Azure Smart Lockout Security and Monitoring for Azure AD

Azure Smart Lockout Security and Monitoring for Azure AD is a powerful tool that helps protect your organization from account compromise. It can detect and respond to suspicious sign-in activity.

With Azure Smart Lockout, you can set up custom policies to define what constitutes suspicious behavior. This includes things like multiple failed sign-in attempts from different locations.

This feature is especially useful for organizations with remote workers or those that use multi-factor authentication. It helps prevent brute-force attacks and keeps your users' accounts secure.

Azure AD's monitoring capabilities also provide real-time alerts and notifications when suspicious activity is detected. This ensures that your team can quickly respond to potential security threats.

Azure Smart Lockout Configuration is a crucial step in securing your Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). To effectively manage account lockout policies, follow these step-by-step instructions.

You can customize the Microsoft Entra smart lockout values based on your organizational requirements. This requires Microsoft Entra ID P1 or higher licenses for your users. Customization isn't available for Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet tenants.

To check or modify the smart lockout values, sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as an Authentication Administrator, browse to Protection > Authentication methods > Password protection, and set the Lockout threshold and Lockout duration in seconds. The default Lockout threshold is 10 for Azure Public tenants and 3 for Azure US Government tenants, and the default Lockout duration is 60 seconds (one minute).

Here are the default and customizable smart lockout values:

Azure Smart Lockout Configuration helps prevent brute-force attacks by automatically locking out accounts after a specified number of failed login attempts.

With Azure Smart Lockout Configuration, you can customize the lockout duration to suit your organization's needs, ranging from 5 minutes to 30 days.

The default lockout threshold is 5 failed login attempts, but you can adjust this to a value between 3 and 30 attempts.

Azure Smart Lockout Configuration also allows you to specify the duration of the lockout, which can be set to a specific time or until the administrator manually unlocks the account.

By configuring Azure Smart Lockout, you can prevent attackers from guessing passwords and gaining unauthorized access to your Azure resources.

24/7 Monitoring with Microsoft Sentinel is a crucial layer beyond implementing security controls. It helps monitor incidents around the clock.

Microsoft Sentinel is a SIEM and SOAR solution that can highlight failed and successful brute force login attacks. This includes attacks that use "low and slow" methods.

This solution can detect sophisticated brute force login attempts, providing an extra layer of security for your Azure Smart Lockout Configuration.

To reset the account lockout counter after a certain period, you need to find the "Reset account lockout counter after" field on the "Account lockout" page.

This field determines the time period after which the account lockout counter is reset, allowing users to attempt sign-in again. The default is not specified, but you can set it to a desired value in minutes.

For example, if you want the counter to reset after 30 minutes, set the reset period to 30. You can also set it to any other value that suits your organization's security requirements.

Once you've configured the desired account lockout settings, click on the "Save" or "Apply" button to save your changes.

Azure Smart Lockout is a feature that locks accounts when a bad actor tries to access them using password guessing or brute force attacks. It's an intelligent system that can recognize genuine users from bad actors and act accordingly.

This feature is designed to protect user accounts from unauthorized access. Azure Smart Lockout is available in both cloud and hybrid scenarios, supporting AD Connect with password hash sync or pass-through authentication.

Azure Smart Lockout can recognize bad actors and lock accounts, but it will work as usual for normal users. This means you can still sign in to your account without any issues if you're a genuine user.

To understand more about Azure Smart Lockout, let's take a look at how it compares to traditional account lockout policies. Here's a brief comparison:

Azure Smart Lockout provides a more advanced and secure way to protect user accounts from unauthorized access. By recognizing bad actors and working as usual for genuine users, it offers a better user experience while maintaining strong security.

Azure Smart Lockout Security provides an intelligent system that recognizes genuine user sign-in attempts from bad actors. It locks accounts when a brute force attack or password guessing occurs.

Smart lockout supports cloud and hybrid scenarios with AD Connect using password hash sync or pass-through authentication.

Azure AD Smart Lockout is a feature that locks accounts when a bad actor tries to access the accounts using password guessing or a brute force attack. It's an intelligent system that can recognize if the sign-in attempt is made by a genuine user or a bad actor and act differently to both.

Here are some key indicators of potential security threats that may indicate a security threat:

Identifying Security Threats is a crucial step in maintaining the security of your Azure AD environment. Microsoft Entra ID protects against attacks by analyzing signals including IP traffic and identifying anomalous behavior.

If you notice multiple failed sign-in attempts from different IP addresses within a short time frame, it could be a sign of a security threat. Lockout events occurring outside of normal working hours or during non-business days may also indicate suspicious activity.

Failed sign-in attempts from unfamiliar or suspicious locations can be another indicator of potential security threats. Simultaneous lockouts from multiple user accounts can also be a red flag.

Here are some indicators of potential security threats:

If you identify potential security threats, it's essential to notify affected users and guide them on securing their accounts. This may include resetting passwords and enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Azure's password protection feature is a game-changer for hybrid environments. It helps eliminate weak passwords by checking them against a banned password list, even if the password is a variant of a banned word.

In a cloud and on-premise hybrid environment, password protection works by syncing with on-premise Active Directory, which maintains all user accounts. The Password Protection agent is installed on domain controllers to communicate with the Azure Password Protection service.

To implement password protection in an on-premise environment, you need to install a Password Protection proxy service on a machine with internet access. This proxy service securely connects to the Azure Password Protection service and forwards requests from domain controllers.

Here's a simplified overview of the password protection process:

Azure AD also provides a self-service password reset feature, which allows users to reset their passwords on their own. This feature can be a huge time-saver for IT administrators and users alike.

To use the self-service password reset feature, users can follow these steps: