Conditional access allows you to set policies that dictate how and
when a user should be able to access their account. For example, you can
set conditions that allow a user to sign in to their Zoho account only
on certain days of the week, from certain locations, or through certain
devices.
Conditions
When
a policy is applied to a user, the conditions are checked for their
current sign-in attempt. If the conditions match, the corresponding
action will be done. Currently, the following conditions are supported:
- Day of the week
- Time of the day
- Platform:
This condition checks the OS of the device the user is signing in from.
Supported options are: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone, and iPad.
- Applied routing policy: This condition checks whether the user is assigned to the mentioned routing policies or not. Learn more about routing policies
- Device management status:
These are conditions based on the Device Management feature. This
condition checks whether the device is managed via MDM or not and what
the Device Security Score of the device should be. Learn more about device management
- IP address: This condition checks whether the user is trying to sign in from the approved IPs or not. IPs can be added in three ways:
- Current IP: The IP you're accessing Zoho Directory from when setting up the policy is detected and auto-filled.
- Static IP: You can enter a specific IP address manually.
- IP Range: You can enter a range of IPs manually.
- Country: This condition checks the geographical location from where the user is trying to sign in.
Actions
Actions
dictate how the sign-in attempt is handled when it matches the
conditions of a policy applied to a user. There are three possible
actions:
- Allow:
If the user's sign-in attempt matches with any of the policies applied
to them with the Allow action, they will be allowed to sign in.
- Allow with MFA:
If the user's sign-in attempt matches with any of the policies applied
to them with the Allow with MFA action, they will be asked to verify
with MFA before being allowed to sign in.
- Deny:
If the user's sign-in attempt matches with any of the policies applied
to them with the Deny action, they will not be allowed to sign in.
Policies with the Allow action are checked first, Allow with MFA next, Deny last. If none of the policies match, then the default action is applied.
MFA Factors
When the Allow with MFA
action is selected, you will be asked to set which MFA factors have to
be used when a user matches that specific policy. The supported factors
are:
- Zoho OneAuth - Zoho's own authenticator app. Learn more
- OTP Authenticator - Any 2FA authenticator app. Learn more
- Security Key - A hardware security key. Learn more
Since these factors are configured separately for each policy, the order of priority is important for MFA policies. Learn more about policy priority
Default Action
When
conditional access is set up, and a user's sign-in attempt doesn't
match with any policies or fails all matching policies, the default
action is carried out. The options are the same as any other
policy—Allow, Allow with MFA, and Deny.
When planning your conditional access setup, it is suggested to stick with one of two approaches:
- Allow by default: In this approach, set your default action to be Allow or Allow with MFA. Then set up all other policies with the Deny action.
In other words, during each sign-in attempt, Zoho Directory will check
the Deny conditions to see if there is any reason to deny access. If
there are no reasons, then the user will be allowed to sign in.
Example policies would be having conditions such as:
- Deny if the sign-in attempt is not from the selected countries
- Deny if the sign-in attempt is on a Sunday
- Deny if the sign-in attempt is not from the selected IP addresses
- Deny by default: In this approach, set your default action to be Deny. Then set up all other policies with the Allow or Allow with MFA action.
During each sign-in attempt, Zoho Directory will check if the sign-in
attempt matches any of the allowed conditions. If it doesn't, then the
user will not be allowed to sign-in. Example policies would be having
conditions such as:
- Allow if the sign-in attempt is between 9AM and 6PM
- Allow with MFA if the sign-in attempt is from a managed device
- Allow if the sign-in attempt is from a Mac laptop