lacework-global-570

6.3 Evaluate and restrict User Datagram Protocol (UDP) access from the Internet (Automated)

Profile Applicability

• Level 1

Description

Network security groups should be periodically evaluated for port misconfigurations. If a network security group exposes certain ports and protocols to the Internet, evaluate them for necessity and restrict wherever they are not explicitly required.

Rationale

The potential security problem with broadly exposing UDP services over the Internet is that attackers can use DDoS amplification techniques to reflect spoofed UDP traffic from Azure Virtual Machines. The most common types of these attacks use exposed DNS, NTP, SSDP, SNMP, CLDAP and other UDP-based services as amplification sources for disrupting services of other machines on the Azure Virtual Network or even attack networked devices outside of Azure.

Audit

From Azure Portal

1. Open the Networking blade for the specific Virtual machine in Azure portal
2. Verify that the INBOUND PORT RULES does not have a rule for UDP such as
   • protocol = UDP,
   • Source = Any OR Internet

From Azure CLI

List Network security groups with corresponding non-default Security rules:

az network nsg list --query [*].[name,securityRules]

Ensure that none of the NSGs have security rule as below

"access" : "Allow"
"destinationPortRange" : "*" or "[port range containing 53, 123, 161, 389, 1900, or other vulnerable UDP-based services]"
"direction" : "Inbound"
"protocol" : "UDP"
"sourceAddressPrefix" : "*" or "0.0.0.0" or "<nw>/0" or "/0" or "internet" or "any"

Remediation

Where UDP is not explicitly required and narrowly configured for resources attached to the Network Security Group, restrict or eliminate Internet-level access to your Azure resources.

For internal access to relevant resources, configure an encrypted network tunnel such as:

ExpressRoute

Site-to-site VPN

Point-to-site VPN

References

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/fundamentals/network-best-practices#secure-your-critical-azure-service-resources-to-only-your-virtual-networks
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/fundamentals/ddos-best-practices
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security/benchmark/azure/security-controls-v3-network-security#ns-1-establish-network-segmentation-boundaries
ExpressRoute
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/expressroute/
Site-to-site VPN
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vpn-gateway/vpn-gateway-howto-site-to-site-resource-manager-portal
Point-to-site VPN
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vpn-gateway/vpn-gateway-howto-point-to-site-resource-manager-portal