Maintaining visibility and control over applications is a critical aspect of security, particularly as businesses increasingly rely on cloud-based software. App governance within Microsoft Cloud App Security is designed to assist organizations with this challenge. With app governance, administrators get risk assessments of apps corresponding to their usage in the organization, including their permissions scope, community usage, and more.
For example, applications that require broad permissions or are infrequently used within the community are flagged as high-risk. In response, the business might choose to enforce policies that restrict access to these applications or require additional authentication steps.
Moreover, app governance provides insights into how applications are used and by whom. This information helps admins understand their organization’s application landscape, monitor its evolution, and respond to potential threats.
Managing Applications through App Governance
Effective management of cloud applications involves understanding the current application landscape, establishing suitable usage and security policies, and monitoring activity over time.
For comprehensive app management:
- Discover and Catalog Apps: Raise visibility on all cloud applications in use within the organization. You’ll understand who uses these apps and how they interact with them, providing a complete picture of the application environment.
- Evaluate and Classify Apps: App governance gives a risk score to each app based on its permission reach, community usage, and other factors. Administrators can leverage these ratings to classify applications and suitably manage their use.
- Develop and Implement Policies: With the knowledge of the application landscape and the associated risk, admins can tailor usage and security policies to meet their organization’s needs better.
Monitoring Applications with App Governance
Monitoring application use over time is equally crucial to maintaining a secure and productive environment. App governance brings this ability by providing continuous monitoring and timely alerts on suspicious activity.
Through the monitoring of app governance, admins can:
- Track changes in app risk scores over time.
- Review detailed logs of individual user activity within applications.
- Receive alerts for anomalous behavior, including excessive file downloads, multiple failed login attempts, and sudden spikes in activity that can indicate a potential security breach.
Conclusion
App governance as part of Microsoft Cloud App Security provides a robust solution for managing and monitoring cloud applications. It boosts visibility on the application use, helps classify apps based on their risk score, and allows continuous monitoring of activities and user behavior. By effectively governing application use, organizations can get the best out of their cloud services while ensuring a secure, controlled, and risk-mitigated environment. The SC-300 Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator exam will test prospective IT professionals on their knowledge and abilities in this space, ensuring that they can properly manage and monitor apps using app governance.
Practice Test
True/False: App governance allows you to manage the risk to your Microsoft 365 environment caused by apps that are built into Microsoft
- True
Answer: True
Explanation: App governance is a capability in Microsoft cloud App security that helps you manage the risk in your Microsoft 365 cloud environment caused by installed third-party applications or your own applications.
Which of the following actions are possible with App governance? Choose all that apply.
- A. Detecting applications that have risky behaviors
- B. Approving applications for use in Microsoft 365
- C. Determining the weather forecast-
- D. Revoking app permissions
Answer: A, B, D
Explanation: App governance allows you to identify applications with risky behaviors, approve or deny access to specific applications, and revoke permissions, but it does not provide weather forecasts.
True/False: App governance only works with third-party applications.
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: Although App governance does work with third-party applications, it is also applicable to your own applications.
What is one of the primary uses of App Governance?
- A. Creating applications
- B. Gaming
- C. Managing application risk
- D. Emailing
Answer: C
Explanation: The primary use of App Governance is to manage and monitor applications to reduce privacy and security risks.
True/False: App Governance requires an Azure account and subscription.
- True
Answer: True
Explanation: You need to have an Azure account with a subscription in order to use the App Governance function in Microsoft
Which of the following is not a part of an App governance policy?
- A. Conditions
- B. Media files
- C. Actions
- D. Alert
Answer: B
Explanation: An App Governance policy consists of conditions, actions, and alerts to manage applications; it does not include media files.
True/False: App Governance allows applications to bypass security measures.
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: App Governance is implemented specifically to enforce security and control over applications.
App governance can provide visibility into which of the following? Choose all that apply.
- A. App permissions
- B. App behavior
- C. User’s private emails
- D. Service principals and their behavior
Answer: A, B, D
Explanation: App governance provides visibility into aspects of app permissions, behavior and service principals but it doesn’t provide access to user’s private emails.
True/False: You need to be an App Governance Administrator to set an App Governance policy.
- True
Answer: True
Explanation: Only administrators have the capability to set a policy in App Governance to ensure appropriate checks and balances.
App governance helps in ________.
- A. Grocery shopping
- B. Reducing exposure to too many or risky permissions
- C. Watching movies
- D. Painting
Answer: B
Explanation: App governance is a mechanism primarily to control and manage application permissions, reducing the exposure to too many or risky permissions.
Interview Questions
What is the primary purpose of App Governance in Azure AD?
The primary purpose of Azure AD App Governance is to provide risk detection and risk-based policy enforcement for cloud apps in your environment that are integrated with Azure AD. This allows administrators to monitor and control potentially risky behavior.
How does Azure AD’s App Governance help monitor risky behaviors?
It helps monitor risky behaviors by giving visibility over the broad usage of applications within the organization, detecting potentially risky operations, and providing insights about how applications are behaving.
Can unauthorized applications be blocked using Azure AD’s App Governance?
Yes, Azure AD’s App Governance allows administrators to block applications that are deemed risky or unauthorized.
What is the functionality of ‘Consent Requests’ within Azure AD’s App Governance?
Consent Requests in Azure AD’s App Governance allows administrators to approve or reject requests from users wishing to grant permissions to applications.
Which specific risks can be managed using Azure AD App Governance?
Specific risks that can be managed include oversharing of data, apps with risky OAuth permissions, apps behaving abnormally or with high-risk indicators, and more.
How can one identify high-risk apps using Azure AD App Governance?
High-risk apps can be identified by setting risk-based policies through which any app that exceeds a certain risk level can be flagged for review.
How can Azure AD App Governance help improve security transparency?
Azure AD App Governance offers a dashboard to quickly visualize high-risk applications and their behaviors, offering improved security transparency and aiding decision-making processes.
Can Azure AD App Governance help in detecting obsolete applications?
Yes, Azure AD App Governance can find and classify unused or rarely used applications as obsolete to ensure only necessary applications have access to company resources.
What is the function of adaptive policies in Azure AD App Governance?
Adaptive policies can be set to detect risky behaviors and then automatically enforce actions such as blocking access, limiting permissions, or requiring user re-authentication.
How can Azure AD App Governance aid in compliance with regulations?
It aids in compliance with regulations by allowing organizations to keep track of which applications have access to sensitive data ensuring all applications adhere to organizational and regulatory compliance requirements.
Can Azure AD App Governance provide alerts on risky behaviors?
Yes, Azure AD App Governance can proactively send alerts on risky behaviors via email or other notifications.
What role does AI play in Azure AD App Governance?
AI helps Azure AD App Governance to detect abnormal behaviors, identify threats, and automatically enforce policies and actions depending on the risk level.
Is it necessary to manually monitor applications once Azure AD App Governance is set up?
No, once Azure AD App Governance is set up, it automates the monitoring process and reduces the admin overhead.
Can Azure AD App Governance be used along with Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Yes, both can be used together for comprehensive visibility, controls, and threat detection across all apps in your organization.
Is a separate license required to use Azure AD App Governance?
Yes, Azure AD App Governance is part of Azure AD Premium P2 and requires a separate license.
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