Mastering a Microsoft Intune deployment begins with clearly understanding the aim and leveraging proven best practices for mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management (MAM). Like any technology deployment, not having apparent success factors combined with not leveraging proven deployment strategies leads to a project that will never end.

This article discusses the value and importance of best practices to help guide your next Intune deployment project. Leveraging MSSPs like Hypershift and their experienced engineers helps reduce time and cost in Intune for MAM and MDM by executing a proven deployment plan.

Intune Best Practices: How to Avoid Common Mistakes?

Mistakes happen in every IT deployment. Often, mistakes result from poor planning, challenges aligning the solution to business objectives, and the need for experienced engineers to manage the deployment. These issues frequently lead to problems with device compliance, unauthorized access to the Intune company portal, or hackers hijacking the device management process or altering the app protection policies.

Here is a list of common mistakes made during a Microsoft Intune Deployment that organizations should know:

Defining and Provisioning Conditional Access During Device Enrollment.

Conditional access is helpful for company-owned devices or bring-your-own-device (BYOD). By setting this policy, devices that do not meet security standards defined within Intune will be granted limited access to applications, networks, and data. However, if this policy is not set correctly, devices that fail in their security posture assessment or become compromised by hackers will continue to operate normally.

Failure to Update Policies and Security Patches After the Initial Configuration.

Security operations engineers often update MDM and MAM policies based on either an immediate threat or to grant access to new cloud infrastructures and SaaS-based applications. Devices that cannot receive new policy updates, including software updates to reduce exposure, quickly become liabilities. SecOps engineers should validate that policy updates work as expected to ensure this condition doesn't put the organization at risk.

Common Issues With Firewall Configurations After the Initial Deployment.

During an Intune deployment, firewall changes are required to ensure the proper ports open for user devices to access the various platforms. Policy updates to the devices must have the correct firewall ports open. In time, SecOps engineers will update their firewall with new firmware or, responding to a security audit, may shut down currently unused ports. These mistakes result in the failed delivery of new policies to devices or the inability to receive attack telemetry information.

Misconfiguring Multifactor (MFA) Authentication Methods for Intune.

Hackers stealing credentials through an email phishing campaign is highly common. M365 is a frequent target of hackers because they subscribe to M365! They use their M365 accounts to send out their credential campaign attacks. Microsoft and CISA recommend enabling MFA to help minimize the risk of account takeover. Like other security features, failure to configure MFA could cause a breach of the management console, impacting the organization's enterprise network, hosts, and cloud applications.

Misconfigured Settings By Mistakenly Giving Users Admin Rights.

A common mistake for deployment SecOps engineers is forgetting to deactivate the default admin accounts and passwords or mistakenly adding every user to the admin group in the Active Directory. After an Intune deployment, organizations recommend hiring a third-party security assessment firm to look for vulnerabilities and exploitations. The third-party testing firm will discover this misstep in configuration.

Misconfiguration of Compliance Policies During the Enrollment Process.

Configuring compliance policies for Intune is one of the most valuable features. MDM and MAM compliance policies within Intune help organizations comply with HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GPDR, and other compliance regulations. Misconfiguring policies on user devices could affect the organization's compliance status.

Why is Leveraging Intune Best Practices Critical For Every Deployment?

Getting the most out of any cybersecurity adaptive control deployment starts with the ability to complete the installation correctly. Organizations want to operate in a compliant environment for their applications and devices with correct implementations. Failing to deploy Microsoft Intune correctly will cause non-compliant devices to access sensitive applications and data sources.

Here are the positive results that organizations can experience when deploying Intune with best practices.

Early Success with enhanced productivity.

Intune provides a centralized platform for operations teams to manage multiple devices like smartphones, tablets, and laptops. This streamlined approach simplifies the deployment of applications, updates, and configurations, enhancing productivity by ensuring all team members have access to necessary tools.

More Flexibility for New or Existing Application Deployment on BYOD and Corporate Devices.

Flexibility and accessibility are essential aspects of the modern work environment. InTune enables employees to use their preferred devices, leading to greater employee satisfaction, collaboration, and innovation.

Realizing Actual Cost Savings.

Organizations using Intune to automate application delivery to compliant devices with less human interaction help reduce operational costs and license app delivery by the department.

Streamlining Device and Application Management for BYOD.

Intune BYOD is essential for optimizing workflows. It offers productivity, device flexibility, security, and cost savings, aligning well with modern operations needs. It helps manage diverse devices efficiently for business success.

What Are Essential InTune Best Practices All Organizations Should Follow?

Here is a list of Intune Deployment Best Practices Organizations Should Consider:

Organizations configuring their MAM and MDM services together could face several security breaches against their applications and devices.

• One best practice is that organizations should only deploy the MAM function first. This decision would ensure that the application management function with Intune works successfully against a series of test devices. This efficient environment will help reduce application risk before deploying on organization devices.
• Dividing the MAM and MDM deployments into two separate installations will also help ensure the organization can more efficiently troubleshoot Intune than attempting to deploy both functions simultaneously.
• Another valuable best practice is breaking up the various business requirements into the control layer within Intune. Organizations focusing on deploying MDM and MAM services should create test groups in each business entity. Departments like engineering, sales, human resources, and finance may need only specific applications relevant to their specific job tasks. Organizations that take the approach of all applications on every device become challenged with various issues, resulting in devices being moved into complete protection mode.

Need An Intune Partner For Deployment? Hypershift is Your Partner!

Deployment of Microsoft Intune is one of the most critical projects for any organization. Securing organization devices, user access, and applications is paramount for an organization to meet its compliance regulations. A successful Intune deployment shows your organization your commitment to protecting its information.

The first step is to leverage best practices for Intune. However, having access to best practices is only a portion of the equation. Access to qualified engineers with experience in mobile application management deployments and device management devices in Intune is equally critical.

Organizations struggling with recruiting and keeping corporate resources with Microsoft Intune experience should seek the experts at Hypershift.

CIOs and CISOs compel their teams to meet business objectives for MDM and MAM projects. These success factors include saving money, deploying corporate security policies, and maintaining a seamless user experience; consulting firms like Hypershift are the ideal partners.

Consulting Engagement With Hypershift.

Once the organization has moved forward with Intune, contacting the experts at Hypershift would be the logical next step. Their expert cloud migration, the Microsoft security stack, and cybersecurity incident response are valuable assets for your organization. Understanding how Microsoft Azure and Intune integrate with M365 email and third-party applications is essential for a successful MDM and MAM deployment, and Hypershift's experts understand these critical elements.

Managed Services Expertise Regarding Intune.

One of the many wide ranges of services Hypershift offers is a managed service offering for Intune. If the organization's in-house security is focused on strategic projects, Hypershift's managed offering for Intune could augment existing internal teams, from managing the deployment process to creating conditional access policies to helping manage interactions with Azure AD. Hypershift could also provide a complete turnkey solution that includes 100% management of the Intune instance with a 24x7x365 coverage model.

Where to start? Contact Hypershift to discuss your cloud migration project!