Monitor Vulnerability Assessment

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 Policy settings, choose Security policy.

06 In the Default initiative section, click on the name of the default initiative enabled for the selected subscription (i.e. ASC Default (subscription: <subscription-id>)).

07 Choose the Parameters tab, uncheck Only show parameters that need input or review, and search for the following parameter: A vulnerability assessment solution should be enabled on your virtual machines. If the specified parameter is set to Disabled, the detection of virtual machine vulnerabilities by the Microsoft Defender for Cloud vulnerability assessment is disabled in the selected subscription.

08 Repeat steps no. 4 – 7 for each Microsoft Azure subscription created within your Azure account.

01 Run account get-access-token command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using custom query filters to determine if a vulnerability assessment solution is installed on the virtual machines running within the current Azure subscription by checking the serverVulnerabilityAssessmentEffect configuration parameter value:

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.Authorization/policyAssignments/SecurityCenterBuiltIn?api-version=2018-05-01' | jq 'select(.name=="SecurityCenterBuiltIn")'|jq '.properties.parameters.serverVulnerabilityAssessmentEffect.value'

02 The command output should return the requested parameter value:

"Disabled"

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

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 Policy settings, choose Security policy.

06 In the Default initiative section, click on the name of the default initiative enabled for the selected subscription (i.e. ASC Default (subscription: <subscription-id>)).

07 Choose the Parameters tab and uncheck the Only show parameters that need input or review checkbox to list all the initiative parameters.

08 Select AuditIfNotExists from the A vulnerability assessment solution should be enabled on your virtual machines parameter dropdown list to enable the detection of Azure virtual machine vulnerabilities by using the Microsoft Defender for Cloud vulnerability assessment feature.

09 Select Review + save to review the configuration changes, then choose Save to apply the new changes. If the operation is successful, the following confirmation message should be displayed: "Updating policy assignment succeeded".

10 Repeat steps no. 4 – 9 for each Microsoft Azure subscription available within your Azure account.

01 Define the configuration parameters for the account get-access-token command, where the serverVulnerabilityAssessmentEffect parameter is enabled to turn on the feature. Save the configuration document to a JSON file named enable-tde-monitoring.json and replace the highlighted details, i.e. <azure-subscription-id> and <policy-definition-id>, with your own Azure account subscription details:

{
  "properties":{
     "displayName":"ASC Default (subscription: <azure-subscription-id>)",
     "policyDefinitionId":"/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policySetDefinitions/<policy-definition-id>",
     "scope":"/subscriptions/<azure-subscription-id>",
     "parameters":{
        "serverVulnerabilityAssessmentEffect":{
           "value":"AuditIfNotExists"
        }
     }
  },
  "id":"/subscriptions/<azure-subscription-id>/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments/SecurityCenterBuiltIn",
  "type":"Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments",
  "name":"SecurityCenterBuiltIn",
  "location":"eastus"
}

02 Run account get-access-token command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using the configuration document defined at the previous step (i.e. enable-server-vulnerability-assessment.json file), to enable the detection of Azure virtual machine vulnerabilities by using the Microsoft Defender for Cloud vulnerability assessment feature:

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.Authorization/policyAssignments/SecurityCenterBuiltIn?api-version=2018-05-01 -d@"enable-server-vulnerability-assessment.json"'

03 The command output should return information about the modified configuration parameter:

{
  "sku": {
    "name": "A0",
    "tier": "Free"
  },
  "properties": {
    "displayName": "ASC Default (subscription: abcdabcd-1234-1234-1234-abcdabcdabcd)",
    "policyDefinitionId": "/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policySetDefinitions/1234abcd-1234-1234-1234-abcd1234abcd",
    "scope": "/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-1234-1234-abcdabcdabcd",
    "parameters": {
      "serverVulnerabilityAssessmentEffect": {
        "value": "AuditIfNotExists"
      }
    },
    "metadata": {
      "createdBy": "abcdabcd-1234-1234-1234-abcdabcdabcd",
      "createdOn": "2019-05-17T15:38:40.3473931Z",
      "updatedBy": "1234abcd-1234-1234-1234-abcd1234abcd",
      "updatedOn": "2022-02-01T21:22:40.7422203Z"
    }
  },
  "id": "/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-1234-1234-abcdabcdabcd/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments/SecurityCenterBuiltIn",
  "type": "Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments",
  "name": "SecurityCenterBuiltIn",
  "location": "eastus"
}

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