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2.4.1 Select Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps integration with Microsoft Defender for Cloud (Manual)​

Profile Applicability​

• Level 2

Description​

This integration setting enables Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (formerly Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS) - see additional info) to communicate with Microsoft Defender for Cloud.

Rationale​

Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers an additional layer of protection by using Azure Resource Manager events, which is considered to be the control plane for Azure. By analyzing the Azure Resource Manager records, Microsoft Defender for Cloud detects unusual or potentially harmful operations in the Azure subscription environment. Several of the preceding analytics are powered by Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps. To benefit from these analytics, subscription must have a Cloud App Security license.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps works only with Standard Tier subscriptions.

Impact​

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps works with Standard pricing tier Subscription. Choosing the Standard pricing tier of Microsoft Defender for Cloud incurs an additional cost per resource.

Audit​

From Azure Console​

  1. From Azure Home select the Portal Menu
  2. Select Microsoft Defender for Cloud
  3. Select Environment Settings blade
  4. Click on the subscription name
  5. Select the Integrations blade
  6. Ensure setting Allow Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps to access my data is selected.

From Azure CLI​

Ensure the output of the below command is True

az account get-access-token --query "{subscription:subscription,accessToken:accessToken}" --out tsv | xargs -L1 bash -c 'curl -X GET -H "Authorization: Bearer $1" -H "Content-Type: application/json" https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/<subscription_ID>/providers/Microsoft.Security/settings?api-version=2021-06-01' | jq '.|.value[] | select(.name=="MCAS")'|jq '.properties.enabled'

From Azure PowerShell​

Run the following series of commands to audit this configuration

Get-AzAccount 
Set-AzContext -Subscription <subscription ID> 
Get-AzSecuritySetting | Select-Object name,enabled |where-object {$_.name -eq "MCAS"}

PowerShell Output - Non-Compliant

Name Enabled
---- -------
MCAS False

PowerShell Output - Compliant

Name Enabled
---- -------
MCAS True

Remediation​

From Azure Console​

  1. From Azure Home select the Portal Menu.
  2. Select Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
  3. Select Environment Settings blade.
  4. Select the subscription.
  5. Select Integrations.
  6. Check Allow Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps to access my data.
  7. Select Save.

From Azure CLI​

Use the below command to enable Standard pricing tier for Storage Accounts:

az account get-access-token --query "{subscription:subscription,accessToken:acc --out tsv | xargs -L1 bash -c 'curl -X PUT -H "Authorization: Bearer $1" -H "Content-Type: application/json" https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/<subscription_ID>/providers/Microsoft.Security/settings/MCAS?api-version=2021-06-01 -d@"input.json"'

Where input.json contains the Request body json data as mentioned below:

{
 "id": "/subscriptions/<Your_Subscription_Id>/providers/Microsoft.Security/settings/MCAS",
 "kind": "DataExportSetting",
 "type": "Microsoft.Security/settings",
 "properties": {
 "enabled": true
 }
}

References​

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-in/azure/security-center/security-center-alerts-service-layer#azure-management-layer-azure-resource-manager-preview
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/securitycenter/settings/list
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/securitycenter/settings/update
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security/benchmark/azure/security-controls-v3-identity-management#im-9-secure-user-access-to--existing-applications

Additional Information​

NOTE: Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (MDCA) is formerly known as Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS). There are a number of places (for example, Azure CLI) where the MCAS acronym is still used within Azure.

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