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Protect data and devices with Microsoft Intune

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  • 10 minutes to read

Microsoft Intune can help you keep your managed devices secure and up to date while helping you to protect your organization’s data from compromised devices. Data protection includes controlling what users do with an organization’s data on both managed and unmanaged devices. Data protection also extends to blocking access to data from devices that might be compromised.

This article highlights many of Intune’s built-in capabilities and partner technologies you can integrate with Intune. As you learn more about them, you can bring several together for more comprehensive solutions on your journey towards a zero-trust environment.

From the Microsoft Intune admin center, Intune supports managed devices that run Android, iOS/iPad, macOS, and Windows 10.

When you use Configuration Manager to manage on-premises devices, you can extend Intune policies to those devices by configuring tenant attach or co-management.

Intune can also work with information from devices that you manage with third-party products that provide device compliance and mobile threat protection.

Protect devices through policies

Deploy Intune’s device configuration and device compliance policies to configure devices to meet your organizations security goals. Policies support one or more profiles, which are the discrete sets of platform-specific rules you deploy to groups of enrolled devices.

  • With device configuration policies, manage profiles that define the settings and features that devices use in your organization. Configure devices for endpoint protection, provision certificates for authentication, set software update behaviors, and more.

  • With device compliance policies, you create profiles for different device platforms that establish device requirements. Requirements can include operating system versions, the use of disk encryption, or being at or under specific threat levels as defined by threat management software.

    Intune can safeguard devices that aren't compliant with your policies and alert the device user so they can bring the device into compliance.

    When you add Conditional Access to the mix, configure policies that allow only compliant devices to access your network and organization’s resources. Access restrictions can include file shares and company email. Conditional Access policies also work with the device state data reported by third-party device compliance partners you integrate with Intune.

Following are a few of the security settings and tasks you can manage through device policy:

  • Device encryption – Manage BitLocker on Windows 10 devices, and FileVault on macOS.

  • Authentication methods – Configure how your devices authenticate to your organization’s resources, email, and applications.

    • Use certificates for authentication to applications, your organization’s resources, and for signing and encryption of email using S/MIME. You can also set up derived credentials when your environment requires the use of smartcards.

    • Configure settings that help limit risk, like:

      • Require multi-factor-authentication (MFA) to add an extra layer of authentication for users.
      • Set PIN and password requirements that must be met before gaining access to resources.
      • Enable Windows Hello for Business for Windows 10 devices.

  • Virtual private networks (VPNs) – With VPN profiles, assign VPN settings to devices so they can easily connect to your organization’s network. Intune supports several VPN connection types and apps, that include both built-in capabilities for some platforms and both first and third-party VPN apps for devices.

  • Software updates – Manage how and when devices get software updates.

    • For iOS, manage device operating system versions, and when devices check for and install updates.
    • For Windows 10, you can manage the Windows Update experience for devices. You can configure when devices scan or install updates, hold a set of your managed devices at specific feature versions, and more.

  • Security Baselines – Deploy security baselines to establish a core security posture on your Windows 10 devices. Security baselines are pre-configured groups of Windows settings that are recommended by the relevant product teams. You can use baselines as provided or edit instances of them to meet your security goals for targeted groups of devices.

Protect data through policies

Intune-managed apps and Intune's app protection policies can help stop data leaks and keep your organization's data safe. These protections can apply to devices that are enrolled with Intune and to devices that aren’t.

  • Intune-managed apps (or managed apps for short), are apps that have been integrated with the Intune App SDK or wrapped by the Intune App Wrapping Tool. These apps can be managed using Intune app protection policies. To view a list of publicly available managed apps, see Intune protected apps.

    Users can use managed apps to work with both your organization’s data, and their own personal data. However, when app protection policies require the use of a managed app, the managed app is the only app that can be used to access your organization’s data. App protection rules don’t apply to a user’s personal data.

  • App protection policies are rules that ensure an organization's data remains safe or contained in a managed app. The rules identify the managed app that must be used and define what can be done with the data while the app is in use.

The following are examples of protections and restrictions you can set with app protection policies and managed apps:

  • Configure app-layer protections, like requiring a PIN to open an app in a work context.
  • Control the sharing of an organization’s data between apps on a device, like blocking copy and paste, or screen captures.
  • Prevent the saving of your organization’s data to personal storage locations.

Use device actions to protect devices and data

From the Microsoft Intune admin center, you can run device actions that help keep a selected device protected. You can run a subset of these actions as bulk device actions to affect multiple devices at the same time. And several remote actions from Intune can also be used with co-managed devices.

Device actions aren't policy and take effect a single time when invoked. They apply either immediately if the device is accessible on-line, or when the device next boots up or checks in with Intune. Considered these actions as supplemental to the use of policies that configure and maintain security configurations for a population of devices.

Following are examples of actions you can run that help secure devices and data:

Devices managed by Intune:

  • BitLocker key rotation (Windows only)
  • Disable Activation Lock (iOS only)
  • Full or Quick scan (Windows 10 only)
  • Remote lock
  • Retire (which removes your organization’s data from the device while leaving personal data intact)
  • Update Microsoft Defender Security Intelligence
  • Wipe (factory reset the device, removing all data, apps, and settings)

Devices managed by Configuration Manager:

  • Retire
  • Wipe
  • Sync (force a device to immediately check in with Intune to find new policies or pending actions)

Integrate with other products

Intune supports integration with partner apps from both first-party and third-party sources, which expand on its built-in capabilities. You can also integrate Intune with several Microsoft technologies.

Partner Technologies

Intune can use data from integrated compliance partners and mobile threat defense partners:

  • Compliance partners – Learn about device compliance partners with Intune. When you manage a device with a mobile device management partner other than Intune, you can integrate that compliance data with Azure Active Directory. When integrated, the partner data can be used by Conditional Access policies along-side compliance data from Intune.

  • Mobile Threat defense – Mobile threat defense apps can scan devices for threats and help you identify the risk of allowing the device to access your organization’s resources and data. You can then use that risk level in various policies, like Conditional Access policies, to help gate access to those resources.

Configuration Manager

You can use many Intune policies and device actions to protect the devices you manage with Configuration Manager. To support those devices, configure co-management or tenant attach. You can also use both together with Intune.

  • Co-management enables you to concurrently manage a Windows 10 device with both Configuration Manager and Intune. You install the Configuration Manager client and enroll the device to Intune. The device communicates with both services.

  • Tenant attach sets up synchronization between your Configuration Manager site and your Intune tenant. This synchronization provides you with a single view for all devices that you manage with Microsoft Intune.

After establishing a connection between Intune and Configuration Manager, devices from Configuration Manager are available in the Microsoft Intune admin center. You can then deploy Intune policies to those devices or use device actions to protect them.

Some of the protections you can apply include:

  • Deploy certificates to devices by using Intune Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP) or private and public key pair (PKCS) certificate profiles.
  • Use compliance policy.
  • Use endpoint security policies, like Antivirus, Endpoint detection and response, and Firewall rules.
  • Apply security baselines.
  • Manage Windows Updates.

Mobile Threat Defense apps

Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) apps actively scan and analyze devices for threats. When you integrate (connect) Mobile Threat Defense apps with Intune, you gain the apps assessment of a devices threat level. Evaluation of a device threat level is an important tool for protecting your organization’s resources from compromised mobile devices.

Use threat-level data with policies for device compliance, app protection, and Conditional Access. These policies use the data to help block non-compliant devices from accessing your organization’s resources.

With an integrated MTD app:

  • For enrolled devices:

    • Use Intune to deploy and then manage the MTD app on devices.
    • Deploy device compliance policies that use the devices reported threat level to evaluate compliance.
    • Define Conditional Access policies that consider a devices threat level.
    • Define app protection policies to determine when to block or allow access to data, based on the threat level of the device.

  • For devices that don't enroll with Intune but run an MTD app that's integrated with Intune, use their threat level data with your app protection policies to help block access to your organization’s data.

Intune supports integration with:

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

On its own, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides several security focused benefits. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint also integrates with Intune and is supported on several device platforms. With integration, you gain a mobile threat defense app and add capabilities to Intune for keeping data and devices safe. These capabilities include:

  • Support for Microsoft Tunnel - On Android devices, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is the client application you use with Microsoft Tunnel, a VPN gateway solution for Intune. When used as the Microsoft Tunnel client app, you don’t need a subscription for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.

  • Security tasks – With security tasks, Intune admins can take advantage of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's threat and vulnerability management capabilities. How it works:

    • Your Defender for Endpoint team identifies at-risk-devices and create the security tasks for Intune in the Defender for Endpoint security center.
    • Those tasks show up in Intune with mitigation advice that Intune admins can use to mitigate the risk.
    • When a task is resolved in Intune, that status passes back to the Defender for Endpoint security center where the results of the mitigation can be evaluated.

  • Endpoint security policies – The following Intune endpoint security policies require integration with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. When you use tenant attach, you can deploy these policies to devices you manage with either Intune or Configuration Manager.

    • Antivirus policy - Manage the settings for Microsoft Defender Antivirus and the Windows Security experience on supported devices, like Windows 10 and macOS.

    • Endpoint detection and response policy – Use this policy to configure endpoint detection and response (EDR), which is a capability of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.

Conditional Access

Conditional Access is an Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) capability that works with Intune to help protect devices. For devices that register with Azure AD, Conditional Access policies can use device and compliance details from Intune to enforce access decisions for users and devices.

Combine Conditional Access policy with:

  • Device compliance policies can require a device be marked as compliant before that device can be used to access your organization’s resources. The Conditional Access policies specify apps services you want to protect, conditions under which the apps or services can be accessed, and the users the policy applies to.

  • App protection policies can add a security layer that ensures only client apps that support Intune app protection policies can access your online resources, like Exchange or other Microsoft 365 services.

Conditional Access also works with the following to help you keep devices secure:

  • Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and third-party MTD apps
  • Device compliance partner apps
  • Microsoft Tunnel

Next steps

Plan to use Intune's capabilities to support your journey towards a zero-trust environment by protecting your data and securing devices. Beyond the previous in-line links to learn more about those capabilities, learn about data security and sharing in Intune.