Microsoft Azure is one of the safest and most flexible cloud platforms on the market. Azure contains a range of configurable security tools and supports numerous types of security services and features. This enables you to expand Azure’s monitoring and remediation capabilities and achieve an advanced level of cybersecurity proficiency.
Read on for an overview of Azure’s approach to security, some of its cloud security features, and a look at how you can fortify your security posture on top of Microsoft’s robust cloud platform.
Azure’s top native security tools and features
Azure contains an extensive list of built-in security offerings that you can use to strengthen your cloud environment. As you begin exploring the Azure platform, keep these tools in mind.
Sentinel
Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native solution for security information and event monitoring (SIEM.) Sentinel offers threat intelligence and security analytics and empowers security teams to act with greater speed and responsiveness using a single dashboard.
Defender for Cloud
Defender for Cloud is a powerful cloud security posture management (CSPM) tool. Its main purpose is to identify cloud vulnerabilities and help businesses handle evolving threats. This tool also lets you remediate security issues from a central location, which saves time and effort for team members.
Application Insights
Application Insights is an extensible application performance management (APM) solution. Using this tool, you can monitor live web applications and discover performance issues. It also provides analytics and performance anomaly detection.
Resource Manager
Resource Manager is a system deployment and management service that you can use to create and manage Azure assets. Resource Manager also offers template-based deployments, which can replace manual deployments and reduce configuration errors.
Azure Monitor
Azure Monitor provides ongoing security alerts for events that arise from Azure and activity logs. This tool supports data querying, routing, and visualization.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Microsoft provides a secure WAF component in the Azure Application Gateway. WAF helps protect applications from threats like session hijacking and SQL injection.
Fortify your security posture with Sonrai
As you can see, Microsoft already provides a strong base level of security options for customers through the Azure platform. That being the case, your company can significantly reduce cybersecurity threats if you take full advantage of Microsoft’s security features.
You can also go a step further and integrate a third-party cloud security platform like Sonrai Dig into your environment for automatic identity relationship monitoring.
Sonrai Dig runs on a sophisticated graph that identifies and monitors relationships between cloud data and identities. The tool complements Microsoft’s security services, providing a single view for incident response and security management. With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at what you can do with Sonrai Dig.
Risk mitigation and detection
Dig utilizes Azure APIs to identify resource configurations and discover conflicts. This saves a considerable amount of time and effort and prevents team members from overlooking potentially harmful misconfigurations.
Identity security
Dig exposes how person and non-person identities interact with resources in Azure based on their effective permissions. Through comprehensive resource mapping, it’s possible to gain a deep understanding of each identity’s given and inherited permissions. With these insights, you can more effectively monitor identity and data access as it changes over time.
Data governance
Dig automatically identifies and maps data in the Azure cloud, enabling security teams to view and manage location and access. The tool also provides continuous data security auditing for threats like public data exposure, malicious activity, and data movement.
Platform and infrastructure security
Identity and access management (IAM) is critical for securing enterprise platforms and infrastructure. Unfortunately, companies often make mistakes when configuring their IAM strategies and wind up accidentally exposing their assets.
Dig simplifies platform and infrastructure access control, making it easier for security leaders to control who can use restricted resources.
Automated prevention and remediation
When it comes to fixing security vulnerabilities, time is of the essence. Leaving vulnerabilities open can lead to compliance issues and security breaches. As such, you need to take action immediately to avoid complications.
When Dig detects potential security issues, the platform automatically deploys remediation bots to resolve them and protect your environment. As an added bonus, bots can also take proactive measures and respond to sudden configuration changes.
