Can Azure Virtual Desktop be a good solution to provide secure access to Office365 apps for users who do not have a company controlled device

Question

Can Azure Virtual Desktop be a good solution to provide secure access to Office365 apps for users who do not have a company controlled device

Phil Omalley 0

Hi, we are a small startup Fintech (not yet regulated but will be in next 6 months) and we have some consultants who use devices not controlled by our company. We want these non employee users (they have an office365 licence from us for mail / Sharepoint docs / teams access) to be able to securely access our Office365 apps without requiring control of their machines that they use to access Office365 on. So if we provision an Azure Virtual Desktop for each of these users can they access that on any device (like their own laptop) and we can control access to our data and email by not allowing download or printing from the Virtual Desktop?

Do they access the desktop from any browser ?

Thank you in advance for your help

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Answer 1

Nikhil Duserla 6,960 Microsoft External Staff

Hello @Phil Omalley,

With Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), your team can securely access a Windows desktop from any device even their personal laptops. This means consultants can use tools like Office 365 without storing or handling sensitive data directly on their own devices.

You can also set rules to prevent people from downloading, printing, or copying data from the virtual desktop to their local device. This helps keep sensitive information safe and supports your compliance with security policies.

On top of that, you can use Azure Active Directory to add extra layers of protection like requiring multi-factor authentication or allowing access only from trusted locations or approved devices.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/overview

You can also access from the browser. Please follow this link for AVD deployment- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/deploy-azure-virtual-desktop?tabs=portal-session-host-configuration%2Cportal-standard%2Cportal&pivots=host-pool-standard

If you have any further queries, do let us know.

Phil Omalley 0 Reputation points

2025-05-02T16:56:39.38+00:00

Thank you Nikhil, that is a very helpful and clear answer. I will try this approach out!
Nikhil Duserla 6,960 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2025-05-02T17:06:30.5966667+00:00

Hello @Phil Omalley,

Thank you for upvoting my answer. please consider accepting an answer as a token of appreciation.
Mounika Reddy Anumandla 4,465 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2025-05-05T10:05:22.0533333+00:00

Hello @Phil Omalley,

Hope the information provided by Nikhil Duserla is helpful, please consider accepting an answer as a token of appreciation.

Accepted answer will help other community members navigate to the appropriate solutions.

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Can Azure Virtual Desktop be a good solution to provide secure access to Office365 apps for users who do not have a company controlled device

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