What the Recent Critical Entra ID Vulnerability Teaches Us About Identity Posture

Last week Microsoft disclosed a critical vulnerability in Entra ID (CVE-2026-69836) with a perfect CVSS score of 10.0.

The issue involved unsafe deserialization of untrusted data and could have allowed an unauthenticated attacker to execute code remotely. Microsoft discovered and fixed the vulnerability on their side before publishing the advisory. No customer action was required.

Even though organisations didn’t need to patch anything themselves, the incident is a useful reminder of a fundamental truth in Microsoft 365 security:

Identity is the control plane.

When the identity layer has a problem, everything else is at risk — email, files, Teams, applications, and data.

Why this matters for Secure Score

Microsoft Secure Score continuously evaluates how well your tenant is configured against recommended security practices. The Identity category consistently contains some of the highest-impact recommendations.

Controls such as:

• Enforcing multi-factor authentication
• Blocking legacy authentication
• Reducing standing privileged access
• Requiring phishing-resistant authentication for admins

…directly strengthen the same layer that this vulnerability targeted.

A higher Identity score doesn’t just improve a number on a dashboard. It reduces the attack surface that real-world threats (including future zero-days) can exploit.

Practical takeaways

1. Prioritise Identity recommendations in Secure Score. They almost always deliver the strongest risk reduction relative to effort.
2. Review privileged access regularly. Minimise Global Administrators and use Privileged Identity Management where possible.
3. Treat Secure Score as a living indicator, not a one-time project. Weekly or fortnightly reviews keep posture improvements moving.
4. Don’t wait for the next critical CVE to tighten identity controls. The best time to strengthen them is before the next disclosure.

Identity will remain the highest-value area for most organisations. The recent Entra ID vulnerability simply made that reality more visible.

If you’d like a practical starting point, see our Microsoft Secure Score Quick-Start Checklist.