Assigning and Managing Azure PIM Roles Effectively

Assigning and managing Azure PIM roles effectively is crucial for any organization. You can assign roles to users in Azure PIM through the Azure portal, the Azure AD portal, or by using PowerShell.

To ensure role assignments are up-to-date, it's essential to regularly review and update them. This can be done by using Azure PIM's built-in reporting features to identify users who no longer require a specific role.

Azure PIM allows you to create custom roles that meet the specific needs of your organization. You can also use Azure PIM's role templates to quickly assign roles to users.

Regularly reviewing and updating role assignments can help prevent role creep, where users accumulate unnecessary permissions over time. This can lead to security issues and compliance problems.

Azure PIM is a cloud-based solution that helps you simplify and automate the process of managing access to your organization's resources.

To get started with Azure PIM, you need to have an Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) tenant.

You can sign up for an Azure AD tenant if you don't already have one.

Azure PIM is available in the Azure portal, and you can access it by navigating to the Azure AD section.

You can also use the Azure PIM PowerShell module to automate tasks and workflows.

Privileged Identity Management is a service in Azure Active Directory that enables us to manage, control, and monitor access to important resources. It provides just-in-time privileged access to resources and directory, and assigns time-bound access to resources using start/end dates.

To enable PIM, you need to access the Azure portal and go to Privileged Identity Management. From there, you can follow the wizard to activate PIM in your tenant, which may take some time before you can allot permissions to users.

PIM supports various roles and permissions, including Privileged Role Administrator, Approver, and Eligible role user. These roles have different permissions, such as viewing requests and approval history, justifying approvals and rejections, and sending activation requests.

Here are the key benefits of PIM:

By following these best practices, you can effectively implement PIM in your organization: assign users' standing access by assigning the role(s) with the least privilege needed to carry out their tasks, minimize the number of global administrators, and maintain zero permanently active assignments for roles.

Azure AD PIM supports three main roles: Privileged Role Administrator, Approver, and Eligible Role User.

Privileged Role Administrators have a lot of power, as they can view all privileged roles' requests and approval history, define users or groups as approver users, and even enable approval for certain roles.

With Approver permissions, users can view pending approval requests and either approve or reject them in bulk. They can also justify their approvals and rejections.

Eligible Role Users can send a request to activate a role and view the request's status. If their request is approved, they can complete their task in Azure AD.

Here's a quick rundown of the permissions for each role:

Assign users' standing access by assigning the role(s) with the least privilege needed to carry out their tasks. This approach ensures that users only have the necessary permissions to perform their job functions.

Minimize the number of global administrators and use specific administrator roles for some scenarios. This helps to reduce the risk of unauthorized access and privilege escalation.

Maintain zero permanently active assignments for roles, except for break-glass emergency access accounts. These emergency access accounts must have the permanent global administrator role, but should be assigned to users only on a temporary, time-bound basis.

To configure roles in Privileged Identity Management, follow these steps:

Key controls to consider when configuring roles include:

Privileged Identity Management is a service in Azure Active Directory that enables us to manage, control, and monitor access to important resources. This service provides just-in-time privileged access to resources and directory, and allows us to assign time-bound access to resources using start/end dates.

To enable PIM, you need to access the Azure portal and go to Privileged Identity Management, then open Azure AD Directory Roles—Overview and select Wizard. The Wizard will allow you to find the admin roles setup in your tenant and activate PIM in your tenant.

Azure AD PIM supports the following roles and permissions: Privileged Role Administrator, Approver, and Eligible role user. The Privileged Role Administrator can view all privileged roles’ requests and approval history, define users or groups as approver users, and enable approval for certain roles.

PIM roles can be assigned to a user by assigning the PIM role to their account in the Office 365 portal, allowing several minutes for the assignment to replicate, and then going back to the PIM roles wizard to choose the assignment and configure PIM for the user.

To configure roles in PIM, go to Azure AD Directory Roles—Overview, select Settings > Roles, and choose the role you wish to assign to an administrator. You can configure settings such as Maximum activation duration, Notifications, Multi-factor authentication, and Selected approver.

Here are some best practices to follow when granting access via PIM:

You can configure PIM role settings by going to Privileged Identity Management > Azure resources > Select the Subscription/resource > Go to Settings in the left blade > Choose the PIM Role. You can set the Maximum Activation Time, require justification, require approval, and add PIM Approvers.

Assigning roles in Azure PIM is a straightforward process. You can assign a PIM role to a user's account in the Office 365 portal by following these steps: assign the PIM role to the user's account, allow the assignment to replicate, and then go back to the PIM roles wizard to activate PIM for the user's Exchange Administrator permissions.

To create a PIM assignment, you'll need the object ID of the user or group you want to assign the role to, as well as the complete ID of the role you want to assign. This can be found in the Azure Active Directory (AAD) for the user or group, and in the Microsoft Authorization/roleEligibilityScheduleRequests API for the role.

You can also use the Azure attribute-based access control (Azure ABAC) to add conditions on eligible role assignments using Microsoft Entra PIM for Azure resources. This allows you to limit a user's role permissions to a resource using fine-grained conditions, and secure the role assignment with a time-bound setting, approval workflow, and audit trail.

Assignment conditions are a powerful feature in Azure that allow you to add fine-grained conditions to eligible role assignments. This enables you to limit a user's role permissions to a resource and even secure the role assignment with a time-bound setting.

You can use conditions in Microsoft Entra PIM to add conditions on eligible role assignments using Azure attribute-based access control (Azure ABAC). This is particularly useful for roles that require a high level of access, such as Storage Blob Data Owner.

The following roles currently support conditions: Storage Blob Data Contributor, Storage Blob Data Owner, and Storage Blob Data Reader. These roles allow you to refine Azure resource access and ensure that users only have the permissions they need.

Some default conditions already exist for these roles. For example, role assignments can't be assigned for a duration of less than five minutes, and can't be removed within five minutes of it being assigned.

If you want to add or update a condition to refine Azure resource access, you can select the role assignment on the Eligible roles or Active roles tabs and then select Add or View/Edit in the Condition column. Currently, only the Storage Blob Data Owner, Storage Blob Data Reader, and Storage Blob Data Contributor roles in Microsoft Entra PIM are the only roles that can have conditions added.

Here's a quick rundown of the roles that can have conditions added:

To be eligible for a role, you must be a member of the AD Group that has been assigned the Modified Role.

This group is specifically designated for users who need to access certain features or perform specific tasks within the system.

You'll also need to have a justification for raising a PIM, which is an important step in ensuring that roles are assigned fairly and for legitimate reasons.