Migrate SSO for External Identities federated apps
Implementation Effort: High – Requires reconfiguration of authentication flows and coordination with external partners to transition federated trust. User Impact: High – External users will experience changes in how they authenticate, requiring outreach and change management.
Overview
This activity involves migrating federated applications used by external identities (such as partners or contractors) from legacy identity providers to Microsoft Entra External ID. These applications may currently rely on custom or outdated federation configurations that do not support modern policy enforcement. Migrating them to Entra External ID allows organizations to enforce Conditional Access, apply governance controls, and improve authentication telemetry across tenant boundaries.
This aligns directly with Verify explicitly, as Entra External ID enables policy-based access evaluation for external users using context-aware conditions like user risk and better controls like strong authentication. The shift also enables Assume breach by replacing implicit trust based on federated identity with continuous access evaluation and cross-tenant restrictions. Applications moved under Entra External ID gain visibility through unified logging and enhanced threat detection.
If this activity is skipped, external identities will continue authenticating via unmanaged or weak trust paths, bypassing core Zero Trust enforcement and exposing the organization to threats stemming from outdated federation protocols, insufficient logging, and limited control over external access behavior.