Use Private Endpoints for Azure AI Foundry Instances

Risk Level: High (not acceptable risk)

To reduce the risk of exposure to external threats and strengthens overall security for your Azure AI Foundry interactions, ensure that your Azure AI Foundry instances are accessed exclusively through private endpoint connections.

Security

Using private endpoints for Azure AI Foundry instances enables secure data access over Azure Private Link. The private endpoint uses an IP address from the virtual network, ensuring traffic stays within the Microsoft Azure backbone network, avoiding public Internet exposure. This setup blocks public endpoint connections, enhances virtual network security, prevents data exfiltration, and supports secure on-premises connections via Azure VPN Gateway or ExpressRoutes with private-peering. Additionally, it helps maintain compliance with regulatory requirements and organizational policies by enforcing strict network access controls and minimizing the surface area for potential security breaches.

Audit

To determine if network access to Azure AI Services (AI Foundry) instances is allowed via private endpoints only, perform the following operations:

Using Azure Console

01 Sign in to the Microsoft Azure Portal.

02 Navigate to All resources blade available at https://portal.azure.com/#browse/all to access all your Microsoft Azure cloud resources.

03 Choose the Azure subscription that you want to access from the Subscription equalls all filter box and choose Apply.

04 From the Type equals all filter box, select Type for Filter, Equals for Operator, and Azure AI Foundry for Value, then choose Apply to list the Azure AI Services (AI Foundry) instances available in the selected subscription.

05 Click on the name (link) of the AI Foundry instance that you want to examine.

06 In the resource navigation panel, under Resource Management, select Networking to access the networking configuration settings available for the selected AI Foundry instance.

07 Select the Firewalls and virtual networks tab and check the Allow access from configuration setting to determine the level of access configured for the selected resource. If Allow access from is set to Disabled, network access via public endpoints or selected networks is disabled, therefore, you can continue the Audit process with the next step. Otherwise, the Audit process stops here.

08 Select the Private endpoint connections tab and check for any private endpoints configured for your instance. If there are no private endpoints available on this page, the selected Azure AI Foundry instance is not configured to allow network access via private endpoints only.

Using Azure CLI

01 Run account list command (Windows/macOS/Linux) with custom output filters to list the IDs of the cloud subscriptions available in your Azure cloud account:

az account list
	--query '[*].id'

02 The command output should return the requested subscription identifiers (IDs):

[
	"abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd",
	"abcd1234-abcd-1234-abcd-abcd1234abcd"
]

03 Run account set command (Windows/macOS/Linux) with the ID of the Azure cloud subscription that you want to examine as the identifier parameter to set the selected subscription to be the current active subscription (the command does not produce an output):

az account set
	--subscription abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd

04 Run cognitiveservices account list command (Windows/macOS/Linux) with custom output filters to list the name and the associated resource group for each Azure AI Services (AI Foundry) instance available within the current subscription:

az cognitiveservices account list
	--output table
	--query '[?(kind==`AIServices`)].{name:name, resourceGroup:resourceGroup}'

05 The command output should return the requested AI Foundry instance identifiers:

Name                               ResourceGroup
-------------------------------    ------------------------------
cc-project5-ai-service-instance    cloud-shell-storage-westeurope
cc-project5-ai-foundry-instance    cloud-shell-storage-westeurope

06 Run cognitiveservices account show command (Windows/macOS/Linux) with the name of the Azure AI Foundry instance that you want to examine as the identifier parameter and custom output filters to determine if the public network access to the selected instance is disabled:

az cognitiveservices account show
	--name cc-project5-ai-service-instance
	--resource-group cloud-shell-storage-westeurope
	--query '{networkAcls:properties.networkAcls.defaultAction,publicNetworkAccess:properties.publicNetworkAccess}'

07 The command output should return the status of the default network access rule used by the selected instance (i.e. "networkAcls" value) and the status of the "publicNetworkAccess" setting configured for the instance:

{
	"networkAcls": "Deny",
	"publicNetworkAccess": "Disabled"
}

If the cognitiveservices account show command output returns "Deny" for "networkAcls" and "Disabled" for "publicNetworkAccess", as shown in the example above, network access via public endpoints or selected networks is disabled, therefore, you can continue the Audit process with the next step. Otherwise, the Audit process stops here.

08 Run cognitiveservices account show command (Windows/macOS/Linux) to describe the private endpoint connections configured for the selected Azure AI Foundry instance:

az cognitiveservices account show
	--name cc-project5-ai-service-instance
	--resource-group cloud-shell-storage-westeurope
	--query 'properties.privateEndpointConnections'

09 The command output should return the information available for the configured private endpoints:

[]

If the cognitiveservices account show command output returns an empty array, i.e., [], there are no private endpoint connections associated with your instance, therefore, the selected Azure AI Foundry instance is not configured to allow network access via private endpoints only.

Remediation / Resolution

To ensure that your Azure AI Foundry instances are accessed exclusively through private endpoint connections, perform the following operations:

Using Azure Console

01 Sign in to the Microsoft Azure Portal.

02 Navigate to All resources blade available at https://portal.azure.com/#browse/all to access all your Microsoft Azure cloud resources.

03 Choose the Azure subscription that you want to access from the Subscription equalls all filter box and choose Apply.

05 Click on the name (link) of the AI Foundry instance that you want to configure.

06 In the resource navigation panel, under Resource Management, select Networking to access the networking configuration settings available for the selected AI Foundry instance.

07 Select the Firewalls and virtual networks tab, set Allow access from to Disabled, and choose Save to apply the changes. Once the network configuration is updated, no networks can access your resource. Private endpoint connections will be the exclusive way to access your AI Foundry instance.

08 Select the Private endpoint connections tab, choose Private endpoint, and perform the following actions to deploy a new private endpoint:

For Basics, provide the following information:
1. For Subscription, choose your Azure subscription.
2. For Resource group, select the correct resource group.
3. Provide a unique name for the private endpoint instance in the Name box.
4. For Region, select the Azure cloud region where the private endpoint instance will be deployed.
5. Choose Next : Resource > to continue the setup process.
For Resource, select account from the Target sub-resource dropdown list. Choose Next : Virtual Network > to continue the setup.
For Virtual Network, perform the following actions:
1. For Virtual network, choose the name of the Azure virtual network (VNet) that you want to use for your private endpoint.
2. For Subnet, select the VNet subnet where the private endpoint will be deployed.
3. (Optional) For Network policy for private endpoints, choose (edit) next to Disabled to configure network policies for the selected VNet subnet.
4. For Private IP configuration, choose whether to dynamically or statically allocate the private IP address.
5. (Optional) For Application security group, choose Create to create an Application Security Group (ASG) if required. ASGs allow you to configure network security by grouping virtual machines and defining policies based on these groups.
6. Choose Next : DNS > to continue.
For DNS, select Yes for Integrate with private DNS zone under Private DNS integration, to integrate your private endpoint with a private DNS zone. Ensure that the correct subscription and resource group are selected for the private DNS zone. Choose Next : Tags > to continue the setup.
For Tags, use the Name, Value, and Resource fields to create tags that will help organize the identity of the selected resource. Choose Next : Review + create > to validate the private endpoint setup.
For Review + create, review the resource configuration details, then choose Create to create a new private endpoint for your Azure AI Foundry instance.

Using Azure CLI

01 Run account list command (Windows/macOS/Linux) with custom output filters to list the IDs of the cloud subscriptions available in your Azure cloud account:

az account list
	--query '[*].id'

02 The command output should return the requested subscription identifiers (IDs):

[
	"abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd",
	"abcd1234-abcd-1234-abcd-abcd1234abcd"
]

az account set
	--subscription abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd

04 Run cognitiveservices account list command (Windows/macOS/Linux) with custom output filters to list the resource identifier (ID) of each Azure AI Services (AI Foundry) instance available within the current subscription:

az cognitiveservices account list
	--query '[?(kind==`AIServices`)].id'

05 The command output should return the requested AI Foundry instance identifiers:

[
	"/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts/cc-project5-ai-service-instance",
	"/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts/cc-project5-ai-foundry-instance"
]

06 Run resource update command (Windows/macOS/Linux) with the ID of the Azure AI Foundry instance that you want to configure as the identifier parameter, to disable network access to the selected instance. Once the network configuration changes are applied to the instance, no networks can access your resource. Private endpoint connections will be the exclusive way to access your AI Foundry instance:

az resource update
	--ids "/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts/cc-project5-ai-service-instance"
	--set properties.networkAcls="{'defaultAction':'Deny'}"
	--set properties.publicNetworkAccess="Disabled"

07 The command output should return the information available for the configured AI Foundry instance:

{
	"id": "/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts/cc-project5-ai-service-instance",
	"identity": {
		"principalId": "abcd1234-abcd-1234-abcd-1234abcd1234",
		"tenantId": "abcd1234-abcd-1234-abcd-1234abcd1234",
		"type": "SystemAssigned",
	},
	"kind": "AIServices",
	"location": "westeurope",
	"name": "cc-project5-ai-service-instance",
	"properties": {
		"encryption": {
			"keySource": "Microsoft.KeyVault",
			"keyVaultProperties": {
				"keyName": "tm-ai-foundry-instance-key",
				"keyVaultUri": "https://tm-project5-vault.vault.azure.net",
				"keyVersion": "abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234abcd1234"
			}
		},

		...

		"isMigrated": false,
		"locations": null,
		"migrationToken": null,
		"networkAcls": {
			"defaultAction": "Deny"
		},
		"privateEndpointConnections": [],
		"provisioningState": "Succeeded",
		"publicNetworkAccess": "Disabled",
		"quotaLimit": null,
		"restore": null,
		"restrictOutboundNetworkAccess": null,
		"scheduledPurgeDate": null,
		"skuChangeInfo": null,
		"userOwnedStorage": null
	},
	"resourceGroup": "cloud-shell-storage-westeurope",
	"type": "Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts"
}

08 Run network private-endpoint create command (Windows/macOS/Linux) to create and attach a private endpoint to your Microsoft Azure AI Foundry instance. Use the --private-connection-resource-id command parameter to specify the resource ID of your instance:

az network private-endpoint create
	--name tm-ai-private-endpoint
	--resource-group cloud-shell-storage-westeurope
	--vnet-name tm-project5-vnet
	--subnet tm-project5-subnet-001
	--private-connection-resource-id "/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts/cc-project5-ai-service-instance"
	--connection-name tm-project5-ai-private-connection
	--group-id account
	--location westeurope

09 The command output should return the new private endpoint configuration information:

{
	"customDnsConfigs": [
		{
			"fqdn": "cc-project5-ai-service-instance.cognitiveservices.azure.com",
			"ipAddresses": [
				"10.0.0.4"
			]
		},
		{
			"fqdn": "cc-project5-ai-service-instance.openai.azure.com",
			"ipAddresses": [
				"10.0.0.5"
			]
		},
		{
			"fqdn": "cc-project5-ai-service-instance.services.ai.azure.com",
			"ipAddresses": [
				"10.0.0.6"
			]
		}
	],
	"customNetworkInterfaceName": "",
	"id": "/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/Microsoft.Network/privateEndpoints/tm-ai-private-endpoint",
	"ipConfigurations": [],
	"location": "westeurope",
	"manualPrivateLinkServiceConnections": [],
	"name": "tm-ai-private-endpoint",
	"networkInterfaces": [
		{
			"id": "/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/tm-ai-private-endpoint.nic.abcd1234-abcd-1234-abcd-1234abcd1234",
			"resourceGroup": "cloud-shell-storage-westeurope"
		}
	],
	"privateLinkServiceConnections": [
		{
			"groupIds": [
				"account"
			],
			"id": "/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/Microsoft.Network/privateEndpoints/tm-ai-private-endpoint/privateLinkServiceConnections/tm-project5-ai-private-connection",
			"name": "tm-project5-ai-private-connection",
			"privateLinkServiceConnectionState": {
				"actionsRequired": "None",
				"description": "Approved",
				"status": "Approved"
			},
			"privateLinkServiceId": "/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts/cc-project5-ai-service-instance",
			"provisioningState": "Succeeded",
			"resourceGroup": "cloud-shell-storage-westeurope",
			"type": "Microsoft.Network/privateEndpoints/privateLinkServiceConnections"
		}
	],
	"provisioningState": "Succeeded",
	"resourceGroup": "cloud-shell-storage-westeurope",
	"subnet": {
		"id": "/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcdabcdabcd/resourceGroups/cloud-shell-storage-westeurope/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/tm-project5-vnet/subnets/tm-project5-subnet-001",
		"resourceGroup": "cloud-shell-storage-westeurope"
	},
	"type": "Microsoft.Network/privateEndpoints"
}

References

Azure Official Documentation
Security for Azure AI services
Configure Azure AI services virtual networks
Quickstart: Create a private endpoint by using the Azure portal
Quickstart: Create a private endpoint by using the Azure CLI

Azure Command Line Interface (CLI) Documentation
az account list
az account set
az cognitiveservices account list
az cognitiveservices account show
az resource update
az network private-endpoint create

Publication date Sep 10, 2025

Audit

Using Azure Console

Using Azure CLI

Remediation / Resolution

Using Azure Console

Using Azure CLI

References

Related AIFoundry rules