Conditional Access policies block access from unmanaged apps

Overview

If Microsoft Entra Conditional Access policies aren’t combined with app protection controls, users can connect to corporate resources through unmanaged or unsecured applications. This exposes sensitive data to risks such as data leakage, unauthorized access, and regulatory noncompliance. Without safeguards like app-level data protection, access restrictions, and data loss prevention, threat actors can exploit unprotected apps to bypass security controls and compromise organizational data.

Enforcing Intune app protection policies within Conditional Access ensures only trusted apps can access corporate data. This supports Zero Trust by enforcing access decisions based on app trust, data containment, and usage restrictions.

Remediation

Configure app-based Conditional Access policies in Microsoft Entra and Intune to require app protection for access to corporate resources:

• Set up app-based Conditional Access policies with Intune

For more information, see:

• What is Conditional Access?
• Learn about app-based Conditional Access policies with Intune

Run it

The check runs as part of the whole assessment, with the ZeroTrustAssessment module installed:

Install-Module ZeroTrustAssessment -Scope CurrentUser
Connect-Maester
Invoke-Maester -Pack ZTA -SkipBuiltIn

Leave out -SkipBuiltIn to run Maester’s own checks in the same run.

About this check

Severity	High
Effort to fix	Low
Impact on users	Medium
Pillar	Devices
Category	Data
Product	Entra ID
Feature	Conditional Access
Area	Access control
ATT&CK	T1078.004 Cloud Accounts
Licence	Intune
Tenant	Workforce

Product, feature, area and ATT&CK are Maester’s: the assessment does not record them, so Maester keeps them in the pack’s taxonomy.json.

A Microsoft check, part of the Zero Trust Assessment pack. Text from ZeroTrustAssessment 3.1.0, © Microsoft, MIT licence.