Block app access for unapproved device manufacturers or device models

This week is all about app protection. More specifically, this week is all about the just introduced capability to block app access for Android devices with unapproved device manufactures , or for iOS devices with unapproved device models. That capability actually has two separate actions to choose from, 1) block app access and 2) selective wipe of corporate data within the app. This capability will help with preventing access from untrusted devices to corporate data. Really useful, as we all can think of some low-end devices (loaded with malware, almost for free) that should not be used for accessing corporate data. In this post I’ll show the available configuration options, followed by the end-user experience.

Configuration

Now let’s start by having a look at the available configuration options. I’ll do that by walking through the steps for creating and configuring an app protection policy. These steps are shown below, with an extra focus on the policy settings (see step 5a and 5b). After the creation of the app protection policy, simply assign it the applicable user group.

1 Open the Azure portal and navigate to Intune > Mobile apps > App protection policies;
2 On the Mobile apps – App protection policies blade, click Add a policy to open the Add a policy blade;
3

On the Add a policy blade, select iOS or Android with Platform and select Yes with Target to all app types.

Note: The main configuration of this post can be used in combination with managed devices and unmanaged devices.

4 On the Add a policy blade, select Apps to open the Apps blade. On the Apps blade, select one or more apps from the list to associate them with the policy and click Select. Depending on the platform continue with step 5a, or step 5b;
5a

On the Add a policy blade, select Settings to open the Settings blade. On the Settings blade, and having iOS selected with Platform, navigate to Access Action and select Device model(s) on a new line as SETTING. As a VALUE specify the allowed models, select as ACTION to either Allow specified (Block non-specified) or Allow specified (Wipe non-specified) and click OK;

Note: The iOS model identifier can be found under the “Device Type” column in HockeyApp’s support documentation and to specify multiple allowed device models, use a semi-colon (;) to separate them.

MSIS-App-Protection-iOS
5b

On the Add a policy blade, select Settings to open the Settings blade. On the Settings blade, and having Android selected with Platform, navigate to Access Action and select Device manufacturer(s) on a new line as SETTING. As a VALUE specify the allowed manufacturers, select as ACTION to either Allow specified (Block non-specified) or Allow specified (Wipe non-specified) and click OK;

Note: To specify multiple allowed device manufacturers, use a semi-colon (;) to separate them.

MSIS-App-Protection-Android
6 On the Add a policy blade, click Create;

Note: On iOS devices, this feature requires the participation of applications (such as WXP, Outlook, Managed Browser, Yammer) to integrate the Intune APP SDK for this feature to be enforced with the targeted applications. On Android, this feature requires the latest Company Portal app.

End-user experience

Now let’s end this post by having a look at the end-user experience. I’ll do that by showing the end-user behavior on an iOS device. For experiencing the different messages, I made sure that my iPad would not be allowed. Below on the left is an example of the App Access Blocked message in the Outlook app, which clearly explains to the end-user that the iOS model is not allowed. Below on the right is an example of the Org Data Removal message in the Outlook app, which clearly explains to the end-user that the iOS model is not allowed and that associated data will be removed.

IMG_0139 IMG_0140

More information

For more information about blocking access for unapproved device vendors or models, refer to this article about Selectively wiping data using app protection policy access actions in Intune.

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