Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a cloud-native security solution that protects your Azure, hybrid, and on-premises environments. It continuously assesses the security of your cloud resources and provides actionable recommendations to improve your overall security posture.
Key Features
Monitoring and Threat Detection
Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides continuous monitoring of both cloud and on-premises environments. You can install the Log Analytics agent on Windows and Linux servers to gather data, enabling you to:
- Monitor your resources for potential threats
- Detect suspicious activities such as brute force attacks
- Investigate incidents and take remediation steps
Security Recommendations
It provides security best practices and alerts you when configurations deviate from them. For example:
- Recommendations to apply the correct security settings on new resources
- Suggestions for patching vulnerabilities and hardening configurations
Malware Protection and Application Control
- Protect your Virtual Machines and resources by blocking malware
- Set application control rules to allow only approved apps to be installed
Just-in-Time Access
Defender for Cloud can manage Just-in-Time (JIT) VM access, which temporarily opens inbound ports to reduce exposure to brute-force attacks.
Integration with Other Security Tools
- Integrates with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for extended threat detection and response.
- Automatically monitors PaaS services like Azure SQL and Azure App Service.
Policy Compliance and Automation
- Track how well your resources align with your organization’s security policies.
- Use Azure Logic Apps for workflow automation to automatically respond to specific alerts.
Regulatory Compliance
- Monitor compliance with regulatory standards (e.g., ISO, PCI-DSS).
- Get visibility into vulnerabilities or misconfigurations that violate regulatory benchmarks.
Pricing
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud includes a free tier that provides continuous assessment and security recommendations.
- The enhanced Azure Defender features are chargeable, offering advanced threat detection and automated responses.
Related Topics
For related topics, see:
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