
- Assume breach: Along with enforcing the verify explicitly principle, conditional access uses the assume breach principle by automatically not trusting a user or device before granting access. That said, conditional access can also demand additional authentication, even for previously authenticated entities, in case of any changes in risk factors.
This concept of adaptive authentication leverages Zero Trust principles by requiring additional factors based on the risk level of the access request.
Context-based access control
Context-based access control is an approach that aligns with Zero Trust that uses contextual information to make dynamic decisions regarding granting access to resources. The contextual factors of the source of request are evaluated before granting access to the required resources. For instance, access might be granted during business hours from a corporate network. However, gaining access can require additional verification if attempted from a personal device or outside regular business hours.
Risk-based adaptive policies
This feature involves a set of policies that allows you to modify and adjust access controls based on real-time risk assessments. These policies evaluate contextual factors to determine the risk levels of the login access request. For instance, if a user attempts to log in from an unfamiliar area, the system can enforce additional authentication measures to avoid any potential risks before granting access to the required resource.
In high-risk scenarios, access could be blocked entirely, while moderate risks might trigger MFA, a key feature in Zero Trust. For instance, a policy might require MFA if a user accesses sensitive data from a personal device.
How does conditional access work?
Conditional access involves assessing contextual factors to make decisions regarding access to an organization's resources. Here's a detailed look into how conditional access works:
Signal evaluation
When an access request is sent to the system controlling access, it evaluates a set of signals or contextual factors. Alongside these, the type of application and real-time risk assessment also determine the policies to be applied.
Policy application
Based on the signals evaluated, preconfigured policies (e.g., access control, session controls) are applied.
Adaptive authentication
Adaptive authentication involves using additional authentication methods (e.g., multi-step authentication, context-aware MFA).
These methods further tighten security and are applied to high-risk actions. Speaking of high-risk actions, transferring an enormous sum of money can trigger additional verification requirements, like OTP or a biometric scan. You wouldn't want all that hard-earned money going to just anybody.
Device management integration
Integrating device management within conditional access involves ensuring that organizational devices fulfill specific security and compliance standards before gaining access to corporate resources. You can leverage the integrations with compliance checks and mobile device management (MDM).
Continuous monitoring and enforcement
Conditional access involves continuously keeping an eye on access requests and the ir source with session monitoring and real-time policy updates. After all that authentication, you can't just grant unmonitored access. Your systems can still be harmed, and all the continuous monitoring is to avoid any kind of suspicious activities while your data is being accessed.
Granular control
With granular control in conditional access, you can set up detailed access policies based on a vast range of conditions. Policies can be highly specific, such as:
- Application-specific rules.
- User and group targeting.
- Session and action-based controls.
Why focus on all the details? Even the smallest of loopholes can enable attacks, so leveraging granular control helps to keep them away from your organization.
Reporting and analytics
Conditional access provides reporting and analytics capabilities to enable a context-aware security perimeter that can adapt to multiple scenarios. These capabilities include:
- Audit logs.
- Risk analytics.
- Insights and reporting workbooks.
- Alerts and notifications.
What components make up conditional access?
Conditional access comprises four main components that work together to secure access to resources with the Zero Trust approach. These are:
- Assignments : Here, you can define and assign who the policies apply to. You can specify users and groups, allowing the policies to target specific users or roles within the organization.
- Access controls : These decide what actions are to be taken when the specified conditions are met by the access request, i.e., whether you grant or block access. The former can require additional measures like MFA or device compliance checks to avoid any kind of unauthorized access.
- Cloud apps or actions : These identify which application or action the policies target. This component enables precise control to access, again keeping in mind to avoid any form of unauthorized access and potential data breaches.
- Conditions : These are additional criteria you can add to authorize and authenticate access requests. The conditions can include factors like user risk level, sign-in risk level, device platforms (e.g., iOS, Android, Windows), location (e.g., specific IP addresses or regions), and client apps (e.g., specific applications or protocols).
How can you tighten security with conditional access?
Leveraging conditional access can build up how you protect your organization's resources and data in several ways, including adaptive authentication, context-based access control , and more. Here's how:
1. Assess security needs
First, you must understand and identify which applications and data are sensitive and need rigid access controls and measures, such as additional authentication methods like context-aware MFA or step-up authentication. Specific scenarios where access should be controlled include remote access, access from unmanaged devices, or authenticated devices outside business hours.
2. Define access requirements
Set up clear and specific access requirements for each sensitive resource and keep in mind the contextual factors and risk levels. This can aid in creating precise conditional access policies to align with security objectives specific to your organization.
3. Create conditional access policies
These are if-then statements, where certain conditions must be met by the source of an access request for access to be granted. You can use the conditions to define them . For example, you can have the policies require MFA methods or block access from specific locations to keep check on access requests and their sources.
4. Test policies
Test the policies in a controlled environment before you fully deploy the policies you set up. This ensures they work as intended and don't accidentally block legitimate access. With this, you're keeping potentially malicious requests at bay.
5. Deploy and monitor
Once tested, you can deploy the policies across the organization. Continuously monitor and assess their effectiveness and modify as required to address emerging risks and avoid them, too. Along with that, regularly review and update policies to keep up with upcoming security requirements.
To further enhance your organization's security, here are additional practices you can follow to strengthen how you implement conditional access:
Bonus tip 1: Educate users
Provide training to internal and external stakeholders on the importance of conditional access, along with implementation steps and best practices. You can also encourage users to follow security protocols, such as MFA and CBAC, and stay updated with emerging threats and cutting-edge tools.
Bonus tip 2: Integrate with other security solutions
Integrating conditional access with tools for threat intelligence, device management, data loss prevention, and more can strengthen your security framework along with increasing your ability to adapt to existing and emerging threats.
FAQ
What role does conditional access play in a Zero Trust security model?
Conditional access ensures that every access request is verified explicitly, assuming that every request could potentially be malicious. This is where Zero Trust comes in, helping to minimize trust to a bare minimum and continuously evaluate access requests based on user identity, device health, location, and other contextual factors.
How does conditional access handle legacy authentication protocols?
Conditional access handles legacy authentication by blocking it, as these protocols do not support security features such as MFA. This is critical because legacy protocols are vulnerable to attacks, such as password spraying, and blocking them prevents unauthorized access.
How can organizations use conditional access to improve compliance?
Compliance requirements can be met by enforcing rules based on user roles, device status, and location. Conditional access also automates compliance checks and generates audit trails through login logs and policy evaluations. This enables adherence to regulations like HIPAA, the GDPR, and the PCI DSS.