Entra 🆔 News #162 → This week in Microsoft Entra
Learn about Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance going GA, SPIFFE/SPIRE tutorials and more!
👋 Hi, Merill and Joshua here with this week’s roundup of the latest news on Microsoft Entra from around the globe 🌍.
It’s a passkey week. Users can now register a passkey or passwordless sign-in as their first MFA method and SMS first-factor sign-in has been retired for Entra ID Free tenants on Aug 11. That’s a lot of change landing at once, and the community has already done the heavy lifting. Ru breaks down device-bound vs syncable passkeys, Jonathan has an opt-out guide if you need more runway, and Nathan, Jon, Kenneth and Rahul all published rollout playbooks worth bookmarking before you touch anything in prod.
Two other things to catch. Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance is now GA 🏆. And if you’re still leaning on memberOf dynamic groups, read Julian’s post (and watch Andy’s video) before you plan your fixes. 🫣
Plus I had Jai Maharaj on Entra Chat to break down the upcoming changes. We covered a lot of ground including thinking about account recovery once you’ve moved to passkeys, ID verification and more.
From SMS MFA to Passkeys: A Practical Microsoft Entra Migration Plan
Microsoft-managed SMS and voice MFA will stop working on February 1, 2027. That deadline makes passkey planning urgent, but enabling a new authentication method is only the first milestone.
Enjoy!
Sponsored by:
Cut the PS: Mailbox Folder Permissions Made Easy
PowerShell is awesome! For automation, bulk-editing, and scheduling. For first-line ad-hoc user support, PowerShell is a resource sinkhole that slows down ticket resolution, sucks in senior IT, and eats up end-user productivity.
To do “simple” mailbox folder permission management using MS standard tooling, your helpdesk needs to juggle five separate cmdlets and hand-type access rights, exact user identities, and SharingPermissionFlags values for calendar delegates.
With EasyEntra, first-line supporters of any level can view and manage mailbox folder permissions in seconds with close to zero training.
And this is just one of many features available in the same application.
“My team and I are blown away with EasyEntra.”
Group IT Manager, RM Curtis, United Kingdom
⚡️ Microsoft
🏆 General Availability
📖 Read
Why Active Directory alone is no longer enough • Jorge A Lopez
How to enforce Zero Trust across every resource • Janice Ricketts
🗣️ Message Center
📕 Microsoft Learn Docs
Tutorial: Federate a SPIFFE/SPIRE workload identity with Microsoft Entra ID (New)
Tutorial: Federate a Google Cloud workload identity with Microsoft Entra ID (New)
Sponsored by:
Top 5 App Governance Challenges in Your Entra Tenant
Somewhere in your Entra tenant, a client secret is expiring. An over-permissioned application has access it never should have. And nobody’s reviewed which applications are in use since... honestly, who remembers?
You didn’t create this mess. Sprawl, drift, process gaps, enthusiastic users, and time did. But you are the one getting middle-of-the-night pings when an exec cannot access their business-critical app. And you might be the one getting grilled by an auditor asking why an app needs ReadWrite.All permissions.
Created for IT admins, IAM, security teams, and the people who are tasked with managing the application estate in Entra ID - the Entra ID App Governance Playbook breaks down 5 application governance gaps behind identity incidents and how to prioritize the fixes.
From the community…
🚀 Most popular posts from last week
🥇 Microsoft Entra Just Made Passwordless MFA Registration Easier • Daniel Bradley
🥈 No Guest? No Problem: Direct External Assignments in Microsoft Entra • Colby Pryor
🥉 Manage your AI Agents at Scale with Entra Agent ID • Brian Veldman
Yeah. ☀️ Learn
👩✈️ AI & Copilot
Microsoft Graph Atlas MCP Server • Darren Robinson
🧰 Workload ID
Secret’s out: How to replace client secrets with Azure managed identity • Sep Behesti
Microsoft Entra: Migrating GitHub Actions Federated Credentials to Immutable Subjects • Tobias Asböck
👮♂️ ID Governance
📺 How to configure Privileged Identity Management in Entra ID • Steven Weiner
📦 Apps
Authentication
From IST to SOLL: A Field Guide to Modernizing Entra ID Authentication • Kenneth van Surksum
Afterthoughts: I said SMS and voice were being removed • Per-Torben Sorensen
Phishing-Resistant MFA: Planning Your Passkey Rollout in Microsoft 365 • Nathan Hutchinson
How to Move to Passkeys as the Default in Microsoft Entra • Jon Towles
Microsoft Entra makes passwordless registration easier, but what does this mean for Zero Trust? • Rahul Jindal
📺 Device-Bound vs Syncable Passkeys [Admin’s Decision Guide] • Ru Campbell
📺 How to Delay Microsoft’s Passkey Rollout (Opt-Out Guide) • Jonathan Edwards
📺 Your MFA Won’t Stop This. Here’s What Will • Jonathan Edwards
👥 User & Group Management
Farewell to memberOf Dynamic Groups • Julian Rasmussen
Mastering Groups: The Deep Dive • Jonathan Hope
📺 Microsoft Is Changing Entra Dynamic Groups – Are You Ready? • Andy Malone
🤖 DevOps & PowerShell
WAM Bam, Thank You Ma’am. What Changed in the Microsoft Graph SDK • Ben Whitmore
Microsoft Needs To Proactively Prevent Typosquatting (how I almost got owned) | by Ethan Word | Aug, 2026 • Ethan Word
🚦 Conditional Access
🖥️ Devices
Windows Hello for Business • Keith Doolan
🥷 Security
📺 Nested APP Authentication - Undocumented Risk and Conditional Access Bypass • Jun-Sheng Shi and Shang-De (John) Jiang
📒 Tenant Configuration
Microsoft is Tracking your Entra ID License Usage – Are You Compliant? • Rudy Mens
Are Microsoft preparing license enforcement for Entra ID? • Daniel Bradley
🛍️ External ID - Customers
How does Microsoft’s SMS retirement affect CIAM products • Rory Braybrook
Using strong authentication and email/SMS OTP as second-factor MFA via native auth in Entra… • Rory Braybrook
🔥 Maester
👨🏽💻 Merill’s corner
Want to get featured on Entra.News? → Submit your content 😎
Want us to say nice things about your company? Sponsor entra.news 🤩
Love the newsletter? Tell us 💚❤️💜
🪃 Acknowledgement of Country
Entra.News is created on Wurundjeri land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. We pay our respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.