Runbook: Conditional Access Policy Rollback

Restore access safely with temporary exclusions and staged re-enforcement.

⚠️ Business Consequence: Why Emergency Rollback Matters

  • Financial Impact: Org-wide authentication lockout = $20K–$100K per hour (entire workforce unable to work)
  • Compliance Exposure: Emergency bypass of change control = audit findings, policy violations
  • Operational Risk: Break-glass account failure = no recovery path, complete system lockout
  • Reputation Impact: Executive lockout during board meetings = business credibility damage

Average rollback time: 5–15 minutes emergency disable — prevents P1 escalation.

🚀 Before You Start

⏱ Time Required

15-30 minutes (emergency restore) or 45-60 min (full re-enable)

👤 Skill Level

Entra ID Conditional Access admin with break-glass access

🛡️ Safety

Creates temporary security gap during emergency rollback. Mitigated by monitoring + re-enable.

📋 What You'll Need

Break-glass account, Azure portal, Conditional Access Administrator role

⚠️ Break-glass account unavailable? Talk to an Exchange Security Specialist immediately for P1 incident escalation.

⚠️ Runbook Summary

  • Severity: P1 - Critical lockout scenario
  • Total time: 15-30 minutes (emergency restore), 45-60 min (complete phased re-enable)
  • Risk level: Medium (temporary security gap during rollback)
  • Requires: Break-glass account access, Azure AD admin role

Pre-Rollback Checklist (5 minutes)

Complete these validation steps before proceeding with rollback:

  • Confirm root cause: Verify lockout is caused by specific CA policy via Azure AD Sign-In Logs (error code 53003 or 53000)
  • Break-glass validation: Ensure break-glass account can still authenticate and has Conditional Access Administrator role
  • Identify affected policy: Note policy name, GUID, and exact conditions causing lockout
  • Document current state: Export policy configuration before making changes (for audit trail)
  • Assess impact: Determine number of affected users and criticality (all users vs. subset)

3-Phase Rollback Procedure

Choose the appropriate phase based on urgency and risk tolerance:

Phase 1: Emergency Disable (5-10 min) - Use for Complete Lockout

  1. Access Azure AD: Sign in with break-glass account → Azure Active Directory → Security → Conditional Access
  2. Locate policy: Find the policy causing lockout (match name/GUID from sign-in logs)
  3. Disable policy: Set "Enable policy" toggle to Off
  4. Document change: Add note to policy description: "Disabled [date] [time] due to lockout incident [incident-ID]"
  5. Test immediately: Have 2-3 affected users attempt sign-in within 2 minutes

⚠️ Risk: All protections from this policy are now disabled. Proceed to Phase 2 immediately.

Phase 2: Add Emergency Exclusions (10-15 min) - Use for Partial Lockout

  1. Create exclusion group: Azure AD → Groups → New group → "CA-Emergency-Exclusion-[date]"
  2. Add affected users: Add locked-out users to exclusion group (or affected security group)
  3. Modify policy: Edit CA policy → Conditions → Users → Exclude → Select emergency group
  4. Set expiration: Add calendar reminder to remove exclusion within 48 hours
  5. Validate: Test with 2 pilot users before announcing

✓ Benefit: Policy remains enforced for most users; only affected users excluded.

Phase 3: Staged Re-Enablement (30-45 min) - After Root Cause Fixed

  1. Adjust policy conditions: Modify grant controls or conditions that caused lockout (e.g., change "Require compliant device" to "Require MFA only")
  2. Create pilot group: "CA-Policy-Pilot" with 5-10 test users
  3. Enable for pilot: Edit policy → Users → Include pilot group → Enable policy
  4. Monitor sign-ins: Watch Azure AD Sign-In Logs for 15 minutes; verify no failures
  5. Expand gradually: Add groups incrementally (IT dept → Finance → All users) over 24-48 hours
  6. Remove exclusions: Once fully rolled out, delete emergency exclusion group

Validation & Success Criteria

Confirm rollback success using these checkpoints:

Immediate Validation (Within 5 min of rollback)

  • User sign-in success: At least 3 affected users can sign in successfully to Outlook, OWA, and Teams
  • No MFA loops: Users not prompted repeatedly for authentication
  • Device access restored: Both compliant and non-compliant devices can authenticate (if policy was disabled)

Azure AD Sign-In Log Verification

  • Status: Sign-ins show "Success" (green checkmark) instead of "Failure" (red X)
  • Conditional Access: Shows "Not Applied" (if disabled) or "Success" (if exclusion used)
  • Error codes cleared: No more 53003 (policy blocked) or 53000 (device not compliant) errors

Service Health Monitoring (24-48 hours)

  • Support ticket volume: No new lockout complaints after rollback
  • Policy compliance: Security team reviews adjusted policy for compliance gaps
  • Exclusion cleanup: Emergency exclusions removed after permanent fix validated

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