Verify Every User And Empower Your Workforce with Entrust and Microsoft Entra Verified ID

Nov

2026

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Written by:

Dilani Silva

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Written by:

Dilani Silva

For today’s businesses, security and employee experience shouldn't be a trade-off. Online interactions are booming—but so are the risks. Hackers are relentless, exploiting every vulnerability they can find. The surge in identity theft, synthetic fraud, and account takeovers is proof that security has never been more critical. The financial consequences are staggering: the average cost of a data breach still climbs to multi-million dollar figures globally.

The primary vulnerability in modern cybersecurity is no longer a technical flaw but the human element, aggressively exploited through stolen identities.

The IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024 confirms that stolen or compromised credentials are the most common initial attack vector, responsible for 16% of all breaches. These credential-based breaches are not only frequent but also the most damaging. They are among the costliest, averaging $4.81 million, and they take the longest to stop, requiring an average of 292 days to identify and contain. This extended lifecycle highlights the critical and expensive challenge of securing user access.

The threat is now evolving beyond protecting existing systems to include infiltration through the hiring process. Gartner predicts that by 2028, 1 in 4 candidate profiles worldwide could be fake. This identity crisis is already enabling severe national security and corporate risks, with reports that North Korean IT worker infiltrations exploded 220% over the past 12 months, often weaponizing generative AI at every stage of the hiring process.

This is why Entrust is collaborating with Microsoft to leverage the power of Microsoft Entra Verified ID. By combining Entrust’s market-leading Identity Verification technology with Microsoft's decentralized identity solution, we deliver a security framework that is both robust and streamlined. This collaboration also supports Microsoft’s broader High Assurance approach, which brings identity verification and phishing-resistant credentials together across critical workforce journeys. Entrust contributes to this approach by providing high-assurance identity verification that helps establish that the person regaining access during account recovery is the legitimate user.

Decentralized Identity: Assurance Without Friction

Microsoft Entra Verified ID is built on a foundation of decentralized, user-controlled identity. This new paradigm gives the employer the assurance that the employee is who they say they are, while simultaneously allowing the employee to maintain control of their Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and reuse the verification without unnecessary friction.

The “verifiable credentials” model provides trusted identity evidence that organizations can use across critical workforce journeys. When paired with supported phishing-resistant authentication methods, organizations can strengthen both sides of the identity equation: establishing who a person is and securing how that person accesses corporate resources.

Use Cases for Enhanced Identity Verification

Integrating robust, real-world identity verification into your Microsoft Entra ID authentication process strengthens your security framework and proactively mitigates rising threats like credential theft and synthetic fraud. Verifiable credentials transform the way organizations manage identity across critical employee interactions, ensuring high-assurance security without sacrificing a streamlined user experience.

Here are the key use cases where this integration makes the greatest impact:

Remote Hiring & Employee Onboarding: Ensure the person being onboarded is the correct individual, reducing time-to-hire and mitigating risk. This process uses enhanced biometric and document verification to quickly validate a new user's real identity during initial sign-in.
Verified Account Recovery: High-assurance identity verification can play an important role across the workforce identity lifecycle, such as account recovery. When an employee loses access to their authentication method, Entrust identity verification and Microsoft Entra Verified ID provide a streamlined way to verify the employee’s real-world identity before a replacement authentication method is registered.
Securing Privileged & Help Desk Access: Mandate high-assurance identity verification for employees accessing business-critical systems or support channels. This proactively protects against credential and identity theft, a crucial step to avoid devastating, multi-million dollar data breaches and meet compliance requirements.
Privileged and Help Desk Scenarios: High-assurance identity verification can provide an additional layer of trust for sensitive workforce interactions, helping organizations verify that employees are who they claim to be before granting privileged access or providing critical support.

Looking to Secure Account Recovery?

For organizations looking to strengthen Microsoft Entra account recovery, Entrust Identity Verification is available through the Microsoft Security Store. The preconfigured integration brings high-assurance identity verification into the account recovery experience, helping organizations replace vulnerable or manual identity checks with secure, self-service verification.

Securing the Weakest Link: Phishing-Resistant Account Recovery

Account recovery is one of the most sensitive moments in the employee identity lifecycle. When an authentication method is lost, unavailable, or compromised, organizations need a reliable way to establish that the person requesting access is really the employee they claim to be.

Entrust identity verification combined with Microsoft Entra Verified ID adds identity assurance to this critical moment, helping organizations verify the user before enabling them to register a replacement authentication method, thereby reducing the risk of fraud.

Here’s what a verified account recovery journey can look like:

Verify the employee’s identity: The employee completes Entrust identity proofing, using identity document and biometric checks to help establish that they are the legitimate user.
Issue a verified credential: Following successful identity proofing, a verifiable credential is issued and made available through Microsoft Authenticator.
Present and validate the credential: The employee presents the credential as part of the recovery journey, including Microsoft Entra Verified ID biometric check and account validation, adding assurance that the credential is being presented by its legitimate holder.
Regain access securely: Once the required checks are completed, Microsoft Entra ID can issue a Temporary Access Pass (TAP), allowing the employee to register a replacement authentication method and securely regain access to their account.

“Microsoft Entra is committed to enabling an open ecosystem of trusted identity partners. Collaborations with companies like Entrust help organizations deploy stronger identity assurance across critical business processes, providing secure and streamlined experiences while reducing friction for legitimate users.”
Rohit Gulati, Principal Product Manager

Entrust's Advantage: Enterprise-Grade Identity Verification

Choosing Entrust means adding layers of assurance built for the most complex enterprise environments.

Privacy & Data Protection: Designed to support secure identity verification while giving users control over the presentation of their verifiable credentials.
Advanced Fraud Detection: Strengthen identity assurance with AI-powered fraud detection designed to identify sophisticated attacks, including digital injection attacks, spoofs, masks, and deepfakes.
Security and Trust: Entrust Identity Verification is built for enterprise environments with security, privacy, and regulatory requirements in mind.
Optimized User Experience: Seamless user onboarding meeting accessibility standards and a unified identity across systems and touchpoints.
Global Reach & Compliance: Coverage across 195 countries with 2,500+ document types, with proven experience navigating local regulatory requirements.

By implementing Entrust's IDV solution with Microsoft Entra Verified ID, organizations can add greater identity assurance to critical workforce journeys such as account recovery, helping reduce the risk of impersonation while preserving a streamlined employee experience. Combined with strong authentication and access policies, verified identity becomes an important part of an identity-first approach to workforce security.

Explore Entrust Identity Verification in the Microsoft Security Store to bring high-assurance, self-service identity verification to your workforce recovery experience.

Identity Verification

Dilani Silva

Senior Product Marketing Manager, Identity Verification

Dilani Silva is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for Entrust’s Identity Verification product line. Dilani joined the company in 2024 to help organizations enhance security, streamline customer onboarding, and meet compliance requirements with advanced identity verification technologies. With a deep understanding of the industry’s evolving needs, she works to bring innovative solutions to market that improve trust, reduce fraud, and create seamless digital experiences for banks and other financial institutions.

View all of Dilani's Posts

Verify Every User And Empower Your Workforce with Entrust and Microsoft Entra Verified ID

Decentralized Identity: Assurance Without Friction

Use Cases for Enhanced Identity Verification

Looking to Secure Account Recovery?

Securing the Weakest Link: Phishing-Resistant Account Recovery

Entrust's Advantage: Enterprise-Grade Identity Verification

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