Microsoft Intune Device Compliance for Texas SMBs in 2026

Conditional Access can require a "compliant device" before granting access to Microsoft 365, Salesforce, or any SAML/OIDC app. But "compliant" means exactly whatever your Intune compliance policy says it means. If you never authored a meaningful policy, a jailbroken phone with no passcode and a three-year-old OS is "compliant." The Conditional Access rule looks impressive in the portal and enforces nothing.

A defensible Windows compliance policy for a Texas SMB:

• BitLocker required (drive encryption)
• Secure Boot required
• Code integrity required
• Minimum OS version — set to a supported, patched build and ratchet it forward quarterly
• Defender for Endpoint machine risk score at or below Medium (this is the critical integration — see below)
• Firewall enabled
• TPM required
• Password/PIN complexity + maximum lock screen timeout
• Defender antivirus signature freshness and real-time protection on

The Defender for Endpoint Risk Integration

This is the single most valuable compliance setting and the one most often missed. When you connect Defender for Endpoint to Intune (Endpoint security → Microsoft Defender for Endpoint → enable the connector), a device's active threat risk score becomes a compliance input. A workstation with an active detected threat automatically flips to non-compliant, which automatically revokes its Conditional Access, which automatically cuts it off from M365 and connected SaaS — before an analyst touches it. Detection becomes containment with no human in the loop.

• macOS — FileVault required, Gatekeeper enabled, minimum OS, system integrity protection on. See our macOS security in mixed fleets guide.
• iOS/iPadOS — passcode required, minimum OS, jailbreak detection, threat level from Defender for Endpoint mobile
• Android — Play Protect, passcode, minimum patch level, jailbreak/root detection

For employee-owned phones, full device enrollment is often resisted and legally fraught. The right pattern is App Protection Policies (APP / MAM) — containerized control over the Microsoft 365 apps only. You can require encryption of work data, block copy-paste to personal apps, require a PIN to open Outlook, and remotely wipe only the work container — without managing the employee's personal device. Conditional Access can require an approved client app + app protection policy as an alternative to full device compliance for BYOD scenarios.

1. Report-only mode first — deploy compliance policies and Conditional Access in report-only for 2 weeks. Watch what would have been blocked.
2. Pilot ring — IT + one volunteer department, enforce, fix friction
3. Staged rings — roll enforcement out by department over 3-4 weeks
4. Break-glass accounts — maintain 2 excluded emergency-access accounts with long random passwords stored offline, monitored for any use
5. Grace period — set compliance policy "mark non-compliant after" to 1-3 days, not immediately, so a transient check failure doesn't lock out a working user mid-task

• HIPAA Security Rule — device controls, encryption, access management for ePHI endpoints (Houston HIPAA)
• CMMC 2.0 / NIST 800-171 — AC, CM, SC control families map directly to Intune compliance + configuration (CMMC compliance)
• Cyber insurance — "managed and compliant endpoints only" is increasingly an underwriting requirement

If you have Business Premium or E3/E5, you already own Intune. The highest-leverage first step is authoring a real Windows compliance policy with the Defender for Endpoint risk integration enabled, deployed in report-only mode. For the broader tenant program see M365 managed services and the Defender family decision guide.

• Houston managed IT
• The Woodlands managed IT
• Sugar Land managed IT
• Katy managed IT