Azure Security - Solution To Digital Transformation

Nowadays, we are moving more and more towards digital transformation, like banking, automobiles, and  other sensitive information. Digital transformation has changed the business world totally and digital transformation is not just about end users in a particular organization or region. The technologies and processes driving digital transformation can help transform IT and also drive business rapidly.

Why security is important?

For most of us, the recent Zero Day vulnerabilities in iOS are probably still fresh. 

Let’s think about what could happen. By clicking a link, we would get a text/message, our device could be jailbroken, and then it would ne completely owned by an attacker with access to literally everything stored and accessed with that device.

This is an incredible reminder of the importance of securing and protecting our people and data.

Given are the examples of most recent security breaches.

So, we could say that Cyber Security is the number one priority.

So, not coincidentally, this escalating threat comes at the same time when the surface area you have to protect is also rapidly expanding. This expansion is driven by the always growing number of mobile devices in your network, and these devices are constantly taking your data well beyond the confines of your data center. There is also the growing number of SaaS applications your organization needs or that your employees are already using.

Your operations are most likely run from a different set of datacenters, public and private. For decades, we all have relied on the perimeters of our organizations to act as one of the primary lines of defense from attacks but as our data regularly moves outside of these perimeters to the cloud and cloud-based apps, these boundaries are no longer effective deterrents.

• Do you know which user accounts have been compromised and are being used to access your company or customer information?
• Can you guarantee that only your employees are accessing corporate resources?
• Do you know what SaaS apps your employees are using and protect the company data in those apps?
• Are you confident that corporate data being accessed and stored on mobile devices is secure?
• Do you know what sensitive/confidential data is being shared with partners?
• Do you want to know if sensitive/confidential data is assessable without requiring authentication and validation?

So, we could say that after any security threat, these are action items needed to be performed.

1. Protect
2. Detect
3. Respond
   
   
   

Azure Active Directory is a comprehensive identity and Access Management cloud solution that provides a robust set of capabilities to manage users and groups. It helps secure access to on-premises and cloud applications, including Microsoft Online services like Office 365 and many non-Microsoft SaaS applications.

How reliable is Azure AD?

The multi-tenant, geo-distributed, high availability design of Azure AD means that you can rely on it for your most critical business needs. Running out of 28 data centers around the world with automated failover, you’ll have the comfort of knowing that Azure AD is highly reliable and that even if a data center goes down, copies of your directory data are live in at least two more regionally dispersed data centers and available for instant access.

Control and help secure email, documents, and sensitive data that you share outside your company walls. From easy classification to embedded labels and permissions, enhance data protection at all times with Azure Information Protection—no matter where it’s stored or who it’s shared with.

What is Azure Security Center?

Security Center helps you prevent, detect, and respond to threats with increased visibility into and control over the security of your Azure resources. It provides integrated security monitoring and policy management across your Azure subscriptions, helps detect threats that might otherwise go unnoticed, and works with a broad ecosystem of security solutions.

Key capabilities

Security Center delivers easy-to-use and effective threat prevention, detection, and response capabilities that are built in to Azure. Key capabilities are:

Stage	Capability
Prevent	Monitors the security state of your Azure resources
Prevent	Defines policies for your Azure subscriptions and resource groups based on your company’s security requirements, the types of applications that you use, and the sensitivity of your data
Prevent	Uses policy-driven security recommendations to guide service owners through the process of implementing needed controls
Prevent	Rapidly deploys security services and appliances from Microsoft and partners
Detect	Automatically collects and analyzes security data from your Azure resources, the network, and partner solutions like antimalware programs and firewalls
Detect	Leverages global threat intelligence from Microsoft products and services, the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit (DCU), the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), and external feeds
Detect	Applies advanced analytics, including machine learning and behavioral analysis
Respond	Provides prioritized security incidents/alerts
Respond	Offers insights into the source of the attack and impacted resources
Respond	Suggests ways to stop the current attack and help prevent future attacks

I hope this article has increased your understanding about digital transformation. Until next time, keep learning!!