A lit bit diff format, but lets see if you would like it my dear friends.
So.
Once security enters the picture, the illusion that Intune is “just SCCM with a web UI” collapses completely.
In the SCCM world, security was something you layered on top. You deployed agents, configured settings, maybe pushed antivirus definitions, and then trusted that the perimeter would do the rest. The endpoint was managed, therefore it was implicitly trusted. Security decisions lived mostly outside the management plane.
Intune breaks that assumption by design.
In a modern environment, the endpoint is not trusted because it exists. It is trusted conditionally, based on continuously evaluated signals. Device posture, user identity, sign-in context, network location, risk telemetry — all of these feed into a decision engine that operates in real time. This is not an add-on feature. This is the core security model.
This is where many SCCM-style deployments go fundamentally wrong. Administrators focus on whether a configuration profile applied successfully, but ignore the more important question: what does the platform do if the device drifts out of compliance five minutes later?
In Intune, security is state-driven and continuous. Encryption is not “installed once”; it is expected to remain enabled. Antivirus is not “deployed”; it is expected to report a healthy state. OS patching is not a task; it is an ongoing requirement. The moment the device deviates, that deviation becomes a security signal.
That signal does not stop at the endpoint.
Through Conditional Access, device compliance feeds directly into identity decisions. Access to Microsoft 365, line-of-business apps or third-party SaaS is no longer binary. It is contextual. A compliant device gets seamless access. A non-compliant one may be blocked, forced through remediation, or downgraded to limited access. Security enforcement moves from “clean-up after the fact” to preventive control.
This is why trying to replicate SCCM-style security logic inside Intune is not just inefficient, it is dangerous. SCCM thinks in terms of actions and confirmations. Intune thinks in terms of risk and posture. One is retrospective. The other is adaptive.
Another common anti-pattern appears when PowerShell is used to enforce security settings in isolation. A script may successfully flip a registry key, but it has no understanding of device risk, user risk, or session context. It cannot influence access decisions. From a Zero Trust perspective, that script is blind. It may create the appearance of security while adding nothing to actual risk reduction.
Intune’s security value emerges only when it is treated as part of a larger control plane. Device compliance, identity protection, Defender telemetry and Conditional Access form a feedback loop. The endpoint reports its posture. The identity system evaluates trust. Access is granted or restricted accordingly. The endpoint is then remediated back into a trusted state. This loop runs continuously, not as a one-off deployment.
This is also why timing obsession is misplaced. Whether a policy applied at 14:00 or 14:07 is irrelevant if access is gated on compliance. What matters is that the moment a device becomes non-compliant, it stops being trusted. Security outcomes are measured in exposure windows, not deployment timestamps.
Seen through this lens, Intune stops being a device management tool in the traditional sense. It becomes a security enforcement surface. One that operates across devices, users and cloud services simultaneously.
Trying to force SCCM semantics into this model strips Intune of its strongest capability. You end up managing endpoints as objects, instead of managing trust as a dynamic property.
The uncomfortable conclusion is this: Intune is not built to make administrators feel in control. It is built to make organisations safer in a world where control is inherently partial.
If you still evaluate endpoint management by how precisely you can schedule an install, you are optimising for comfort, not security. And modern threat models are not impressed by comfort.
rgds,
Alex