Book Image

Mastering Azure Security - Second Edition

By : Mustafa Toroman, Tom Janetscheck
Book Image

Mastering Azure Security - Second Edition

By: Mustafa Toroman, Tom Janetscheck

Overview of this book

Security is integrated into every cloud, but this makes users put their guard down as they take cloud security for granted. Although the cloud provides higher security, keeping their resources secure is one of the biggest challenges many organizations face as threats are constantly evolving. Microsoft Azure offers a shared responsibility model that can address any challenge with the right approach. Revised to cover product updates up to early 2022, this book will help you explore a variety of services and features from Microsoft Azure that can help you overcome challenges in cloud security. You'll start by learning the most important security concepts in Azure, their implementation, and then advance to understanding how to keep resources secure. The book will guide you through the tools available for monitoring Azure security and enforcing security and governance the right way. You'll also explore tools to detect threats before they can do any real damage and those that use machine learning and AI to analyze your security logs and detect anomalies. By the end of this cloud security book, you'll have understood cybersecurity in the cloud and be able to design secure solutions in Microsoft Azure.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
1
Section 1: Identity and Governance
5
Section 2: Cloud Infrastructure Security
9
Section 3: Security Management

Understanding Azure virtual machine disks

Azure VMs are a part of Microsoft's Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering and another service that a lot of users encounter early in the cloud journey. Azure VMs are usually selected when the user requires more control over the environment than other services can offer. But with more control also comes more responsibility.

Besides network management, which was covered in Chapter 4, Azure Network Security, we need to address how we handle data in Azure VMs, and by data, we mainly mean disks. Just like all other data, disks for Azure VM are encrypted at rest, and VM uses Azure Fabric Controller to securely access content stored on these disks.

But what happens if we decide to download or export a disk used by these machines? Once a disk leaves Azure, it is in an unencrypted state and can be used in any way. This opens certain vulnerabilities that need to be addressed. What if someone gains access to Azure (but does not have...