Introduction
Azure Offensive Security searches for practices and tools used to test and enhance the security posture of Azure environments by identifying vulnerabilities and potential attack vectors. This is part of a proactive security approach, commonly known as offensive security, which includes penetration testing, red teaming, and threat simulations.
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Best Practice tools for leveraging offensive security in Azure
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud: This provides a comprehensive view of security posture, identifies vulnerabilities, and suggests remediation steps. It includes built-in threat detection and prevention capabilities. Learn More
- Azure Security Benchmark: A set of guidelines based on security controls that align with industry standards, enabling secure architecture design. It's a helpful framework to guide security assessments and ensure best practices.
- Azure Bastion: Although more defensive, it’s an important tool for securely accessing virtual machines over HTTPS. It can help limit direct exposure to attacks, which is crucial during red teaming. Learn More
- Azure Sentinel: As a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system, Sentinel collects, analyzes, and acts on data from Azure and non-Azure sources, helping identify threats in real-time. This can be integrated into red team operations to monitor and analyze attacks in a live environment. Learn More
- Custom Security Playbooks: Playbooks in Azure Sentinel allow you to automate responses to certain threats or suspicious activities, providing a quick way to react to security issues as they arise.
- Threat Modeling with Microsoft Threat Modeling Tool: For a more structured approach, the Threat Modeling Tool helps you build and understand potential attack paths in your Azure architecture.
- Penetration Testing and Red Teaming: These activities involve simulating real-world attacks to test Azure defenses. While you must follow Microsoft's cloud pen-testing guidelines and some restrictions, penetration testing in your Azure setup can reveal critical vulnerabilities.
Conclusion
This article taught us how to do Azure offensive security by involving industry standards and secure architecture design for organizations. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me.