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Enable Microsoft Defender for Cloud for Virtual Machines

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Risk Level: High (not acceptable risk)
Rule ID: SecurityCenter-032

Ensure that Microsoft Defender for Cloud is enabled for the virtual machine (VM) servers provisioned in your Azure cloud account. The threat detection and protection capabilities provided by Microsoft Defender for Cloud for VM servers include vulnerability assessment scanning, file integrity monitoring (also known as change monitoring), Just-in-time (JIT) virtual machine access monitoring, adaptive network hardening (ANH), fileless attack detection, and Docker host hardening.

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

Security

By default, Microsoft Defender for Cloud is not enabled for your virtual machine (VM) servers. Enabling the Defender security service for Azure virtual machines allows for better defense-in-depth with threat detection capabilities provided by the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC).

Audit

To determine if the Microsoft Defender for Cloud security service is enabled for your Azure virtual machines (VMs), perform the following actions:

Using Azure Portal

01 Sign in to the Microsoft Azure Portal.

02 Navigate to Microsoft Defender for Cloud blade at https://portal.azure.com/#blade/Microsoft_Azure_Security/SecurityMenuBlade/0.

03 In the main navigation panel, under Management, choose Environment settings.

04 Click on the name (link) of the Azure subscription that you want to examine.

05 In the navigation panel, under Settings, choose Defender plans to access the Defender for Cloud pricing plans available for the selected subscription.

06 On the Defender plans page, check the Defender for Cloud pricing plan status available for the Servers resource type, listed in the Plan column. If the pricing plan status for Servers is set to Off, Microsoft Defender for Cloud is not enabled for the Azure virtual machine (VM) servers provisioned in the selected subscription.

07 Repeat step no. 4 – 6 for each Microsoft Azure subscription available within your cloud account.

Using Azure CLI

01 Run account get-access-token command (Windows/macOS/Linux) with custom query filters to describe the name of the Defender for Cloud pricing plan configured for the Azure virtual machines available within the current subscription: 

az account get-access-token
  --query "{subscription:subscription,accessToken:accessToken}"
  --out tsv | xargs -L1 bash -c 'curl -X GET -H "Authorization: Bearer $1" -H "Content-Type: application/json" https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/$0/providers/Microsoft.Security/pricings?api-version=2018-06-01' | jq '.|.value[] | select(.name=="VirtualMachines")'|jq '.properties.pricingTier'

02 The command output should return the name of the configured pricing tier: 

"Free"

If the account get-access-token command output does not return "Standard" for the name of the pricing tier, Microsoft Defender for Cloud is not enabled for the Azure virtual machine (VM) servers provisioned within the current subscription.

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

Remediation / Resolution

To enable Microsoft Defender for Cloud for your Azure virtual machines (VMs), perform the following actions:

Note: Turning on Defender for Cloud for the specified resource type (i.e. VM servers) incurs an additional cost per resource.

Using Azure Portal

01 Sign in to the Microsoft Azure Portal.

02 Navigate to Microsoft Defender for Cloud blade at https://portal.azure.com/#blade/Microsoft_Azure_Security/SecurityMenuBlade/0.

03 In the main navigation panel, under Management, choose Environment settings.

04 Click on the name (link) of the Azure subscription that you want to access.

05 In the navigation panel, under Settings, choose Defender plans to access the Defender for Cloud pricing plans available for the selected subscription.

06 On the Defender plans configuration page, under Microsoft Defender for, choose On for the Servers pricing plan listed in the Plan column, to enable Microsoft Defender for Cloud for Azure virtual machine (VM) servers. Choose Save from the top menu to apply the changes.

07 Repeat step no. 4 – 6 for each Microsoft Azure subscription available within your cloud account.

Using Azure CLI

01 Define the configuration parameters for the account get-access-token command, where the "pricingTier" parameter value is set to "Standard" to turn on the Defender for Cloud pricing plan for VM servers. Save the configuration document to a JSON file named enable-defender-for-vm-servers.json and replace the highlighted details, i.e. <azure-subscription-id>, with your own Azure account subscription ID: 

{
  "id": "/subscriptions/<azure-subscription-id>/providers/Microsoft.Security/pricings/VirtualMachines",
  "name": "VirtualMachines",
  "type": "Microsoft.Security/pricings",
  "properties": {
    "pricingTier": "Standard"
  }
}

02 Run account get-access-token command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using the configuration document defined at the previous step (i.e. enable-defender-for-vm-servers.json file), to enable the Microsoft Defender for Cloud for all the virtual machine (VM) servers provisioned in the selected subscription: 

az account get-access-token
  --query "{subscription:subscription,accessToken:accessToken}"
  --out tsv | xargs -L1 bash -c 'curl -X PUT -H "Authorization: Bearer $1" -H "Content-Type: application/json" https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/$0/providers/Microsoft.Security/pricings/VirtualMachines?api-version=2018-06-01 -d@"enable-defender-for-vm-servers.json"'

03 The command output should return the information available for the enabled pricing tier: 

{
  "id": "/subscriptions/abcd1234-abcd-1234-abcd-1234abcd1234/providers/Microsoft.Security/pricings/VirtualMachines",
  "name": "VirtualMachines",
  "type": "Microsoft.Security/pricings",
  "properties": {
    "pricingTier": "Standard",
    "freeTrialRemainingTime": "PT0S"
  }
}

04 Repeat steps no. 1 – 3 for each Microsoft Azure subscription available in your cloud account.

References

Publication date Feb 19, 2022

Related SecurityCenter rules