How Microsoft Entra External ID Revolutionises Digital Security
Microsoft Entra External ID is a new solution from Microsoft that provides Client Identity Access Control (CIAM) in a simple way.
With Microsoft Entra External ID you can secure external identities to access your applications. This solution builds on top of Azure AD B2C and extends its functionality and options.
This solution allows you to extend your enterprise AD with external identities. Thanks to this application, you can control access to your applications and facilitate their security.
secure all identities with a single solution
Managing external identities, including customers, partners, suppliers, etc. and their access policies, can be complex and costly for administrators, especially when managing multiple applications with a growing number of users and evolving security requirements. With External ID, you can consolidate all identity management under the security and reliability of Microsoft Entra. Microsoft Entra provides a unified and consistent experience for managing all identity types, simplifying identity management while reducing cost and complexity.
Because External ID is built on the same infrastructure as Entra ID, this allows administrators to extend Entra’s own capabilities to external identities. This includes adaptive access policies, fraud protection, verifiable credentials and integrated identity governance. This integration allows all identity types to be managed from a single platform.
Microsoft Entra External ID gets secure collaboration
Collaborating with external users such as customers and partners can be complex. Access needs to be given to key internal resources to do their work, but this access needs to be removed when it is no longer needed to reduce security risks. Even trusted partners need permissions with the principle of least privilege, good governance and branding throughout the process.
With ID governance for External ID, we can use the same lifecycle management and access management for employees as for business guests. The guest governance capabilities complement the B2B collaboration for External ID that is already available and used in Entra.
For example, you intend to collaborate with an external marketing agency for a new campaign. With B2B collaboration, you can invite the agency’s employees to join the tenant as guests. That way, you can assign them access to relevant resources, such as a Teams channel for communications, a Sharepoint site for project management and a OneDrive directory for file sharing.
Cross-tenant access settings allow you to have granular control over which users from specific external organisations get access to your resources, as well as control which external organisations can be accessed by your users. ID governance for External ID will automatically review and remove their access after a period of inactivity or when the project is complete. This way, you can collaborate transparently while ensuring that only authorised external personnel can access internal resources and data.
Frictionless User Experiences with Entra External ID
Personalised and flexible user experiences are critical to getting users to adapt and continue using the system. External ID allows you to reduce friction for the user during registration by integrating secure authentications into web and mobile applications. A variety of authentication options can be used, for example social identities such as Google or Facebook, local or federated accounts, or even verified credentials to make registration and login easy. External ID also allows branding to unify the registration and login experience and give a solid, integrated look and feel.
External ID also enables personalisation and optimisation of user experiences by collecting and analysing end-user data. This improves their interactions while complying with privacy rules. From the User Insights dashboard, user activity can be monitored to analyse and improve the user experience with the support of data.
Accelerating the development of secure applications
Identity is a basic part of modern applications, but not all developers may have experience in integrating identity and security into their applications. External ID makes it easy for developers to integrate identity into web and mobile apps with just a few clicks. Developers can add this security in minutes through the Microsoft Entra portal or within their own development tools such as Visual Studio Code. Native authentication now supports Android and iOS as well, allowing developers to process login in mobile apps using the API or the Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL):
Differences between Azure B2C and Entra External ID
Azure B2C is Microsoft’s standard solution for providing identities to external users with a focus on customers. Enter External ID is a different and new service, built on top of B2C but with its own licensing. External ID offers a simpler user interface, a better experience for developers and users and security enhancements such as using Defender for Cloud or setting risk policies for logins and users.
Currently, you can use External ID for free and only pay for usage as your business grows. The basic offer includes 50,000 monthly active users (MAU) and after this number you pay for each additional MAU (prices per MAU will depend on the moment and have to be consulted on the official websites).
Owners of Azure B2C or B2B subscriptions will have options to upgrade to Entra External ID in the future. In the meantime their subscriptions will remain available and no migration is necessary.