Azure Virtual WAN Security

Introduction to Azure Virtual WAN Security

Azure Virtual WAN provides a comprehensive platform for managing and securing your wide area networks. Security is a fundamental aspect of Virtual WAN, ensuring that your interconnected resources are protected from threats and unauthorized access.

This section delves into the various security features and best practices to protect your Virtual WAN deployments. We will cover network security controls, threat detection, access management, and more.

Network Security Groups (NSGs)

Network Security Groups (NSGs) are fundamental building blocks for network security in Azure. They act as a virtual firewall to your network interfaces and subnets, allowing or denying network traffic based on source and destination IP addresses, ports, and protocols.

• Application Security Groups (ASGs): Group virtual machines with similar network security roles, simplifying rule management.
• Rule Priorities: Understand how NSG rules are processed and the importance of rule order.
• Default Rules: Familiarize yourself with the pre-configured rules that control inbound and outbound traffic.

# Example NSG rule to allow SSH traffic
{
    "name": "AllowSSH",
    "properties": {
        "priority": 300,
        "access": "Allow",
        "direction": "Inbound",
        "protocol": "Tcp",
        "sourcePortRange": "*",
        "destinationPortRange": "22",
        "sourceAddressPrefix": "*",
        "destinationAddressPrefix": "*"
    }
}

Azure Firewall

Azure Firewall is a managed, cloud-native network security service that protects your Azure Virtual WAN and virtual network resources. It's a stateful firewall as a service with high availability and unlimited cloud scalability.

When integrated with Virtual WAN, Azure Firewall can inspect traffic flowing between VNets, between VNets and the internet, and between VNets and on-premises networks.

Azure DDoS Protection

Azure DDoS Protection provides enhanced mitigation capabilities against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. It offers adaptive tuning, attack analytics, and mitigation reports.

Virtual WAN benefits from DDoS Protection by having its public IP endpoints automatically protected. For more granular control and custom policies, consider Azure DDoS Protection Standard.

VPN Gateway Security

Securing your Site-to-Site VPN connections is crucial. This involves:

• IPsec/IKE Policy: Configuring strong cryptographic algorithms and perfect forward secrecy (PFS) for your VPN tunnels.
• Authentication: Using strong pre-shared keys (PSKs) or certificate-based authentication.
• Tunnel Monitoring: Regularly monitoring VPN tunnel health and performance.

ExpressRoute Security

For private connections with ExpressRoute:

• Private Peering: Use private peering to keep your traffic within the Azure backbone network.
• Service Chaining: Route traffic through security appliances like Azure Firewall or NVAs for inspection.
• ExpressRoute Encryption: Implement MACsec if end-to-end encryption is a strict requirement at the data link layer.

Private Link

Azure Private Link enables you to access Azure PaaS services (like Azure SQL Database, Storage, etc.) and Azure hosted customer-owned services over a private endpoint in your virtual network. This eliminates exposure to the public internet.

Virtual WAN integrates seamlessly with Private Link, allowing secure access to services without traversing the public internet.

Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Controlling who has access to your Azure resources is paramount:

• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Assign granular permissions to users and groups to manage Virtual WAN resources.
• Managed Identities: Allow Azure resources to authenticate to other Azure services without explicit credentials in code.
• Conditional Access Policies: Implement policies in Azure Active Directory to enforce access controls based on conditions.

Logging and Monitoring

Comprehensive logging and monitoring are essential for detecting and responding to security incidents:

• Azure Network Watcher: Provides tools for monitoring, diagnosing, and viewing metrics for your Azure network.
• Azure Monitor: Collects and analyzes telemetry data from your Azure resources, including Virtual WAN.
• Azure Sentinel: A cloud-native Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) solution.
• NSG Flow Logs: Capture information about IP traffic flowing to and from network interfaces in your Virtual WAN.