Preface

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP) that has Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) capabilities and supports Azure, on-premises, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) resources.

Defender for Cloud covers three crucial requirements for workload and infrastructure security: defending, securing, and continuously assessing protected workloads:

• Defend: Helps you detect and resolve threats to services and resources.
• Secure: Recommendations help you prioritize hardening tasks to improve your security posture.
• Continuously assess: Your secure score is frequently refreshed to give you the current security situation.

In this book, you will find valuable but easy-to-follow steps to get started using Defender for Cloud, followed by more advanced protections, including multi-cloud protection, as well as adjacent security services integrated and used in Defender for Cloud.

Who this book is for

This book is for security engineers, systems administrators, security professionals, IT professionals, system architects, developers… anyone whose responsibilities include maintaining security posture, identifying and remediating vulnerabilities, and securing cloud and hybrid infrastructure. It is also for anyone who is willing to learn about security in Azure and to build secure Azure and hybrid infrastructure, to improve their security posture in Azure, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments by using all the features within Defender for Cloud.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with Microsoft Defender for Cloud, introduces the basic but fundamental Defender for Cloud configuration and performs the initial configuration.

Chapter 2, Multi-Cloud Connectivity, shows you how to connect AWS and GCP environments to Defender for Cloud.

Chapter 3, Workflow Automation and Continuous Export, explains how to configure Defender for Cloud workflow automations, automate responses, and configure continuous data export.

Chapter 4, Secure Score and Recommendations, explains how to work with and interpret the secure score and manage security recommendations.

Chapter 5, Security Alerts, demonstrates how to manage and respond to security alerts.

Chapter 6, Regulatory Compliance and Security Policy, explains how to manage Defender for Cloud security policies and manage regulatory compliance standards.

Chapter 7, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Workload Protection, covers the protection capabilities of Defender for Cloud plans.

Chapter 8, Firewall Manager, demonstrates how to secure Azure assets and public endpoints by controlling network traffic to and from Azure.

Chapter 9, Information Protection, discusses Defender for Cloud's ability to generate alerts and recommendations based on information policy data.

Chapter 10, Workbooks, shows how to create and manage workbooks in Defender for Cloud.

To get the most out of this book

To successfully complete the recipes in this book, you will need an Azure subscription. Naturally, you will also need a web browser – although I have used Microsoft Edge, you can use any browser of your choice.

Additionally, for Defender for Cloud to generate alerts and recommendations, you will need to provision resources in Azure. Preferably, to create resources in AWS and GCP, you will need an account, and a payment method in these cloud providers as well.

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781801076135_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "To onboard Microsoft Defender for Cloud using PowerShell, you must use the Az.Security PowerShell module."

A block of code is set as follows:

Set-AzContext -Subscription "<subscription_ID>"

Set-AzSecurityAutoProvisioningSetting '

-Name "default" -EnableAutoProvision

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

Set-AzContext -Subscription "<subscription ID>"

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "In the top menu, click Configure."

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

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