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Limitations with Microsoft Entra certificate-based authentication

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This article covers supported and unsupported scenarios for Microsoft Entra certificate-based authentication.

Supported scenarios

The following scenarios are supported:

  • User sign-ins to web browser-based applications on all platforms.
  • User sign-ins to Office mobile apps, including Outlook, OneDrive, and so on.
  • User sign-ins on mobile native browsers.
  • Support for granular authentication rules for multifactor authentication by using the certificate issuer Subject and policy OIDs.
  • Configuring certificate-to-user account bindings by using any of the certificate fields:
    • Subject Alternate Name (SAN) PrincipalName and SAN RFC822Name
    • Subject Key Identifier (SKI) and SHA1PublicKey
  • Configuring certificate-to-user account bindings by using any of the user object attributes:
    • User Principal Name
    • onPremisesUserPrincipalName
    • CertificateUserIds

Unsupported scenarios

The following scenarios aren't supported:

  • Public Key Infrastructure for creating client certificates. Customers need to configure their own Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and provision certificates to their users and devices.
  • Certificate Authority hints aren't supported, so the list of certificates that appears for users in the UI isn't scoped.
  • Only one CRL Distribution Point (CDP) for a trusted CA is supported.
  • The CDP can be only HTTP URLs. We don't support Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP), or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) URLs.
  • Configuring other certificate-to-user account bindings, such as using the subject + issuer or Issuer + Serial Number, aren’t available in this release.
  • Currently, password can't be disabled when CBA is enabled and the option to sign in using a password is displayed.

Supported operating systems

Operating system Certificate on-device/Derived PIV Smart cards
Windows ✅ ✅
macOS ✅ ✅
iOS ✅ Supported vendors only
Android ✅ Supported vendors only

Supported browsers

Operating system Chrome certificate on-device Chrome smart card Safari certificate on-device Safari smart card Microsoft Edge certificate on-device Microsoft Edge smart card
Windows ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
macOS ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
iOS ❌ ❌ ✅ Supported vendors only ❌ ❌
Android ✅ ❌ N/A N/A ❌ ❌

Note

On iOS and Android mobile, Microsoft Edge browser users can sign into Microsoft Edge to set up a profile by using the Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL), like the Add account flow. When logged in to Microsoft Edge with a profile, CBA is supported with on-device certificates and smart cards.

Smart card providers

Provider Windows macOS iOS Android
YubiKey ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅

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