T1556.009 Conditional Access Policies
Adversaries may disable or modify conditional access policies to enable persistent access to compromised accounts. Conditional access policies are additional verifications used by identity providers and identity and access management systems to determine whether a user should be granted access to a resource.
For example, in Entra ID, Okta, and JumpCloud, users can be denied access to applications based on their IP address, device enrollment status, and use of multi-factor authentication.435 In some cases, identity providers may also support the use of risk-based metrics to deny sign-ins based on a variety of indicators. In AWS and GCP, IAM policies can contain condition attributes that verify arbitrary constraints such as the source IP, the date the request was made, and the nature of the resources or regions being requested.12 These measures help to prevent compromised credentials from resulting in unauthorized access to data or resources, as well as limit user permissions to only those required.
By modifying conditional access policies, such as adding additional trusted IP ranges, removing Multi-Factor Authentication requirements, or allowing additional Unused/Unsupported Cloud Regions, adversaries may be able to ensure persistent access to accounts and circumvent defensive measures.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| ID | T1556.009 |
| Sub-techniques | T1556.001, T1556.002, T1556.003, T1556.004, T1556.005, T1556.006, T1556.007, T1556.008, T1556.009 |
| Tactics | TA0006, TA0005, TA0003 |
| Platforms | IaaS, Identity Provider |
| Version | 1.1 |
| Created | 02 January 2024 |
| Last Modified | 15 April 2025 |
Procedure Examples
| ID | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| G1015 | Scattered Spider | Scattered Spider has added additional trusted locations to Azure AD conditional access policies. 6 |
| G1053 | Storm-0501 | Storm-0501 has registered their own MFA method, and leveraged a victim hybrid joined server to circumvent Conditional Access Policies.7 |
Mitigations
| ID | Mitigation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| M1018 | User Account Management | Limit permissions to modify conditional access policies to only those required. |
References
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AWS. (n.d.). IAM JSON policy elements: Condition. Retrieved January 2, 2024. ↩
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Google Cloud. (n.d.). Overview of IAM Conditions. Retrieved January 2, 2024. ↩
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JumpCloud. (n.d.). Get Started: Conditional Access Policies. Retrieved January 2, 2024. ↩
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Microsoft. (2023, November 15). What is Conditional Access?. Retrieved January 2, 2024. ↩
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Okta. (2023, November 30). Conditional Access Based on Device Security Posture. Retrieved January 2, 2024. ↩
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Microsoft. (2023, October 25). Octo Tempest crosses boundaries to facilitate extortion, encryption, and destruction. Retrieved March 18, 2024. ↩
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Microsoft Threat Intelligence. (2025, August 27). Storm-0501’s evolving techniques lead to cloud-based ransomware. Retrieved October 19, 2025. ↩