Azure AZ-900 Fundamentals Exam

Implement Best Practices for Security and Governance

Security and governance are crucial aspects of using cloud services like Azure. Azure offers a wide range of security tools and capabilities that help ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of customer data. By leveraging these tools, organizations can create secure solutions on the Azure platform, which is designed to host millions of customers simultaneously. This robust infrastructure provides a trustworthy foundation for businesses to meet their security requirements. Azure supports a variety of operating systems, programming languages, frameworks, tools, databases, and devices, making it a versatile platform for developers and IT professionals. When using Azure, you rely on Microsoft's ability to protect your applications and data. Azure provides configurable security options that allow you to customize security settings to meet the unique needs of your organization. This flexibility is essential for maintaining a secure and compliant cloud environment. Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are two key tools that enhance security operations in Azure. Microsoft Sentinel is a scalable, cloud-native solution that offers intelligent security analytics and threat intelligence. It helps detect and respond to threats across the enterprise. Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides integrated security monitoring and policy management, helping to prevent, detect, and respond to threats. It offers a single dashboard for alerts and recommendations, making it easier to manage security issues. Azure Resource Manager is another important tool that helps improve security by enabling you to manage resources as a group. You can deploy, update, or delete resources in a coordinated operation using templates. These templates can be used across different environments, reducing the risk of security configuration errors. Additionally, Application Insights helps monitor live web applications, detect performance anomalies, and diagnose issues, ensuring that your applications run smoothly and securely.

In summary, Azure's comprehensive security capabilities and tools like Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Azure Resource Manager, and Application Insights help organizations implement best practices for security and governance. By regularly assessing security, enforcing policies, and continuously monitoring the cloud environment, businesses can maintain a secure and compliant Azure deployment.

Assess Risk Management and Threat Protection

Azure Security Overview Azure provides a comprehensive suite of security tools and capabilities designed to protect applications and data in the cloud. These tools ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of customer data while enabling transparent accountability. Azure's infrastructure is built to host millions of customers securely, offering a trustworthy foundation for businesses to meet their security requirements. Azure Security Capabilities Azure's security features are categorized into six functional areas: Operations, Applications, Storage, Networking, Compute, and Identity. These built-in capabilities help manage the security of applications and services, ensuring robust protection against potential threats. Azure also offers partner solutions that can be deployed into an Azure subscription to enhance security further. Microsoft Sentinel and Defender for Cloud Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native SIEM and SOAR solution that provides intelligent security analytics and threat intelligence across the enterprise. It helps detect attacks, provides threat visibility, and enables proactive threat hunting and response. Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers integrated security monitoring and policy management, helping to prevent, detect, and respond to threats with increased visibility and control over Azure resources. Azure Resource Manager and Application Insights Azure Resource Manager allows for the coordinated deployment, update, or deletion of resources in a solution, enhancing security through standardized template-based deployments. Application Insights is an APM service that monitors live web applications, detects performance anomalies, and provides powerful analytics tools to diagnose issues and understand user behavior. Microsoft Defender for IoT Microsoft Defender for IoT provides comprehensive security for IoT/OT devices, offering agentless, network-layer security that interoperates with Microsoft Sentinel and other SOC tools. It supports diverse industrial equipment and can be deployed on-premises or in Azure-connected environments, ensuring robust protection for IoT projects. Azure Government Cloud Azure Government is a physically isolated cloud environment dedicated to US federal, state, local, and tribal governments, and their partners. It provides an extra layer of protection through contractual commitments regarding data storage and access, ensuring compliance with US export control regulations. Azure Government uses the same underlying technologies as Azure, offering comprehensive security controls and a trustworthy design to support compliance.

Evaluate Governance Strategies in Azure

Governance strategies in Azure are essential for ensuring that cloud resources are managed and controlled effectively. One of the key tools for governance in Azure is Azure Policy, which helps enforce organizational standards and assess compliance at scale. Azure Policy can apply different effects to resources, such as modifying them to meet compliance requirements or auditing them to ensure they adhere to specified rules. A simple example of an Azure Policy effect is the modify effect. This effect can automatically add a tag to a resource if it is missing. For instance, a policy can be set to check if a resource group has a specific tag, like "environment". If the tag is missing, the policy will add it with a predefined value, such as "production". This helps in maintaining consistent metadata across resources, which is crucial for resource management and billing. In more complex scenarios, Azure Policy can use the auditIfNotExists effect. This effect is used to audit resources and ensure that certain conditions are met. For example, a policy can be created to check if virtual machines have a specific extension installed. If the extension is missing, the policy will flag the virtual machine as non-compliant. This type of policy is useful for ensuring that all virtual machines meet security and operational standards. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is another critical governance strategy in Azure. RBAC allows you to assign specific permissions to users, groups, and applications, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access and manage resources. By defining roles and assigning them to users, organizations can control who has access to what resources, thereby enhancing security and compliance. Lastly, Azure Blueprints provide a way to define a repeatable set of Azure resources that implement and adhere to an organization's standards, patterns, and requirements. Blueprints can include resource groups, policies, role assignments, and resource manager templates. This ensures that new environments are compliant from the start and helps in maintaining consistency across multiple deployments.

In summary, governance strategies in Azure, such as Azure Policy, RBAC, and Azure Blueprints, play a vital role in managing and securing cloud resources. These tools help organizations enforce compliance, control access, and ensure that resources are deployed and managed according to best practices. Understanding and implementing these strategies is crucial for effective cloud governance.

Understand Compliance and Regulatory Benefits

Compliance and regulatory benefits are crucial when using cloud services like Azure. Microsoft Azure helps organizations meet various compliance and regulatory requirements through built-in tools and services. These tools include Azure Policy and Compliance Manager, which ensure that your cloud operations adhere to industry standards and regulations. By using these tools, organizations can maintain robust and compliant cloud operations, which is essential for protecting sensitive data and meeting legal obligations. Azure's physical security measures are designed to protect data centers from unauthorized access and potential threats. These measures include tall fences, security cameras, and security guard patrols. Inside the data centers, access is controlled through two-factor authentication and biometric scans. Only authorized personnel can enter specific areas, and their access is limited to the duration of their approved time. This layered approach to security helps ensure that data is protected from physical threats. Microsoft also follows strict procedures for data-bearing devices and equipment disposal. Hard drives that can’t be wiped are destroyed using methods like disintegration, shredding, pulverizing, or incineration. This ensures that data cannot be recovered from disposed devices. These procedures comply with NIST 800-88 standards, providing an additional layer of security for data stored in Azure. Azure's global infrastructure is designed to meet a broad set of international and industry-specific compliance standards, such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, and FedRAMP. Azure regions are organized into geographies to ensure data residency, sovereignty, compliance, and resiliency requirements are met. This geographical organization allows customers to keep their data and applications close, reducing latency and ensuring compliance with local regulations. In summary, Azure provides comprehensive compliance and regulatory benefits through its built-in tools, physical security measures, strict data handling procedures, and adherence to international standards. These features help organizations protect their data, meet legal requirements, and maintain robust and compliant cloud operations. Understanding these benefits is essential for anyone preparing for the Azure AZ-900 Fundamentals Exam.

Comprehend Azure Security Features

Azure provides a comprehensive suite of security tools and capabilities designed to protect your applications and data in the cloud. Security is a top priority for Azure, ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of customer data. Azure's infrastructure is built to host millions of customers simultaneously, offering a trustworthy foundation for businesses to meet their security requirements. The platform supports a wide range of operating systems, programming languages, and frameworks, making it versatile for various development needs. Azure offers several built-in security features that can be customized to meet the unique requirements of your organization. Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) solution. It provides intelligent security analytics and threat intelligence, helping detect and respond to threats across the enterprise. Microsoft Defender for Cloud enhances security by offering integrated monitoring and policy management, helping to prevent, detect, and respond to threats with increased visibility and control over Azure resources. Azure Resource Manager allows you to manage resources in a coordinated manner, providing security, auditing, and tagging features to help manage resources post-deployment. This tool helps improve security by integrating standard security control settings into template-based deployments, reducing the risk of configuration errors. Application Insights is another valuable tool, offering application performance management for web developers. It monitors live web applications, detects performance anomalies, and provides analytics tools to diagnose issues and understand user behavior. Azure also includes Azure Attestation, a solution for remotely verifying the trustworthiness of a platform and the integrity of the binaries running inside it. This service validates evidence from the platform against security standards and produces an attestation token for claims-based applications. Additionally, Azure Information Protection helps organizations discover, classify, and protect documents and emails by applying labels to content, extending the labeling and classification functionality provided by Microsoft 365.

In summary, Azure's security features, such as Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Azure Resource Manager, Application Insights, and Azure Attestation, provide robust tools to protect cloud resources. These features help organizations customize and enhance their security posture, ensuring compliance and safeguarding data in the cloud. Understanding and utilizing these tools is essential for leveraging the full benefits of security and governance in the Azure ecosystem.