MT.1185: Block legacy MSOnline (MSOL) PowerShell module.
| ID | MT.1185 |
| Severity | Medium |
| Suite | Mito |
| Product | Entra ID |
| Feature | User and directory settings |
| Security area | Access control |
| Resource type | Tenant |
| User impact of fixing | Low |
| Effort to fix | Low |
| Framework controls | nist-800-53-r5:CM-7 Least Functionality |
| MITRE ATT&CK | T1059.009, T1078.004 |
| Reads from | Microsoft Graph |
What this checks and how to fix it
Section titled “What this checks and how to fix it”Description
Section titled “Description”Checks if the legacy MSOnline (MSOL) PowerShell module is blocked from authenticating to the tenant.
Why This Matters
Section titled “Why This Matters”The MSOnline (MSOL) and Azure AD PowerShell modules were retired by Microsoft and no longer receive security updates. Because they predate modern authentication controls, requests made through them can be a weaker, less-monitored path into a tenant’s identity administration than the current Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK.
The blockMsolPowerShell setting on the tenant’s authorization policy lets an admin explicitly block authentication requests from the legacy MSOnline PowerShell module’s service principal. This isn’t enabled by default for every tenant, so it needs to be checked explicitly rather than assumed to already be in place — leaving it unblocked keeps an unsupported and unmonitored administrative access path open.
Remediation action
Section titled “Remediation action”- Connect to Graph using Connect-MgGraph -Scopes “Policy.ReadWrite.Authorization”.
- Run the following PowerShell command to review the current value:
Get-MgPolicyAuthorizationPolicy | Select-Object BlockMsolPowerShell- If
BlockMsolPowerShellis$false, block the legacy MSOnline PowerShell module:
# This example uses the cmdlet syntax published in the Microsoft Learn documentation:# https://learn.microsoft.com/powershell/module/microsoft.graph.identity.signins/update-mgpolicyauthorizationpolicy$params = @{ blockMsolPowerShell = $true}Update-MgPolicyAuthorizationPolicy -BodyParameter $paramsRelated links
Section titled “Related links”- Authorization policy in Entra ID | Microsoft Learn
- Update-MgPolicyAuthorizationPolicy | Microsoft Learn - Graph PowerShell v1.0
Mito check. Author: BakkerJan. Open-source licences.
Open-source licences. CIS Benchmark material © Center for Internet Security, Inc.; CISA SCuBA baselines are public domain (CC0).
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