Interlink Cloud Blog

Learn how to take advantage of these services from Azure Active Directory!
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Recently, Microsoft started to offer a free cloud-based Azure Active Directory Multi-Factor Authentication. In addition, you can gain many premium features such as branding, password protection, hybrid identities, group access management, conditional access, and identity protect & governance with different paid versions. Read on to find out which version is best for your organization and how a deployment will best optimize your organization!

What is Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)?  

At the basic level, Multi-Factor Authentication has added security in a two-step verification process. This introduces a significant challenge to attackers because even if an attacker manages to learn a user’s credentials, it is useless without also having an additional authentication method. The combination of these can be a trusted and not easily duplicated device (such as a registered cellphone), biometrics like facial recognition or fingerprint access, or a domain-joined PC.

Azure AD Password Protection helps eliminate easily guessed passwords from the environment, which can dramatically lower the risk of being compromised by attackers. It also protects by preventing users from setting their passwords to common, weak and risky passwords and prevents bad actors from trying to brute force attack those accounts.

Many attackers know how users create passwords, and more often than not, businesses ldo not have a security policy in place around user created passwords. Therefore, Azure AD Password Protection would be beneficial for any business that wants to improve their network security and prevent data loss through user identity compromise.