Guest Access
Are you looking for information about Guest Access configurations in Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365? In this archive you will find all our posts about guest configurations.
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Securing Microsoft Entra Guest Access: Lifecycle Management with Access Packages and Access Reviews
Securing Microsoft Entra guest access involves more than securely authenticating external users and controlling access to resources. A defined lifecycle is equally important. It must be clear why a guest receives access, who approves that access, how long it remains valid, and what happens when the collaboration ends. With a direct invitation through Microsoft Entra B2B Collaboration, Microsoft Entra ID creates a guest object in the resource tenant. Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 groups, SharePoint Online sites, or applications can then be assigned. However, the invitation itself does not define an approval process or an access duration. Without additional governance, the guest account and its permissions remain in place until administrators…
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Securing Microsoft Entra Guest Access: Cross-tenant Access Settings and MFA Trust
Securing Microsoft Entra Guest Access means authenticating external users in a controlled manner and clearly defining access to your organization’s resources. Microsoft 365 supports different collaboration models for this purpose. This article focuses on Microsoft Entra B2B collaboration, where a user object in the resource tenant represents the external identity and provides access to Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, and other applications.
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Microsoft Entra Private Access: Secure Access for External Users to Internal Resources
Connecting external users to internal resources has traditionally been implemented using VPN. While this approach provides network connectivity, it does not consistently align with Zero Trust principles. With the external user access capability in Microsoft Entra Global Secure Access, external identities can now be integrated into existing Microsoft Entra Private Access configurations. Microsoft Entra Private Access External Users authenticate with their own identity and device and intentionally switch to the resource tenant within the Global Secure Access Client. During this tenant switch, a Private Access tunnel is established that restricts connectivity exclusively to explicitly published internal applications.
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Microsoft Entra Access Reviews: Governance for User and Guest Access
In Microsoft Entra ID, user and guest access evolves incrementally over time, for example as a result of role changes, project assignments or temporary external collaboration. Access rights that are granted once often remain in place, even when the original business or organizational requirement no longer exists. As a result, common countermeasures such as manual access reviews, follow-ups with group owners or occasional spot checks provide only limited, point-in-time transparency and do not enable a consistent and regular review of access. Decisions are often not documented consistently and are therefore difficult to audit retrospectively.
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WatchTra: Automated Attribute Compliance for Microsoft Entra ID
In many Microsoft Entra ID environments, the quality of user attributes remains an often underestimated factor in security and governance. WatchTra enhances attribute compliance in Microsoft Entra ID and ensures consistent identity data across the organization. In practice, attributes frequently contain inconsistent spellings or values, for example, “Switzerland” instead of “Swiss” or “IT” instead of “Information Technology”, as well as missing or outdated entries. Such discrepancies can result in incorrect dynamic group memberships, inaccurate reporting or incomplete policy enforcement.However, a consistent validation of these attributes against organization-wide standards is rarely implemented in real-world environments.