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Monitor Endpoint Protection

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Risk Level: Medium (should be achieved)
Rule ID: SecurityCenter-005

Ensure that endpoint protection monitoring is enabled within Microsoft Defender for Cloud settings in order to identify and remove viruses, spyware, and other malicious software from your Azure virtual machines (VMs). Microsoft Defender for Cloud monitors security configurations using a large set of recommendations for auditing, detecting threats, hardening operating systems, configuring firewalls, setting password policies, and more.

This rule resolution is part of the Conformity Security & Compliance tool for Azure.

Security

When the Endpoint Protection Monitoring feature is enabled, Microsoft Defender for Cloud recommends endpoint protection for all Windows virtual machines to help identify and remove viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Audit

To determine if the endpoint protection monitoring is enabled within the Microsoft Defender for Cloud security policy, perform the following actions:

Using Azure Console

01 Sign in to the Microsoft Azure Portal.

02 Navigate to Microsoft Defender for Cloud blade at https://portal.azure.com/#blade/Microsoft_Azure_Security/SecurityMenuBlade/0.

03 In the main navigation panel, under Management, choose Environment settings.

04 Click on the name (link) of the Azure subscription that you want to examine.

05 In the navigation panel, under Policy settings, choose Security policy.

06 In the Default initiative section, click on the name of the default initiative enabled for the selected subscription (i.e. ASC Default (subscription: <subscription-id>)).

07 Choose the Parameters tab, uncheck Only show parameters that need input or review, and search for the following parameter: Monitor missing Endpoint Protection in Azure Security Center. If the Monitor missing Endpoint Protection in Azure Security Center parameter is set to Disabled, the endpoint protection monitoring is not enabled for the Azure virtual machines (VMs) provisioned in the selected subscription.

08 Repeat steps no. 4 – 7 for each Microsoft Azure subscription created within your Azure account.

Using Azure CLI and PowerShell

01 Run account get-access-token command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using custom query filters to determine if the endpoint protection monitoring is enabled within the current Azure subscription by checking the endpointProtectionMonitoringEffect configuration parameter value: 

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/$0/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments/SecurityCenterBuiltIn?api-version=2018-05-01' | jq 'select(.name=="SecurityCenterBuiltIn")'|jq '.properties.parameters.endpointProtectionMonitoringEffect.value'

02 The command output should return the requested parameter value: 

"Disabled"

If the account get-access-token command output returns "Disabled", as shown in the output example above, the endpoint protection monitoring is not enabled for the Azure virtual machines (VMs) provisioned within the current subscription.

03 Repeat steps no. 1 and 2 for each Microsoft Azure subscription available in your Azure cloud account.

Remediation / Resolution

To enable endpoint protection monitoring and recommendations for Azure virtual machines using the Microsoft Defender for Cloud security policy, perform the following actions:

Using Azure Console

01 Sign in to the Microsoft Azure Portal.

02 Navigate to Microsoft Defender for Cloud blade at https://portal.azure.com/#blade/Microsoft_Azure_Security/SecurityMenuBlade/0.

03 In the main navigation panel, under Management, choose Environment settings.

04 Click on the name (link) of the Azure subscription that you want to access.

05 In the navigation panel, under Policy settings, choose Security policy.

06 In the Default initiative section, click on the name of the default initiative enabled for the selected subscription (i.e. ASC Default (subscription: <subscription-id>)).

07 Choose the Parameters tab and uncheck the Only show parameters that need input or review checkbox to list all the initiative parameters.

08 Select AuditIfNotExists from the Monitor missing Endpoint Protection in Azure Security Center parameter dropdown list to enable endpoint protection monitoring for all the Azure virtual machines (VMs) running in the selected subscription.

09 Select Review + save to review the configuration changes, then choose Save to apply the new changes. If the operation is successful, the following confirmation message should be displayed: "Updating policy assignment succeeded".

10 Repeat steps no. 4 – 9 for each Microsoft Azure subscription available within your Azure account.

Using Azure CLI and PowerShell

01 Define the configuration parameters for the account get-access-token command, where the endpointProtectionMonitoringEffect parameter is enabled to turn on the monitoring feature. Save the configuration document to a JSON file named enable-endpoint-protection-monitoring.json and replace the highlighted details, i.e. <azure-subscription-id> and <policy-definition-id>, with your own Azure account subscription details: 

{
  "properties":{
     "displayName":"ASC Default (subscription: <azure-subscription-id>)",
     "policyDefinitionId":"/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policySetDefinitions/<policy-definition-id>",
     "scope":"/subscriptions/<azure-subscription-id>",
     "parameters":{
        "endpointProtectionMonitoringEffect":{
           "value":"AuditIfNotExists"
        }
     }
  },
  "id":"/subscriptions/<azure-subscription-id>/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments/SecurityCenterBuiltIn",
  "type":"Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments",
  "name":"SecurityCenterBuiltIn",
  "location":"eastus"
}

02 Run account get-access-token command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using the configuration document defined at the previous step (i.e. enable-endpoint-protection-monitoring.json file), to enable endpoint protection monitoring for all the Microsoft Azure virtual machines (VMs) running within the current subscription: 

az account get-access-token
  --query "{subscription:subscription,accessToken:accessToken}"
  --out tsv | xargs -L1 bash -c 'curl -X PUT -H "Authorization: Bearer $1" -H "Content-Type: application/json" https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/$0/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments/SecurityCenterBuiltIn?api-version=2018-05-01 -d@"enable-endpoint-protection-monitoring.json"'

03 The command output should return information about the modified configuration parameter: 

{
  "sku": {
    "name": "A0",
    "tier": "Free"
  },
  "properties": {
    "displayName": "ASC Default (subscription: abcdabcd-1234-1234-1234-abcdabcdabcd)",
    "policyDefinitionId": "/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policySetDefinitions/1234abcd-1234-1234-1234-abcd1234abcd",
    "scope": "/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-1234-1234-abcdabcdabcd",
    "parameters": {
      "endpointProtectionMonitoringEffect": {
        "value": "AuditIfNotExists"
      }
    },
    "metadata": {
      "createdBy": "abcdabcd-1234-1234-1234-abcdabcdabcd",
      "createdOn": "2019-05-17T15:38:40.3473931Z",
      "updatedBy": "1234abcd-1234-1234-1234-abcd1234abcd",
      "updatedOn": "2022-02-01T21:22:40.7422203Z"
    }
  },
  "id": "/subscriptions/abcdabcd-1234-1234-1234-abcdabcdabcd/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments/SecurityCenterBuiltIn",
  "type": "Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments",
  "name": "SecurityCenterBuiltIn",
  "location": "eastus"
}

04 Repeat steps no. 1 – 3 for each Microsoft Azure subscription available in your Azure cloud account.

References

Publication date May 21, 2019

Related SecurityCenter rules