Common misconfigurations when using Azure can lead to serious cloud security issues. From an attacker’s perspective, organizations that are not following Microsoft’s best practices will leave doors open for criminals to breach through.
If you’re doing any degree of DevOps in Azure Cloud Services (IaaS), you need to ensure you aren’t making at least a couple of the common Azure security misconfigurations.
Here they are:
1. Failing to Use Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to Restrict Access to Resources
One of the most common Azure security misconfigurations is granting too much access to users. When you create a new user account in your Azure, they have full access to all resources in the subscription by default. You need to use RBAC to restrict access to only the resources that those users need.
RBAC is a powerful tool that lets you control who can do what in your Azure environment. With RBAC, you can create roles and assign users or groups to those roles. Then, you can configure role-based permissions to specify which actions a user or group can perform on which resources.
Using a cloud security platform with RBAC guarantees increased security and keeps your cloud data secure and safe at all times.
2. Not Using Azure Key Vault
Azure Key Vault helps you manage your cryptographic keys and secrets in the Microsoft cloud by providing a central location for managing keys, certificates, passwords, and various other secrets within the scope of management of an Azure subscription. It helps provide additional layers of security above that which is provided natively by Azure storage blobs and Azure Service Bus.
By not using Azure Key Vault, you open yourself up to a potential attack vector. Attackers can attempt to steal your keys and secrets to access your resources. Using Azure Key Vault makes it far more difficult for attackers to access your data and resources.
3. Failing to Use Resource Groups
Another common Azure security misconfiguration is not using resource groups. Resource groups will help you organize your resources into logical collections. This makes it easier to manage and secure your resources. You can use resource groups to control who has access to which resources, and you can set permissions on the group level rather than each resource.
4. Using the Same Key for Authentication and Encryption
It would be best if you never used the same key for authentication that you are using for encryption. If an unknown individual manages to access your authentication key, they can use it to log in to your resources and decrypt any encrypted data with the same key.
It is therefore important to use different keys for authentication and encryption to protect yourself from this type of attack. Reliable cloud security platforms can help eliminate this risk too, as they enable high levels of encryption.
5. Not Enforcing Strong Password Policies
Azure Active Directory (AAD) allows you to enforce strong password policies for your users. These policies help ensure that your users use strong passwords that are difficult to guess.
You are putting your organization at risk from a password cracking attack by not enforcing strong password policies. Attackers can use various hacking tools to decrypt passwords in minutes. They can then use these passwords to login into your resources and cause all sorts of havoc.
6. Not Managing Service Principals with AAD
If you are using Azure Resource Manager (ARM), you need to ensure that you manage your service principal names (SPNs) via Microsoft’s centralized identity management system – Azure Active Directory (AAD).
You open yourself to a potential attack if you don’t manage your SPNs via AAD. Attackers can create their service principles and use them to access your resources. Using AAD to manage your SPNs makes it far more difficult for attackers to gain access to your data and resources.
7. Not Restricting Inbound Traffic
Azure security groups allow you to restrict inbound traffic. You can use them only to allow HTTP, HTTPS, and SSH traffic from specific sources. It helps protect your servers from being accessed via non-secure protocols such as FTP, which doesn’t encrypt the transit data.
By allowing inbound access to your servers via protocols such as FTP, you are vulnerable to potential attacks. Attackers can connect to your servers using these protocols and access them without encryption, making it easy to steal data from you.
By restricting the inbound traffic allowed, you make it far more difficult for attackers to access your resources.
8. Not Enforcing Transport Layer Security (TLS)
Azure Cloud Security supports Transport Layer Security (TLS) for securing communications between your applications and Azure services. TLS helps ensure that all data in transit is encrypted, preventing attackers from being able to see it.
If you are not enforcing TLS, you are opening yourself up to many different types of attacks. Implementing TLS makes it much harder for attackers to gain access to your data.
These are just some of the common Azure security problems that organizations face. These issues can be addressed via CSPM, or Cloud Security Posture Management that most cloud security platforms come with. Remember to look for a reliable platform developed by an experienced team.
