Understanding Azure Defender
In this, we will get a brief about Azure Defender and its features.
Azure Defender is a solution that protects workloads operating in Azure, on-premises, and in other clouds against threats. For threat protection, Azure Defender is the top Microsoft extended detection and response (XDR) product. Azure Defender secures your hybrid data, cloud-native services, and servers, and connects with your current security procedures, and it’s integrated with Azure Security Center.
However, each Azure Defender plan comes with built-in policies, and you may add custom rules and initiatives. For a completely tailored picture of your compliance, you may also include regulatory standards like NIST and Azure CIS, as well as the Azure Security Benchmark. The Azure Defender dashboard, on the other hand, may be seen in Azure Security Center. It gives you network-wide insight and control over your organization’s cloud workload protection (CWP) features.
Further, Microsoft Defender for Cloud is available in two configurations:
- Without enhanced security features (Free):
- On all of your Azure subscriptions, Microsoft Defender for Cloud is activated for free. This free option gives you access to the secure score and its associated features, such as security policy, continuous security assessment, and actionable security recommendations, all of which may help you safeguard your Azure resources.
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud with all enhanced security features:
- Enabling enhanced security expands the features of the free mode to workloads operating in private and other public clouds, allowing you to manage and defend your hybrid cloud workloads with a single security console. The following are some of the most significant advantages of increased security measures.
Scope of Azure Defender
Azure Defender comes with several different plans that can be enabled separately and will run simultaneously for providing a comprehensive defense for compute, data, and service layers in your environment. The Azure Defender plans you can select from are:
- Firstly, Azure Defender for servers adds threat detection and advanced defenses for your Windows and Linux machines.
- Secondly, Azure Defender for App Service uses the cloud-scale to identify attacks targeting applications running over App Service.
- Thirdly, Azure Defender for Storage detects potentially harmful activity on your Azure Storage accounts.
- Next, Azure Defender for SQL extends Azure Security Center’s data security package for securing your databases and their data wherever they’re located.
- Then, Azure Defender for Kubernetes provides the best cloud-native Kubernetes security environment hardening, workload protection, and run-time protection.
- Lastly, Azure Defender for Key Vault is Azure-native, extreme level threat protection for Azure Key Vault, providing an extra layer of security intelligence.
Security Features:
1. Hybrid cloud protection
You can defend your Azure environment, and add Azure Defender capabilities to the hybrid cloud environment:
- Firstly, protect your non-Azure servers.
- Secondly, protect your virtual machines in other clouds (such as AWS and GCP).
2. Azure Defender alerts
- When Azure Defender detects a threat in any area of your environment, it generates an alert. These alerts explain the affected resources, suggested remediation steps, and in some cases, an option to trigger a logic app in response.
3. Advanced protection
- Azure Defender uses advanced analytics for tailored recommendations as they relate to your resources. These analytics might include securing the management ports of your VMs with just-in-time access and adaptive application controls to create allow lists for what apps should and shouldn’t run on your machines.
4. Vulnerability assessment
- Azure Defender includes vulnerability scanning for your virtual machines and container registries. Review the findings from these vulnerability scanners and respond to them all from within Security Center.
5. Track compliance with a range of standards
- Defender for Cloud regularly examines your hybrid cloud infrastructure, analyzing risk indicators in accordance with Azure Security Benchmark rules and best practices.
- When you enable the advanced security features, you may use a variety of additional industry standards, regulatory standards, and benchmarks to suit your needs. From the regulatory compliance dashboard, you can add requirements and track your compliance with them.
6. Access and application controls
- Allowlists and blocklists are used to block malware and other undesirable programs by using machine learning-powered suggestions that are tailored to your individual workloads.
- With just-in-time, restricted access to management ports on Azure VMs, you can reduce the network attack surface. Brute force and other network assaults are significantly reduced by access and application limits.
Reference: Microsoft Documentation