Will 2023 be the year you take your cybersecurity to the next level? With Microsoft Azure, businesses can access the most well-rounded cloud security on the market.
The new year is finally here! For many companies, this can be a good opportunity to take a look at the business, and see what is working well, and what could be improved. Here at TechQuarters, we are anticipating that even greater numbers of businesses will be looking to invest more time and resources into building up their cybersecurity stack.
Businesses should definitely be taking a look at the security of their IT infrastructure every year. It’s not just about the never-ending clash of security experts and the hackers looking to undo their work; but also the need for greater awareness of common security risks, best practices, etc. The diversity of risks and measures that need to be considered in order for businesses to build up an appropriate level of security means that the right tools and platforms need to be used.
Here at TechQuarters, we have seen time and time again that Microsoft Azure is just the ticket for businesses looking to implement the best possible security – and so, with the new year ahead of us, we decided to take a broad look at the security capabilities of the platform.
Cybersecurity Predictions for 2023
One of the fastest growing areas of interest for IT managers and executives alike has been cybersecurity. The risks of an insufficient security strategy are plain to see: Extensive downtime, data loss, regulatory penalties, damages to brand reputation. This is why it is important to know what the latest cyber threats are looking like.
There are many different predictions around what the cybersecurity and cyber-threat landscape will look like in 2023 – as usual, malware, ransomware and phishing attacks are expected to adapt to modern defences. Many cyber challenges experts are also calling for greater emphasis on cloud security regulations – in particular, the need for data encryption. Furthermore, the growth in demand for multi-layer security (such as MFA, zero trust models, etc.) is also plain to see.
So, with all of this said, let’s look at Microsoft Azure, and the ways it can provide the level of security that experts are calling for in 2023.
The Microsoft Azure Platform
The Azure platform is used to build and host hundreds of millions of IT assets around the world; and it goes without saying that cloud service providers like Microsoft have a responsibility to protect the assets that their clients are integrating with the platform. This is why Azure’s infrastructure has been designed with a broad, deep array of configurable security options to ensure that businesses have the tools they need to protect their data and assets. These security options can be divided into a number of different areas of focus – let’s take a look at some of these areas:
Azure Security Operations
Microsoft Azure offers a range of tools designed for different types of security operations – ranging from security information and event management (SIEM), resource management, threat detection and response, and more. Some of the available security operations are as follows:
- Sentinel – Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) product. With this product, businesses can access AI-powered security data analytics and threat intelligent that permeates the entire organisation.
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud – Defender for Cloud provides a singular dashboard for security monitoring, policy management, and threat detection.
- Azure Resource Manager – As the name tells you, Azure Resource Manager makes it easy to deploy, delete, or update resources in your Azure environment. Resource templates provided by ARM reduce the risk of human error inherent to manual resource deployment.
- Application Insights – Azure’s Application Performance Management (APM) solution is designed for web developers, making it easier to monitor live web app performance. Performance data from Insights can be used to diagnose anomalies, crashes, failures, and other performance issues, in case they turn out to malicious in root.
- Azure Monitor – Azure Monitor pulls data from the Activity Log and Resource Logs in Azure, allowing businesses to automate alerts for security-related events.
Azure Application Security
Security for a businesses applications is massively important. Azure offers a range of tools and capabilities to make the management of app security tighter, and more comprehensive.
- Penetration Testing – Azure provides businesses with the capabilities they need to perform their own penetration tests for their applications.
- Web Application Firewall (WAF) – The Azure Application Gateway offers firewall protection for web apps against web-based attacks – such as cross-site scripting attacks, session hijacking, and more.
- Web App & Web Server Diagnostics – Azure App Service makes it easier to diagnose issues in both web applications, and web servers, based on logging information.
Azure Storage Security
As a public cloud service, millions of businesses host their data in Azure. As a result, the storage security capabilities of Azure are strong and comprehensive. Many of the capabilities here help a business implement zero-trust models for data access. Below are some examples of its capabilities:
- Azure RBAC – The Azure role-based access control (RBAC) capabilities are designed to give businesses the ability to restrict access to storage accounts on a need-to-know, least privilege basis. Azure RBAC gives businesses total control over data access rights.
- Shared Access Signature (SAS) – This feature enables businesses to create limited access to specific items in a storage account, for specific amounts of time.
- In Transit/At Rest Encryption – Azure supports transport-level encryption, wire encryption, and client-side encryption in order to protect data while in-transit. It also supports storage service encryption, and OS disk and data disk encryption to ensure data is protected at rest, too.
- Storage Analytics – Azure Storage Analytics logs data for storage accounts, which can be used to trace requests and diagnose issues relating to the account. Being able to investigate these requests is useful for potential threat investigation.
Conclusion
What we have listed so far is, by no means, all of the security capabilities that come as part of Microsoft Azure. However, we hope that it has given you an accurate look into the extent with which the platform goes into the various different aspects of security. For any business that uses other Microsoft products (and even those who aren’t, but are looking for a change) and is looking to take their cybersecurity to new levels, we highly recommend looking at Microsoft Azure to do so.
