US Department of Labor’s journey to Zero Trust security with Microsoft Entra ID

For several years, Microsoft has been helping United States federal and state government groups, including military departments and civilian agencies, transition to a Zero Trust security model. Advanced features in Microsoft Entra ID have helped these organizations meet requirements to employ centralized identity management systems, to use phishing-resistant multifactor authentication, and to consider device-level signals for authorizing access to resources.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) has been on a journey to consolidate their identity systems and modernize authentication to applications. In this blog post, I’ll describe the benefits they’re gaining from supplementing personal identity verification (PIV) cards with device-bound passkeys implemented through the Microsoft Authenticator app and from adding risk signals to Microsoft Entra Conditional Access policies.

To review how Microsoft Entra ID can help your department or agency meet federal cybersecurity requirements, while reducing complexity and improving the user experience, visit Microsoft Entra ID: Enhancing identity security for US agencies.

Adopting Microsoft Entra ID as a centralized identity system

Like many organizations, DOL first used Entra ID (then called Azure Active Directory) when they adopted Microsoft 365. At that time, they were maintaining multiple identity technologies, including on-premises Active Directory, Active Directory Federation Services, and Ping Federate. This fragmented strategy required users to authenticate to different applications using different identity systems.

With the help of their Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) group, DOL worked to consolidate all their identity systems to Entra ID. They chose Entra ID because it supports the necessary protocols (such as SAML and OIDC) to deliver a single sign-on (SSO) experience for most of their applications. This effort, which took about a year, included reaching out to application owners and encouraging them to move their applications off of Kerberos, ideally by adopting MSAL (Microsoft Authentication Library), so their applications could easily integrate with Entra ID.

Integrating applications with Entra ID makes it possible to strengthen security by applying Conditional Access policies to them. DOL at first applied simple Conditional Access policies that only allowed access to applications from hybrid-joined Government Furnished Equipment (GFE devices). The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated their adoption of additional features, such as enforcing device compliance through Microsoft Intune and reporting device risk to other security services through integration with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. Policies could then make access decisions based on device risk, such as only granting access to applications from devices with “low risk” or “no risk.”

For an introduction to Microsoft Entra Conditional Access, visit our documentation.

Upleveling static Conditional Access policies to risk-based Conditional Access policies

In 2022, when new regulations required government agencies to apply more stringent cybersecurity standards to protect against sophisticated online attacks, DOL decided to strengthen their Zero Trust implementation with phishing-resistant authentication and dynamic risk-based Conditional Access policies. Both would help them enforce the Zero Trust principle of least privilege access.

Microsoft Entra ID Protection capabilities made it possible for Conditional Access policies to assess sign-in risk and user risk, in addition to device risk, before granting access. Policies would tolerate different levels of user risk depending on whether the user signs in as a ‘privileged user’ or as a ‘regular user.’ Access for users deemed high-risk would always be blocked. Privileged users with low or medium risk would also be blocked. Regular users with low risk would have to reauthenticate within a set period of time, while users with medium risk would have to reauthenticate more frequently.

For more in-depth information on risk-based Conditional Access policies, visit our documentation.

Adding a layer of security for privileged users

A subset of DOL employees may operate as a ‘privileged user’ for some tasks and as a ‘regular user’ for others. To access less sensitive applications such as Microsoft 365, these employees sign in as a ‘regular user’ using a government-issued PIV card or Windows Hello for Business from their GFE device. To access highly sensitive applications and resources, or to execute sensitive tasks, they must sign in using a separate account that has privileged access rights.

Previously, the DOL assigned usernames, passwords, and basic multifactor authentication to privileged accounts, but this still left some risk of credential theft from phishing attacks. Since the most important accounts to secure are those with administrative rights, DOL chose to make privileged accounts more secure with phishing-resistant authentication, specifically, with device-bound passkeys in the Microsoft Authenticator app. This is faster and less expensive to support than issuing employees users a second PIV card and a second GFE device.

Privileged users only need to install the Microsoft Authenticator app on their government-issued cell phone. They don’t have to visit a special portal to provision and onboard their passkey. They simply sign in for the first time on their mobile phone using a Temporary Access Pass and set up their passkey in one fast, frictionless workflow. As an added benefit, passkeys also reduce the time to authenticate to DOL applications. According to Microsoft testing, signing in with a passkey is eight times faster than using a password and traditional multifactor authentication.¹

After DOL finishes deploying passkeys for their privileged users, they plan to roll out passkeys to the rest of their workforce as a secondary authentication method that complements other passwordless methods such as Windows Hello for Business and certificate-based authentication (CBA).

To explore phishing-resistant authentication methods available with Microsoft Entra, explore the video series Phishing-resistant authentication in Microsoft Entra ID.

Using “report-only” mode in Conditional Access as a modeling tool

Every organization that modernizes their identity strategy and authentication methods, as DOL did, strengthens security, improves flexibility, and reduces costs. Using a modern, deeply integrated security toolset will also provide valuable new insights. For example, you can use Conditional Access as a modeling and planning tool. By running policies in report-only mode, you can better understand your environment, investigate user behavior to uncover risk scenarios not visible to the human eye, and model solutions for those scenarios. This helps you decide which controls to apply to close any security gaps you discover.

DOL rolled out risk-based Conditional Access policies, in report-only mode, that enforce the use of passkeys by privileged users. In the activity reports, they observed employees signing in with their privileged accounts, then visiting portals that they should access as regular users, not as admins. DOL then adjusted their policies to block such behavior.

Running risk-based policies in report-only mode exposed behavior that DOL could then use policies to control. It also helped them to uncover inconsistencies and redundancies that reflected unaddressed technical debt; for example, policies that collided. Their goal is to consolidate and simplify their static policies into fewer, more comprehensive risk-based policies that block dangerous or unauthorized behavior while allowing employees to sign in faster and more securely to get their work done.

To learn more about Conditional Access report-only mode, visit our documentation.

Looking ahead

So far, DOL has integrated more than 200 applications with Entra ID for SSO. The team is still in the monitoring phase as they work to consolidate Conditional Access policies and ensure compliance with security requirements, such as the use of passkeys for accessing high-value assets. Not only are they reducing the number of policies they must maintain, but their logs are also cleaner, and it’s easier to find insights.

DOL’s future plans include implementing attestation, which will ensure that employees use a genuine version of the Authenticator app published by Microsoft before registering a passkey. They’re also investigating joining devices to Entra ID so they can centrally manage them from the cloud for easier deployment of updates, policies, and applications. This will also allow them to use policy to enforce enrollment in Windows Hello for Business, further advancing their transition to phishing-resistant authentication.

Learn more

Learn more about Microsoft Entra ID.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

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¹Convincing a billion users to love passkeys: UX design insights from Microsoft to boost adoption and security, Sangeeta Ranjit and Scott Bingham. December 12, 2024.

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Source: Microsoft Security