Azure Security Baselines are a set of best practices and security standards that can be used to help protect your Azure resources. Implementing these baselines can help you to secure your Azure environment by identifying and mitigating potential security risks. In this technical reference guide, we will walk through the process of implementing Azure Security Baselines in your environment.
Prerequisites
Before implementing Azure Security Baselines, you will need to have the following:
- An Azure subscription that you have access to as an administrator.
- Knowledge of Azure security services and features, such as Azure Security Center, Azure Policy, and Azure Monitor.
- Familiarity with the Azure Security Baselines guidelines
Step 1: Assess your current environment
The first step in implementing Azure Security Baselines is to assess your current environment. This will involve identifying any potential security risks or vulnerabilities, and determining which Azure Security Baseline policies and controls are relevant to your environment.
You can use Azure Policy to assess the compliance of your environment with Azure Security Baselines. Azure Policy allows you to evaluate your resources against a set of built-in or custom policies to check whether they meet specific conditions. Azure Security Center also has a feature called Security posture assessment that can help you identify and prioritize security vulnerabilities in your resources.
Step 2: Implement Azure Security Baselines
Once you have assessed your current environment and identified the relevant Azure Security Baseline policies and controls, you can begin to implement them. This may involve configuring Azure Policy and Azure Security Center settings, creating custom policies and initiatives in Azure Policy, and enabling Azure security features such as Azure AD Conditional Access.
Here are a few examples of how you can implement Azure Security Baselines:
- Use Azure Policy to enforce specific Azure Security Baseline policies, such as ensuring that all virtual machines have the latest security updates.
- Use Azure Security Center's Security recommendations feature to implement Azure Security Baseline recommendations, such as enabling multi-factor authentication for privileged access.
- Enable Azure AD Conditional Access to implement Azure Security Baseline for conditional access and identity protection
Step 3: Monitor and Verify
After implementing the Azure Security Baselines, it's important to monitor and verify that the controls are being enforced as expected, and that your environment is compliant with the Azure Security Baselines. You can use Azure Policy and Azure Security Center to monitor the compliance of your resources with the Azure Security Baseline policies and controls. Tools like ThreatKey can help you similarly, in addition to securing other SaaS and Cloud platforms.
You should also regularly review the Azure Security Baseline guidelines and update your implementation accordingly as new best practices or requirements become available.
By following these steps, you can effectively implement Azure Security Baselines in your environment, helping to ensure the security and integrity of your Azure resources. Keep in mind that the configuration and setup steps may vary depending on the specific requirements and scenarios of your organization.
