Azure Security Center Documentation

Introduction to Azure Security Center

Azure Security Center provides unified security management and advanced threat protection across your hybrid cloud workloads. It helps you prevent, detect, and respond to threats, thereby strengthening the security posture of your data centers and providing advanced threat protection for workloads running in Azure and on-premises.

This guide will walk you through the initial steps to get started with Azure Security Center, ensuring you can quickly begin protecting your Azure resources and beyond.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following:

  • An active Azure subscription.
  • Permissions to manage security settings within your subscription (e.g., Owner, Contributor, or Security Admin role).
  • Resources deployed in your Azure subscription (e.g., Virtual Machines, Storage Accounts, SQL Databases) or connected on-premises servers.

Getting Started Steps

Follow these steps to set up and start using Azure Security Center:

Step 1: Access Security Center

Navigate to the Azure portal. In the search bar at the top, type Security Center and select it from the results.

Alternatively, you can find it under the Security & Identity category.

You'll land on the Security Center dashboard, which provides an overview of your security posture.

Step 2: Understand the Dashboard

The main dashboard provides key security insights:

  • Secure Score: A numerical score representing your current security posture, with recommendations on how to improve it.
  • Security Alerts: A summary of high-severity alerts detected by Security Center.
  • Workload Protection Dashboard: Detailed views of security status for various Azure services.

Explore these sections to get a feel for the information Security Center provides.

Step 3: Enable Security Recommendations

Security Center automatically scans your resources for potential security vulnerabilities and misconfigurations. These are presented as Recommendations.

To view and act on these:

  1. In Security Center, navigate to the Recommendations tab.
  2. Review the recommendations categorized by severity and affected resources.
  3. Click on a recommendation to see detailed steps on how to remediate it. For example, patching missing system updates or enabling encryption for storage accounts.

Implementing these recommendations is crucial for improving your overall security score.

Example Recommendation: "Apply system updates"

Step 4: Configure Just-In-Time VM Access

Just-In-Time (JIT) VM access reduces your attack surface by locking down inbound traffic to your VMs. You can request access to a VM when needed, and access is granted for a limited duration.

To configure:

  1. In Security Center, navigate to Workload protection -> Just-in-time VM access.
  2. Click Enable JIT on VMs.
  3. Select the VMs for which you want to enable JIT access.
  4. Configure the default ports, allowed sources, and duration for access.

This is a powerful feature for protecting management ports like RDP and SSH.

Step 5: Explore Regulatory Compliance

Azure Security Center helps you meet regulatory and industry standards. It maps your current security state to relevant compliance controls.

To explore:

  1. In Security Center, navigate to Regulatory compliance.
  2. Select a standard (e.g., ISO 27001, PCI DSS).
  3. Review the compliance dashboard to see how your resources align with the standard's controls and identify any gaps.

Next Steps

Once you've completed these initial steps, consider exploring other advanced features:

  • Security Alerts and Incident Response: Investigate security alerts and learn how to respond to incidents.
  • Advanced Threat Protection: Utilize features like adaptive application controls and file integrity monitoring.
  • Integration with other Azure services: Discover how Security Center integrates with Azure Sentinel, Azure Policy, and more.

Continuously monitor your security posture and implement recommendations to maintain a strong defense against evolving threats.