Compliance Policies
Last Updated: May 2025
Implementation Effort: Medium – Creating and deploying compliance policies requires project-level planning, coordination with security teams, and ongoing policy updates.
User Impact: Medium – Users may need to take action—such as updating their OS, enabling encryption, or setting a password—to remain compliant and retain access to corporate resources.
Introduction
Compliance policies in Intune define the conditions a macOS device must meet to be considered trusted. These policies are foundational to Zero Trust because they provide the enforcement mechanism that determines whether a device can access corporate resources. Compliance policies are evaluated continuously and feed directly into Conditional Access decisions.
This section helps macOS administrators evaluate their compliance policy configurations and ensure they are aligned with Zero Trust principles—particularly around device health, encryption, OS version, and security posture.
Why This Matters
- Defines the baseline for device trust in a Zero Trust model.
- Enables Conditional Access enforcement based on real-time device posture.
- Supports continuous evaluation of compliance, not just one-time checks.
- Reduces risk by ensuring only secure, policy-aligned devices can access resources.
- Improves visibility into device health and security gaps.
Key Considerations
Supported Compliance Settings for macOS
Intune supports the following compliance checks for macOS:
- Minimum OS version
- Maximum OS version
- Password requirements (length, complexity, timeout)
- Encryption (FileVault) status
- System Integrity Protection (SIP)
From a Zero Trust perspective: These settings enforce explicit verification of device health and configuration before access is granted.
FileVault Enforcement
- FileVault encryption can be required as part of the compliance policy.
- Devices without encryption are marked non-compliant and can be blocked from accessing resources.
From a Zero Trust perspective: This ensures data at rest is protected and only encrypted devices are trusted.
OS Version Control
- Set a minimum OS version to ensure devices are running supported, secure builds.
- Optionally set a maximum version to prevent early adoption of untested macOS releases.
From a Zero Trust perspective: This reduces exposure to known vulnerabilities and ensures device integrity.