📝 Microsoft Entra ID Admin accounts are not used for daily operations 🟢

• Contextual name: 📝 Admin accounts are not used for daily operations 🟢
• ID: /ce/ca/azure/monitor/admin-accounts-for-daily-operations
• Located in: 📁 Azure Monitor

Flags

• 🟢 Impossible policy
• 🟢 Policy with categories
• 🟢 Policy with type

Our Metadata

• Policy Type: COMPLIANCE_POLICY
• Policy Category:
  • SECURITY

Description

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Description

Microsoft Azure admin accounts should not be used for routine, non-administrative tasks.

Rationale

Using admin accounts for daily operations increases the risk of accidental misconfigurations and security breaches.

Impact

Minor administrative overhead includes managing separate accounts, enforcing stricter access controls, and potential licensing costs for advanced security features.

Audit

From Azure Portal

Monitor

1. Go to Monitor.
2. Click Activity log.
3. Review the activity log and ensure that admin accounts are not being used for daily operations.

Microsoft Entra ID

1. Go to Microsoft Entra ID.
2. Under Monitoring, click Sign-in logs.
3. Review the sign-in logs and ensure that admin accounts are not being accessed more frequently than necessary.

References

1. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/security/privileged-access-workstations/critical-impact-accounts

Remediation

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Remediation

If admin accounts are being used for daily operations, consider the following:

• Monitor and alert on unusual activity.
• Enforce the principle of least privilege.
• Revoke any unnecessary administrative access.
• Use Conditional Access to limit access to resources.
• Ensure that administrators have separate admin and user accounts.
• Use Microsoft Entra ID Protection helps organizations detect, investigate, and remediate identity-based risks.
• Use Privileged Identity Management (PIM) in Microsoft Entra ID to limit standing administrator access to privileged roles, discover who has access, and review privileged access.

policy.yaml

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Linked Framework Sections

Section	Sub Sections	Internal Rules	Policies	Flags
💼 CIS Azure v4.0.0 → 💼 6.3.1 Ensure that Azure admin accounts are not used for daily operations (Manual)			1
💼 Cloudaware Framework → 💼 User Account Management			17