Skip to content

Control 4.8: Portal Walkthrough — Item-Level Permission Scanning for Agent Knowledge Sources

Parent Control: Control 4.8 — Item-Level Permission Scanning

Related Playbooks: PowerShell Setup | Verification & Testing | Troubleshooting

Overview

This walkthrough guides administrators through identifying agent knowledge sources, reviewing item-level permissions, and establishing the pre-deployment gate for Copilot Studio agents in regulated financial services environments.

Pre-Deployment Gate

This control establishes a hard gate: agents must not go to production if CRITICAL risk items exist in their knowledge source libraries. This is a requirement, not a recommendation.

Prerequisites

Before beginning this walkthrough:

  • Control 4.1 (IAG/RCD/RSS) is configured — site-level access governance is in place
  • Control 4.5 (Security Monitoring) is enabled — DSPM provides baseline risk scoring
  • SharePoint Admin role assigned to implementing administrator
  • Access to Copilot Studio environment where agents are deployed
  • Access to SharePoint Admin Center for permission review
  • Get-KnowledgeSourceItemPermissions.ps1 available from FSI-AgentGov-Solutions

Step 1: Identify Agent Knowledge Sources

1.1 — Locate Agent Definitions in Copilot Studio

  1. Navigate to Copilot Studio → https://copilotstudio.microsoft.com
  2. Select the target environment from the environment picker
  3. Navigate to Agents in the left navigation
  4. For each deployed agent, select the agent to open its configuration
  5. Navigate to Knowledge in the agent settings

1.2 — Document Connected SharePoint Libraries

For each agent, record all SharePoint knowledge sources:

Agent Name Environment SharePoint Site URL Library/Folder Path Files Count Last Reviewed
Example: HR Policy Agent Production contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/hr-policies /Documents/Current Policies 127 YYYY-MM-DD

Agent Insights Shortcut

If Control 4.5 is implemented, use SharePoint Admin Center > Reports > Agent insights to quickly identify which sites have agents connected. This provides a tenant-wide view of agent-to-site relationships.

1.3 — Verify Knowledge Source Configuration

For each knowledge source, confirm:

  • The SharePoint site is in the RCD/RSS allowed scope (Control 4.1/4.6)
  • The library is within Copilot Studio SharePoint unstructured-data knowledge source limits: 1,000 files, 50 folders, 10 layers of subfolders, 512 MB per file (per Microsoft Learn, April 2026). Items beyond these limits are silently not indexed but remain a sharing risk.
  • Sensitivity labels are applied to content in the library

Platform behavior — labeled items are not indexed

Per Microsoft Learn, items labeled Confidential or Highly Confidential (and password-protected files) are not indexed by Copilot Studio knowledge sources. A correctly labeled file should not be retrieved by the agent. CRITICAL findings most often signal mislabeling, missing labels, or label removal rather than active retrieval — but the file still represents an oversharing risk that could become active if labels change or if the file is reused elsewhere.

Step 2: Review Item-Level Permissions in SharePoint Admin Center

2.1 — Access Site Permissions

  1. Navigate to SharePoint Admin Center → https://admin.microsoft.com/sharepoint
  2. Select Sites → Active sites
  3. Locate the site containing the agent knowledge source
  4. Select the site name → Permissions tab

2.2 — Identify Permission Inheritance Breaks

  1. Navigate to the knowledge source library in the site
  2. Select Settings (gear icon) → Library settings
  3. Select Permissions for this document library
  4. Review the Manage Access panel for items with unique permissions

Unique Permissions Indicator

Items with broken inheritance (unique permissions) are the highest-risk items because their permissions differ from the library defaults. These items require individual review.

2.3 — Check for Oversharing Indicators

Review each item with unique permissions for:

Indicator Risk Action
Anyone links HIGH Remove link; restrict to specific people
External user access HIGH Remove external access unless business-justified
Everyone Except External Users (EEEU) MEDIUM Restrict to agent user group
Organization-wide sharing MEDIUM Scope to specific security group
Confidential/Highly Confidential label + broad access CRITICAL Disconnect agent or restrict immediately

Step 3: Run Item-Level Permission Scan

3.1 — Configure Scan Scope

Before running the automated scan:

  1. Ensure config/item-scope-config.json reflects your organization's sensitivity label taxonomy
  2. Identify the target libraries from the inventory created in Step 1
  3. Confirm the scanning account has Site Collection Administrator or SharePoint Admin permissions on target sites

3.2 — Execute Scan

Automated Scanning

For automated scanning, see the PowerShell Setup playbook. The Get-KnowledgeSourceItemPermissions.ps1 script from FSI-AgentGov-Solutions automates the item-level scanning process.

For manual portal-based review of smaller libraries:

  1. Navigate to the knowledge source library
  2. Select Settings → Library settings → Permissions for this document library
  3. For each item with unique permissions, review the Manage Access panel
  4. Document findings using the risk classification table in Step 2.3

Step 4: Review and Prioritize Findings

4.1 — Review Scan Output

The scan produces a CSV output with item-level risk classifications. Review findings by priority:

Priority Review Approach Governance Level
CRITICAL Immediate review — disconnect agent or remediate within 4 hours All levels
HIGH Same-day review — remediate within 24 hours Recommended + Regulated
MEDIUM Business-week review — remediate within 5 business days Regulated
LOW Scheduled review — document in next scan cycle All levels

4.2 — Governance Level Requirements

Governance Level Scanning Requirement Pre-Deployment Gate Recurring Cadence
Baseline Recommended before deployment Advisory (document exceptions) Quarterly
Recommended Required before deployment Required for CRITICAL items Monthly
Regulated Mandatory before deployment Mandatory — no exceptions for CRITICAL or HIGH Monthly + on-demand

Step 5: Remediate Findings

5.1 — CRITICAL Items

For items classified as CRITICAL (Confidential/Highly Confidential AND accessible outside agent user group):

Option A — Disconnect Knowledge Source:

  1. In Copilot Studio, navigate to the agent's Knowledge settings
  2. Remove the affected SharePoint library as a knowledge source
  3. Document the disconnection with business justification
  4. Re-enable only after item permissions are remediated

Option B — Restrict Item Permissions:

  1. Navigate to the item in SharePoint
  2. Select Manage Access → Stop sharing for unauthorized users/groups
  3. Set permissions to the agent's intended user group only
  4. Verify the item no longer appears in scan output as CRITICAL
  5. Document the remediation action

5.2 — HIGH Items

For items with Anyone links or external user access:

  1. Navigate to the item in SharePoint
  2. Select Manage Access → remove Anyone links
  3. Remove external user access unless business-justified and documented
  4. Log remediation evidence for compliance

5.3 — MEDIUM Items

For items shared with broad internal groups beyond agent audience:

  1. Review sharing scope with the Agent Owner
  2. Restrict to the agent's intended user security group
  3. Document business justification if broad access is retained

Step 6: Configure Recurring Scans

6.1 — Monthly Schedule

  1. Configure Get-KnowledgeSourceItemPermissions.ps1 to run monthly via:
  2. Azure Automation runbook (recommended for Zone 3)
  3. Windows Task Scheduler (acceptable for Zone 1/2)

  4. Power Automate scheduled flow

  5. Configure output to be stored in a compliance-accessible location with 7-year retention

6.2 — Alert Configuration

Configure alerts for:

  • New CRITICAL items detected in any agent knowledge source
  • New sharing activity on agent-connected libraries (via SharePoint Admin alerts)
  • Agent knowledge source additions or changes in Copilot Studio

Validation Checklist

After completing this walkthrough, confirm:

  • All agent knowledge sources identified and inventoried
  • Item-level permission scan executed on every knowledge source library
  • CRITICAL items remediated or agent disconnected
  • HIGH items remediated within SLA
  • Pre-deployment gate documented and enforced
  • Monthly recurring scan schedule configured
  • Scan output retained with 7-year retention policy
  • Remediation evidence documented for compliance

Audit Evidence Note

Agent responses that use SharePoint as a knowledge source are not included in Copilot Studio conversation transcripts (per Microsoft Learn). Where firms rely on this control to help support SEC Rule 17a-4 record-keeping for AI-served content, the evidence chain should combine:

  • Item-level scan output CSVs (generated here)
  • SharePoint unified audit log entries for FileAccessed / FileDownloaded events on knowledge source libraries
  • Pre-deployment gate sign-offs

This combined evidence aids in supporting examiner inquiries when transcripts alone are incomplete.

Updated: April 2026 | Version: v1.4.0 | UI Verification Status: Current