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Create Alert for "Delete Key Vault" Events

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Risk Level: High (not acceptable risk)
Rule ID: ActivityLog-017

Ensure that a Microsoft Azure activity log alert is fired whenever a "Delete Key Vault" event is triggered inside your Azure cloud account. An activity log alert fires each time the action event that matches the condition specified in the alert configuration is triggered. The alert condition that this conformity rule checks for is "Whenever the Activity Log has an event with Category='Administrative', Signal name='Delete Key Vault (vaults)'".

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

Security

Using Microsoft Azure Monitor service to detect "Delete Key Vault" events will help you reduce the time required to mitigate any accidental or intentional deletion of Key Vaults available within your Azure cloud account and improve the Key Vault resources security and management.


Audit

To determine if there is an activity log alert created for "Delete Key Vault" events in your Microsoft Azure cloud account, perform the following actions:

Using Azure Portal

01 Sign in to Azure Management Portal.

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 activity log alerts available in your 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 subscription.

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

07 On the selected alert rule configuration page, check the condition expression listed in the Condition section. If the expression is different than Whenever the Activity Log has an event with Category='Administrative', Signal name='Delete Key Vault (vaults)', the selected alert rule is not configured to fire whenever "Delete Key Vault" events are triggered.

08 Repeat step no. 6 and 7 for the rest of the activity log alert rules available in the selected subscription. If none of the verified rules contain the expected condition, there are no activity log alerts created for "Delete Key Vault" 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 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 activity log alert rule identifiers (IDs):

[
"/subscriptions/1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/microsoft.insights/activityLogAlerts/cc-delete-nsg-rule-alert",
"/subscriptions/1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/microsoft.insights/activityLogAlerts/cc-create-update-nsg-rule-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 alert rule:

az monitor activity-log alert show
	--ids "/subscriptions/1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/microsoft.insights/activityLogAlerts/cc-delete-nsg-rule-alert"
	--query 'condition'

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

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

Verify the command output for a JSON object with the "field" property set to "operationName" value. If the JSON object's "equals" property is not set to "Microsoft.KeyVault/vaults/delete", the selected activity log alert rule is not configured to fire whenever "Delete Key Vault" events get 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 expected condition, there are no activity log alerts created for "Delete Key Vault" events within the selected Azure account subscription.

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

Remediation / Resolution

To implement a Microsoft Azure activity log alert for "Delete Key Vault (Microsoft.KeyVault/vaults)" events, perform the following actions:

Using Azure Portal

01 Sign in to Azure Management Portal.

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 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 alert rule setup process.

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

  1. In the Scope section, click Select resource and configure the target subscription that you wish to monitor. Once the right Azure subscription is selected, click Done.
  2. In the Condition section, click Select condition to configure the alert rule condition. On Configure signal logic panel, find and select the signal with the name Delete Key Vault (Microsoft.KeyVault/vaults). Leave the selected signal default settings unchanged to generate the right condition, i.e. Whenever the Activity Log has an event with Category='Administrative', Signal name='Delete Key Vault (vaults)', then click Done to save the rule condition.
  3. In the Action group 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 settings defined for the selected Azure subscription. Azure Monitor service uses action groups to notify admin users when specific activity log alerts are triggered.
  4. In the Alert rule 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 new alert will be placed, from the Save alert rule to resource group dropdown list.
  5. Ensure that Enable alert rule upon creation option is set to checked, then click Create alert rule to finish the rule setup process.

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 "Delete Key Vault" event is triggered in the current Microsoft Azure cloud subscription:

az monitor activity-log alert create
	--name cc-delete-key-vault-alert
	--description "Alert triggered by Delete Key Vault 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.KeyVault/vaults/delete

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.KeyVault/vaults/delete",
        "field": "operationName",
        "odata.type": null
      }
    ],
    "odata.type": null
  },
  "description": "Alert triggered by Delete Key Vault events",
  "enabled": true,
  "id": "/subscriptions/1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd/resourceGroups/Default-ActivityLogAlerts/providers/microsoft.insights/activityLogAlerts/cc-delete-key-vault-alert",
  "identity": null,
  "kind": null,
  "location": "Global",
  "name": "cc-delete-key-vault-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 31, 2020