In this post we will be going through creating an Azure conditional access policy to restrict logging on to Azure / Office 365 from specific locations.
Conditional access policies are used to set requirements for accessing Azure or Office 365 resource, when using Named locations we can then set based on IP range, Trusted locations or Countries and regions.
Below diagram is from Microsoft on how conditionals access works.
What is Conditional Access in Azure Active Directory? | Microsoft Docs
First step is to logon to Azure and go to Azure AD conditional access
Create a named location that will be used to restrict access.
Once in named location we can either create a location based on IP range or countries / regions. In this case we will be using a country.
Next we will create the conditional policy
Give the policy a name, we will be using a group to apply the policy but this could be change to all users or by directory role. (We can use select users or groups to apply the policy to a specific group as if applied to all users there could be a risk of locking yourself out of Azure portal)
Next we can apply the policy to specific apps or all apps. (If applying to all apps there will be a warning to not lock yourself out)
Next we set the conditions in this case we will be using location, I will be applying the policy to any location.
We can then set the named location as excluded in the policy so that it wont be applied if the access is coming from a country that is on the allowed named location.
Next we can set the access control settings, in this case we will block access but this could be changed to require MFA or other settings below.
Last step is to set session options to use conditional access app control, force sign-in frequency, Persistent browser session. We wont be setting any of the session settings as this policy is to block access.
There are three options report-only, on or off. To test the policy and check what will be blocked without running the risk of blocking real users set to report-only (This would be recommend for testing policy before rolling out to all users.)
Click create and the policy should now show and the state should be report-only.
To test if the policy is going to be applied we can check a users sign-ins, click on a signing log and go to Report-only, click on the three dots and show details.
This will show what part of the policy has been satisfied and not satisfied. Since the location has not been satisfied (as we are connecting from a excluded location) and the policy is not applied.
When the users tries to access from a country that is not in the allowed location, the result will be a failure and the users would be blocked from accessing.
Once testing has been completed and there are no unexpected blocks we can then go back to the conditional access policy and change the state to on, to apply the policy to users.
Now when a restricted user try’s to access an Azure / Office 365 resource from country not in the named location they will receive a message like the below.
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