Latest news and updates about Entra ID.
Microsoft has launched Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery in public preview, giving organizations a Microsoft-managed way to restore critical identity objects and configurations to a known-good state. The service helps IT teams recover faster from accidental admin changes, provisioning errors, and malicious modifications that could otherwise disrupt access and security.
Microsoft has announced general availability of external MFA in Microsoft Entra ID, allowing organizations to integrate trusted third-party MFA providers using OpenID Connect. The feature lets IT teams keep Microsoft Entra ID as the central identity control plane while maintaining Conditional Access, risk evaluation, and unified authentication method management.
At RSAC 2026, Microsoft announced major Microsoft Entra updates aimed at securing not only users and devices but also AI agents, workloads, and modern multi-tenant environments. The new capabilities—such as expanded Entra Agent ID governance, shadow AI detection, prompt injection protection, passkey enhancements, and adaptive risk-based access—matter because they strengthen Zero Trust identity security as organizations adopt AI and face more dynamic access risks.
Microsoft’s Entra Secure Access Report 2026 says AI adoption is significantly increasing identity and network access risk, with 97% of organizations reporting an access-related incident in the past year and 70% tying incidents to AI activity. The report argues that fragmented identity and network tools are making the problem worse, which matters because more organizations are now moving toward consolidated access platforms to better secure AI tools, agents, and machine identities.
Microsoft is updating Entra Conditional Access so policies targeting "All resources" will be enforced consistently even when resource exclusions exist, closing a gap where some sign-ins requesting only OIDC or limited directory scopes could bypass policy checks. Beginning March 27, 2026 and rolling out through June 2026, affected tenants may see more users prompted for MFA, device compliance, or other controls—making this important for organizations to review impacted Conditional Access policies and prepare for changes in sign-in behavior.
Microsoft is launching the four-part Microsoft Entra Access Priorities webinar series to help IT teams turn its identity-first security strategy into practical deployment steps, with guidance on phishing-resistant authentication, adaptive access, least privilege, and securing AI-related access. The series matters because it gives organizations concrete tools, demos, and checklists to strengthen Zero Trust and prepare for an emerging Access Fabric model that spans users, apps, devices, and AI agents.
Microsoft has previewed a secure web and AI gateway in Entra Internet Access that adds network-layer controls for enterprise AI use, including shadow AI detection, file filtering with Purview integration, and prompt injection protection. This matters because it gives organizations an identity-first way to discover unsanctioned AI tools, prevent sensitive data leakage, and enforce consistent security policies across devices and clouds without needing to modify applications.
Microsoft has launched Entra Agent ID in public preview, giving every AI agent a unique identity and introducing an Agent Registry to help organizations discover, inventory, and manage agents across Microsoft, open-source, and third-party platforms. This matters because it brings enterprise-grade authentication, least-privilege access, auditing, and scalable governance to AI agents, helping reduce security risks as agent adoption grows.
Microsoft has launched public previews of synced passkeys and high-assurance account recovery for Entra ID, allowing users to sign in passwordlessly with biometrics or a device PIN while syncing passkeys across devices through services like iCloud Keychain and Google Password Manager. The update matters because it aims to make phishing-resistant authentication much easier to adopt at scale, while giving administrators group-based controls over passkey policies to reduce rollout friction, improve user experience, and lower helpdesk costs.
Microsoft’s November 2025 Entra updates focus on expanding identity security for AI agents and generative AI apps, including new preview features like Entra Agent ID, Prompt Shield for prompt injection protection, and improved passkey recovery. The release also matters for IT admins because it introduces important security hardening changes—such as stricter sign-in page content security policies and device integrity checks in Microsoft Authenticator—that may require action to avoid disruption.
Microsoft’s Ignite 2025 Entra session replays highlight how the company is extending Zero Trust and identity security to AI agents, workloads, and new AI-driven access patterns rather than rebuilding identity from scratch. The key takeaway for IT teams is that tools like Microsoft Entra Agent ID and the Entra Suite aim to help organizations discover, govern, and protect AI identities as first-class entities, which matters because AI adoption is making identity the central control plane for trust, access, and threat response.
Microsoft Entra has generally released new partner integrations that let organizations add edge-level WAF and bot protection to authentication endpoints, plus fraud prevention in External ID sign-up flows, directly from the Entra portal. The update matters because it helps security teams block DDoS attacks, malicious bots, and fraudulent account creation earlier in the user journey while reducing deployment friction through built-in purchasing and integration options.