Endpoint Compliance & Conditional Access Program (Case Study)
An endpoint compliance and Conditional Access program for a regulated U.S. FinTech — Jamf Pro device compliance feeding Microsoft Entra ID so one policy set governs Mac and Windows access, aligned to SOC 2.
The problem
In a regulated FinTech, “are our endpoints secure?” is a question auditors ask in writing, and the answer has to be a number backed by evidence. The fleet spanned macOS, Windows, iOS, and ChromeOS. Windows compliance was reasonably well covered by Intune, but Macs sat outside the same enforcement — managed by Jamf, but not gating access to corporate data through the same rules. Encryption, patch state, and security-agent health were tracked in two places with two definitions of “compliant,” and pulling an audit-ready report meant manual work every quarter.
Approach
- Write the standard before touching a console. One document defining what “compliant” means for every platform — disk encryption on with an escrowed recovery key, OS within a defined window of current, firewall enabled, security agent healthy, screen lock enforced — mapped directly to the SOC 2 controls it satisfies.
- Express the standard as policy on both platforms. Intune compliance policies for Windows and mobile. On the Mac side, a Jamf Smart Group for the compliance baseline plus the Jamf Pro Conditional Access connection so Jamf’s compliance verdict is visible to Entra ID.
- Build one Conditional Access policy. For all users, accessing all cloud apps, require the device to be marked compliant or Entra hybrid joined — covering Windows via Intune and macOS via Jamf under a single rule, with MFA and sign-in-risk conditions layered on top.
- Prove it before enforcing it. Report-only mode for two weeks, reading the workbook daily, fixing every user the policy would have blocked, and confirming break-glass accounts were excluded from every policy.
- Make the report a button, not a project. A Graph API job that exports compliance state, encryption-with-valid-key percentage, and time-to-patch against the standard — the exact evidence the audit asks for.
What I built
- A written, control-mapped compliance standard covering four platforms.
- Jamf Smart Groups and Intune compliance policies that continuously evaluate every device against that standard.
- The Jamf–Intune connector wired into Entra ID, and a single device-based Conditional Access policy governing Mac and Windows access identically.
- App protection policies (MAM) for managed and unmanaged mobile devices — DLP, selective wipe, managed app configuration, and app-based Conditional Access so only compliant apps reach corporate resources.
- Automated FileVault and BitLocker enforcement with recovery-key escrow, and reporting on “encrypted with a valid escrowed key,” not just the encryption flag.
- A Graph-API compliance dashboard producing audit evidence on demand.
Results
- One definition of compliant across the fleet, enforced by one Conditional Access policy — a non-compliant Mac loses access to Microsoft 365 through the same rule as a non-compliant PC.
- Quarterly audit prep for endpoint controls went from a manual data-gathering exercise to running a report.
- Encryption reporting shifted from “% encrypted” to “% encrypted with a recoverable key we hold” — closing the gap that turns a lost laptop into an incident.
- The report-only rollout meant enforcement went live without a flood of lockout tickets.
What I’d tell someone starting this
Conditional Access is where all the compliance work finally matters — and it’s also where you can lock your whole company out in one save. Write the standard first and map it to your framework’s controls, so every technical decision has a justification. Prove the policy in report-only. Exclude break-glass accounts from everything. And report against the standard, in the framework’s language, not in raw version numbers — that’s what makes the auditor’s job (and yours) short.
Related reading: Device-based Conditional Access in Entra ID · Enforcing FileVault & BitLocker with escrowed keys · Integrating Jamf Pro with Intune & Entra ID