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Ranjit Rimal
Ranjit Rimal

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App Protection Policies: A Programmer’s Perspective

App Protection Policies (APP) avilable with Intune and products when you buy Microsoft 365 Business Premium are essentially a set of rule-based constraints enforced at the application layer, decoupling security from device management. From a devops perspective, these policies act like declarative security wrappers around mobile apps (iOS/Android), enforcing encryption, access controls, and data loss prevention (DLP) through Microsoft Intune’s Graph API. The real power lies in treating these policies as infrastructure-as-code—version-controlled, scriptable, and deployable via PowerShell with the Microsoft.Graph.Intune module.

API-Driven Policy Configuration
Under the hood, App Protection Policies are just JSON payloads sent to the Microsoft Graph API (/deviceAppManagement/iOSManagedAppProtections or /androidManagedAppProtections). Programmatically, we can:

powershell
$params = @{

displayName = "Lockdown-Policy"

description = "Blocks copy/paste to unmanaged apps"

appDataEncryptionType = "whenDeviceLocked"

minimumRequiredPatchVersion = "2023-06-01"

}

New-MgDeviceAppManagementAndroidManagedAppProtection -BodyParameter $params

This is far more efficient than clicking through the Intune GUI. The API accepts fine-grained settings like requiredPinType, fingerprintBlocked, or allowedDataStorageLocations, which map directly to Intune’s schema.

Automated Policy Deployment Pipeline
For large-scale deployments, we can script policy assignments using Azure AD group IDs and the targetedAppManagementLevels property. Example:

powershell
$policyId = (Get-MgDeviceAppManagementAndroidManagedAppProtection -Filter "displayName eq 'Lockdown-Policy'").id

$assignmentParams = @{

target = @{

"@odata.type" = "#microsoft.graph.groupAssignmentTarget"

groupId = (Get-MgGroup -Filter "displayName eq 'Finance Team'").id

}

}

New-MgDeviceAppManagementTargetedManagedAppConfigurationAssignment -TargetedManagedAppConfigurationId $policyId -BodyParameter $assignmentParams

This approach enables GitOps-style workflows—store policy definitions in a repo, validate with ARM templates, and deploy via CI/CD (e.g., Azure DevOps).

Debugging and Compliance as Code
Programmatically verifying policy enforcement requires querying managed device status (/deviceAppManagement/managedAppStatuses) or triggering offline reports:

powershell

Invoke-MgGraphRequest -Method GET -Uri "https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/deviceAppManagement/reports/getAppsInstallStatusReport(status='failed')"

For true observability, pipe this data to Log Analytics or a SIEM. Combining this with Azure AD Conditional Access (e.g., blocking rooted devices via deviceRiskStates) creates a policy-as-code ecosystem where security controls are dynamic, auditable, and testable.

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