Simulating risk detections in Identity Protection

  • 4 minutes to read

Administrators may want to simulate risk in their environment in order to accomplish the following items:

  • Populate data in the Identity Protection environment by simulating risk detections and vulnerabilities.
  • Set up risk-based Conditional Access policies and test the impact of these policies.

This article provides you with steps for simulating the following risk detection types:

  • Anonymous IP address (easy)
  • Unfamiliar sign-in properties (moderate)
  • Atypical travel (difficult)

Other risk detections cannot be simulated in a secure manner.

More information about each risk detection can be found in the article, What is risk.

Anonymous IP address

Completing the following procedure requires you to use:

  • The Tor Browser to simulate anonymous IP addresses. You might need to use a virtual machine if your organization restricts using the Tor browser.
  • A test account that is not yet registered for Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication.

To simulate a sign-in from an anonymous IP, perform the following steps:

  1. Using the Tor Browser, navigate to https://myapps.microsoft.com.
  2. Enter the credentials of the account you want to appear in the Sign-ins from anonymous IP addresses report.

The sign-in shows up on the Identity Protection dashboard within 10 - 15 minutes.

Unfamiliar sign-in properties

To simulate unfamiliar locations, you have to sign in from a location and device your test account has not signed in from before.

The procedure below uses a newly created:

  • VPN connection, to simulate new location.
  • Virtual machine, to simulate a new device.

Completing the following procedure requires you to use a user account that has:

  • At least a 30-day sign-in history.
  • Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication enabled.

To simulate a sign-in from an unfamiliar location, perform the following steps:

  1. When signing in with your test account, fail the multi-factor authentication (MFA) challenge by not passing the MFA challenge.
  2. Using your new VPN, navigate to https://myapps.microsoft.com and enter the credentials of your test account.

The sign-in shows up on the Identity Protection dashboard within 10 - 15 minutes.

Atypical travel

Simulating the atypical travel condition is difficult because the algorithm uses machine learning to weed out false-positives such as atypical travel from familiar devices, or sign-ins from VPNs that are used by other users in the directory. Additionally, the algorithm requires a sign-in history of 14 days and 10 logins of the user before it begins generating risk detections. Because of the complex machine learning models and above rules, there is a chance that the following steps will not lead to a risk detection. You might want to replicate these steps for multiple Azure AD accounts to simulate this detection.

To simulate an atypical travel risk detection, perform the following steps:

  1. Using your standard browser, navigate to https://myapps.microsoft.com.
  2. Enter the credentials of the account you want to generate an atypical travel risk detection for.
  3. Change your user agent. You can change user agent in Microsoft Edge from Developer Tools (F12).
  4. Change your IP address. You can change your IP address by using a VPN, a Tor add-on, or creating a new virtual machine in Azure in a different data center.
  5. Sign-in to https://myapps.microsoft.com using the same credentials as before and within a few minutes after the previous sign-in.

The sign-in shows up in the Identity Protection dashboard within 2-4 hours.

Testing risk policies

This section provides you with steps for testing the user and the sign-in risk policies created in the article, How To: Configure and enable risk policies.

User risk policy

To test a user risk security policy, perform the following steps:

  1. Navigate to the Azure portal.
  2. Browse to Azure Active Directory > Security > Overview.
  3. Select Configure user risk policy.
    1. Under Assignments
      1. Users - Choose All users or Select individuals and groups if limiting your rollout.
        1. Optionally you can choose to exclude users from the policy.
      2. Conditions - User risk Microsoft's recommendation is to set this option to High.
    2. Under Controls
      1. Access - Microsoft's recommendation is to Allow access and Require password change.
    3. Enforce Policy - Off
    4. Save - This action will return you to the Overview page.
  4. Elevate the user risk of a test account by, for example, simulating one of the risk detections a few times.
  5. Wait a few minutes, and then verify that risk has elevated for your user. If not, simulate more risk detections for the user.
  6. Return to your risk policy and set Enforce Policy to On and Save your policy change.
  7. You can now test user risk-based Conditional Access by signing in using a user with an elevated risk level.

Sign-in risk security policy

To test a sign in risk policy, perform the following steps:

  1. Navigate to the Azure portal.
  2. Browse to Azure Active Directory > Security > Overview.
  3. Select Configure sign-in risk policy.
    1. Under Assignments
      1. Users - Choose All users or Select individuals and groups if limiting your rollout.
        1. Optionally you can choose to exclude users from the policy.
      2. Conditions - Sign-in risk Microsoft's recommendation is to set this option to Medium and above.
    2. Under Controls
      1. Access - Microsoft's recommendation is to Allow access and Require multi-factor authentication.
    3. Enforce Policy - On
    4. Save - This action will return you to the Overview page.
  4. You can now test Sign-in Risk-based Conditional Access by signing in using a risky session (for example, by using the Tor browser).

Next steps