Most security thinking still leans toward the network: firewalls, VPNs, controlled offices. The world your business actually runs in is laptops working from kitchens, phones on home Wi-Fi and people travelling between sites. Modern device management focuses on the device itself, not the perimeter.
For Microsoft-centric SMEs, that means Microsoft Intune for management and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for detection and response. It pairs with our Microsoft 365 security baseline; this article walks through the device controls we apply to most environments.
What Intune is for
Intune is the policy engine for your fleet.
- Enrolment for Windows, macOS, iOS and Android.
- Configuration profiles to enforce settings like disk encryption, OS updates and screen lock.
- Compliance policies that decide whether a device is healthy.
- App protection policies that draw a line around corporate data inside personal apps.
- Endpoint security baselines pre-built by Microsoft, which are good starting points.
You then reference compliance state from Conditional Access in Microsoft Entra ID, so non-compliant devices cannot reach Microsoft 365 data. That single sentence is the modern endpoint story in one line.
A starter Intune policy set
This is roughly the baseline we apply for an Australian SME with a mix of Windows laptops and mobiles.
Windows
- BitLocker on all internal drives, with recovery keys stored in Entra.
- Microsoft Defender for Endpoint enabled, with cloud-delivered protection on.
- Update rings: a Pilot ring at 1 to 5 percent of devices on the latest preview, Production at the rest on the General Availability channel, plus a Servers/Engineers ring with a delay buffer.
- Local administrator: built-in account disabled, replaced by Windows LAPS for break-glass.
- Endpoint Privilege Management for users who occasionally need elevated rights, scoped to specific apps.
macOS
- FileVault on, recovery key escrowed.
- Compliant macOS version pinned to current and current minus one.
- Local admin denied for staff accounts unless explicitly approved.
iOS and Android
- App protection policies: copy/paste restricted to managed apps, save-as restricted.
- Compliance: minimum OS version, biometric or PIN required.
- For BYOD, enrol the user identity, not the whole device. Wipe the corporate apps when someone leaves; do not wipe their phone.
Compliance feeding Conditional Access
A device is “compliant” if Intune says it meets your policy. The point of compliance is to chain it into Conditional Access:
- Require compliant devices for Microsoft 365 apps.
- Require compliant or hybrid-joined devices for admin portals.
- Block sign-in from countries you do not operate in unless an exception is granted.
What Defender for Endpoint adds
Intune sets the rules. Defender watches what happens.
- Endpoint detection and response (EDR), with a workable default tuning out of the box.
- Vulnerability and configuration management, including patch hygiene and weak password discovery.
- Attack surface reduction rules that block common malware patterns at the OS level.
- Automated investigation and remediation, which closes routine alerts without analyst time.
For SMEs without a dedicated security team, Defender is the difference between hoping nothing is happening and actually knowing.
Keep operations boring
A few habits make the system easier to live with.
- Tag devices by site, role and owner. Reports stop being a mystery.
- Keep one environment, not separate “test” and “prod” tenants. Use ring-based rollouts inside the tenant instead.
- Use Update Compliance and Defender for Endpoint reports to tell you when policy is drifting.
- Keep a runbook in your wiki for: lost device, departing staff member, compromised account, policy rollback.
Common pitfalls
- Enrolling devices but not requiring compliance in Conditional Access. The fence has no gate.
- Setting strict compliance and forgetting break-glass accounts and exceptions, which then lock everyone out during an outage.
- Treating BYOD the same as corporate. App protection policies exist for this exact reason.
- Leaving local admin rights in place for convenience. Use Windows LAPS and Endpoint Privilege Management instead.
Closing thought
You do not need to deploy everything Intune can do; you need to deploy a sensible baseline and live with it for a few months. Once that is in place, Defender becomes useful instead of overwhelming, and Conditional Access becomes the joined-up control plane it is meant to be.
If you would like a hand getting started, book a consultation.