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Create Alert for “Create/Update Network Security Group Rule” Events

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Risk Level: High (not acceptable risk)
Rule ID: ActivityLog-004

Ensure that an Azure activity log alert is fired whenever “Create” or “Update Network Security Group Rule” events are triggered within your Microsoft Azure cloud account. Activity log alerts get activated when a new activity log event that matches the condition specified in the alert occurs. In this case, the alert condition required is 'Whenever the Administrative Activity Log "Create or Update Security Rule (networkSecurityGroups/securityRules)" has "any" level, with "any" status and event is initiated by "any"'.

This rule resolution is part of the Conformity Security & Compliance tool for Azure.

Security

Monitoring your Microsoft Azure account for “Create” or “Update Network Security Group Rule” events can give you insights into the cloud network access changes and can help reduce the time it takes to detect suspicious activity.

Audit

To determine if there is an activity log alert created for “Create/Update Network Security Group Rule” events in your Azure cloud account, perform the following actions:

Using Azure Console

01 Sign in to Azure Management Console.

02 Navigate to Azure Monitor blade at https://portal.azure.com/#blade/Microsoft_Azure_Monitoring/AzureMonitoringBrowseBlade/overview.

03 In the navigation panel, select Alerts to access all the alerts available within your Azure cloud account.

04 On the Alerts page, click on the Manage alert rules button from the dashboard top menu to access the alert rules management page.

05 On the Rules page, select the subscription that you want to examine from the Subscription filter box and the Enabled option from the Status dropdown list, to return all the active alert rules created in the selected account subscription.

06 Click on the name (link) of the alert rule that you want to examine.

07 On the selected alert rule configuration page, check the condition phrase available in the CONDITION section. If the condition phrase is different than Whenever the Administrative Activity Log "Create or Update Security Rule (networkSecurityGroups/securityRules)" has "any" level, with "any" status and event is initiated by "any", the selected alert rule is not configured to fire whenever “Create” or “Update Network Security Group Rule” events are triggered.

08 Repeat step no. 6 and 7 for the rest of the alert rules available within the selected account subscription. If none of the verified rules contain the right condition, there are no activity log alerts available for “Create” or “Update Network Security Group Rule” events in the selected Azure cloud account subscription.

09 Repeat steps no. 5 – 8 for each subscription created in your Microsoft Azure cloud account.

Using Azure CLI

01 Run monitor activity-log alert list command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using custom query filters to get the identifiers of all the active activity log alert rules available in the current Azure subscription: 

az monitor activity-log alert list
	--query '[?(enabled==`true`)].id'

02 The command output should return the requested alert rule IDs: 

[
"/subscriptions/1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/microsoft.insights/activityLogAlerts/Cloud Conformity Delete NSG Alert",
"/subscriptions/1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/microsoft.insights/activityLogAlerts/ Cloud Conformity Update Access Policy Alert",
"/subscriptions/1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/microsoft.insights/activityLogAlerts/Cloud Conformity Delete Resource Alert"
]

03 Run monitor activity-log alert show command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using the ID of the alert rule that you want to examine as identifier parameter and custom query filters to list the condition(s) defined for the selected activity log alert rule: 

az monitor activity-log alert show
	--ids "/subscriptions/1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/microsoft.insights/activityLogAlerts/Cloud Conformity Delete NSG Alert"
	--query 'condition'

04 The command output should return the condition metadata for the selected alert rule: 

{
  "allOf": [
    {
      "containsAny": null,
      "equals": "Policy",
      "field": "category",
      "odata.type": null
    },
    {
      "containsAny": null,
      "equals": "Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/delete",
      "field": "operationName",
      "odata.type": null
    }
  ],
  "odata.type": null
}

Check the command output for the JSON object with the "field" property set to "operationName" (highlighted). If the object's "equals" property is not set to "Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/securityRules/write", the selected alert rule is not configured to fire whenever “Create” or “Update Network Security Group Rule” events are triggered.

05 Repeat step no. 3 and 4 for the rest of the alert rules available in the current subscription. If none of the verified rules contain the right condition, there are no activity log alerts available for “Create” or “Update Network Security Group Rule” events within the selected Azure cloud account subscription.

06 Repeat steps no. 1 – 5 for each subscription available in your Microsoft Azure cloud account.

Remediation / Resolution

To create a Microsoft Azure activity log alert for “Create/Update Network Security Group Rule” events, perform the following actions:

Using Azure Console

01 Sign in to Azure Management Console.

02 Navigate to Azure Monitor blade at https://portal.azure.com/#blade/Microsoft_Azure_Monitoring/AzureMonitoringBrowseBlade/overview.

03 In the navigation panel, select Alerts to access all the alerts available in your Azure cloud account.

04 On the Alerts page, click on the Manage alert rules button from the dashboard top menu to access the alert rules management page.

05 On the Rules page, select the Azure account subscription where you want to create the new alert rule from the Subscription filter box.

06 Click New alert rule button from the dashboard top menu to start the rule setup process.

07 On the Create rule page, perform the following actions:

  1. In the RESOURCE section, click Select and configure the target subscription that you wish to monitor. Once the appropriate Azure subscription is selected, click Done.
  2. In the CONDITION section, click Add to configure the alert rule condition. On Configure signal logic panel, find and select the signal with the name Create or Update Security Rule (Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/securityRules). To obtain the right configuration for the condition (i.e. Whenever the Administrative Activity Log "Create or Update Security Rule (networkSecurityGroups/securityRules)" has "any" level, with "any" status and event is initiated by "any"), leave the default settings available for the condition logic unchanged, then click Done to generate the condition.
  3. In the ACTIONS section, click Select action group to choose an existing action group to attach to the new alert rule or click Create action group button to create a new one. An action group is a collection of alert notification preferences defined for the selected Azure subscription. Azure Monitor service alerts use action groups to notify users that an alert has been triggered.
  4. In the ALERT DETAILS section, provide a unique name for the new rule in the Alert rule name box, type a short description in the Description box, and choose the resource group in which the alert will be created from the Save alert to resource group dropdown list.
  5. Make sure that Enable rule upon creation option is set to Yes, then click Create alert rule to finish the rule setup process. It can take up to 5 minutes for an alert rule to become active.

08 Repeat steps no. 5 – 7 for each subscription created in your Microsoft Azure cloud account.

Using Azure CLI

01 Run monitor activity-log alert create command (Windows/macOS/Linux) to create a new Azure activity log alert that fires whenever a “Create” or “Update Network Security Group Rule” event is triggered within the current Microsoft Azure cloud subscription: 

az monitor activity-log alert create
	--name cc-create-update-nsg-rule-alert
	--description "Alert triggered by Create or Update Network Security Group Rule events"
	--resource-group Default-ActivityLogAlerts
	--action-group "/subscriptions/1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd/resourcegroups/default-activitylogalerts/providers/microsoft.insights/actiongroups/cloudconformity%20action%20group"
	--condition category=Administrative and operationName=Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/securityRules/write

02 The command output should return the configuration metadata for the new activity log alert: 

{
  "actions": {
    "actionGroups": [
      {
        "actionGroupId": "/subscriptions/1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd/resourcegroups/default-activitylogalerts/providers/microsoft.insights/actiongroups/cloudconformity%20action%20group",
        "webhookProperties": null
      }
    ]
  },
  "condition": {
    "allOf": [
      {
        "containsAny": null,
        "equals": "Administrative",
        "field": "category",
        "odata.type": null
      },
      {
        "containsAny": null,
        "equals": "Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/securityRules/write",
        "field": "operationName",
        "odata.type": null
      }
    ],
    "odata.type": null
  },
  "description": "Alert triggered by Create or Update Network Security Group Rule events",
  "enabled": true,
  "id": "/subscriptions/1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd/resourceGroups/Default-ActivityLogAlerts/providers/microsoft.insights/activityLogAlerts/cc-create-update-nsg-rule-alert",
  "identity": null,
  "kind": null,
  "location": "Global",
  "name": "cc-create-update-nsg-rule-alert",
  "resourceGroup": "Default-ActivityLogAlerts",
  "scopes": [
    "/subscriptions/1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd/resourceGroups/Default-ActivityLogAlerts"
  ],
  "tags": {},
  "type": "Microsoft.Insights/ActivityLogAlerts"
}

03 Repeat step no. 1 and 2 for each subscription created in your Microsoft Azure cloud account.

References

Publication date Aug 16, 2019

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Create Alert for “Create/Update Network Security Group Rule” Events

Risk Level: High