Remote-access Guide

azure remote access best practices

by Dr. Eliza Bartell Published 2 years ago Updated 1 year ago
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Best practice: Create network access controls between subnets. Routing between subnets happens automatically, and you don't need to manually configure routing tables. By default, there are no network access controls between the subnets that you create on an Azure virtual network.

Full Answer

What are the best practices for Azure virtual desktop security?

Azure Virtual Desktop security best practices Require multi-factor authentication. Requiring multi-factor authentication for all users and admins in Azure Virtual... Enable Conditional Access. Enabling Conditional Access lets you manage risks before you grant users access to your Azure... Collect ...

What are the best practices for Azure RBAC?

These best practices are derived from our experience with Azure RBAC and the experiences of customers like yourself. Only grant the access users need. Using Azure RBAC, you can segregate duties within your team and grant only the amount of access to users that they need to perform their jobs.

What are the Azure identity management and access control best practices?

Azure identity management and access control security best practices discussed in this article include: Treat identity as the primary security perimeter. Centralize identity management. Manage connected tenants. Enable single sign-on. Turn on Conditional Access. Enable password management.

How do I enable access to On-Premises networks from Azure remote employees?

Azure VPN-based solution: For your remote employees connected to Azure via P2S or S2S VPN, you can enable access to on-premises networks by configuring S2S VPN between your on-premises networks and Azure VPN gateway. For more information, see Create a Site-to-Site connection.

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How secure is Azure VM RDP?

Lock down RDP to a source IP or IP Range When enabled it is therefore a security risk. You can mitigate this by restricting RDP access to a specified source IP address or range with Azure NSG's (Network Security Groups). Every Virtual Machine will have its own NSG when deployed through Azure.

How do I make my Azure VM secure?

In this articleProtect VMs by using authentication and access control.Use multiple VMs for better availability.Protect against malware.Manage your VM updates.Manage your VM security posture.Monitor VM performance.Encrypt your virtual hard disk files.Restrict direct internet connectivity.More items...•

Do Azure VMs need antivirus?

Use antivirus or antimalware. In Azure, you can use antimalware software from security vendors such as Microsoft, Symantec, Trend Micro, and Kaspersky. This software helps protect your VMs from malicious files, adware, and other threats. You can deploy Microsoft Antimalware based on your application workloads.

How do I make an Azure VM accessible from outside?

Azure Bastion host. Arguably, the preferred way to access Azure VM from outside is the Azure Bastion host PaaS service. ... Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection. VPN connections have been around for decades now. ... Public IP Address. The final option, which isn't recommended is using public IP addresses.

Can Azure VM access Internet without public IP?

you don't need a Public IP Address to have internet on your VM. Public IP is for inbound traffic only, not outbound. Outbound traffic is NATed to your VM. If you want to block internet outbound access, you have to change the NSG.

How do I access Azure VM without public IP?

To answer your question, Yes we can enable JIT access to the Private VM's as well who doesn't have the public ip associated to it . Navigate to configuration tab and from menu and enable the JIT on the VM. Please don't forget to "Accept the answer " or "Up-Vote" if this was helpful .

What is Azure bastion?

Azure Bastion is a fully managed service that provides more secure and seamless Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) access to virtual machines (VMs) without any exposure through public IP addresses.

What is Endpoint Protection in Azure?

Microsoft Endpoint Protection for Azure helps protect your virtual machine from malicious software (malware) such as viruses, spyware, and other potentially harmful software. It offers three ways to help protect your virtual machine from malware and other potentially unwanted software: Real-time protection.

What is Azure Sentinel?

Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native security information and event manager (SIEM) platform that uses built-in AI to help analyse large volumes of data across an enterprise—fast.

What is IP whitelisting in Azure?

IP whitelisting provides access to Azure Web Apps and SQL server resources for the computers that access the service from specific IP addresses. At the same time, it blocks access for computers attempting unauthorized access from all unspecified IP addresses.

How do I access Azure VM remotely?

Connect to the virtual machineGo to the Azure portal to connect to a VM. ... Select the virtual machine from the list.At the beginning of the virtual machine page, select Connect.On the Connect to virtual machine page, select RDP, and then select the appropriate IP address and Port number.More items...•

How do I expose my Azure VM to the Internet?

Deploy Virtual WANSign in to the Azure portal and then search for and select Azure VMware Solution.Select the Azure VMware Solution private cloud.Under Manage, select Connectivity.Select the Public IP tab and then select Configure.Accept the default values or change them, and then select Create.

How do you secure a virtual machine?

General Virtual Machine Protection.Use Templates to Deploy Virtual Machines.Minimize Use of the Virtual Machine Console.Prevent Virtual Machines from Taking Over Resources.Disable Unnecessary Functions Inside Virtual Machines. Remove Unnecessary Hardware Devices. Remove Unnecessary Hardware Devices.

How do I enable https on Azure VM?

To enable HTTPS on a custom domain, follow these steps:Go to the Azure portal to find a certificate managed by your Azure CDN. ... Choose your profile: ... In the list of CDN endpoints, select the endpoint containing your custom domain. ... In the list of custom domains, select the custom domain for which you want to enable HTTPS.More items...•

What is the basic way of protecting an Azure virtual network subnet?

By default, there are no network access controls between the subnets that you create on an Azure virtual network. Detail: Use a network security group to protect against unsolicited traffic into Azure subnets.

Is Azure defender an antivirus?

Yes, Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a multicloud security solution. It provides native CSPM capabilities for Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud environments and supports threat protection across these.

Why use Azure networking features?

Using the Azure networking features described below leverages the traffic attraction behavior of the Microsoft global network to provide a better customer networking experience. The traffic attraction behavior of the Microsoft network helps off loading traffic as soon as possible from the first/last mile networks that may experience congestion during periods of peak utilization.

Why is Azure important?

Azure is designed to withstand sudden changes in the utilization of the resources and can greatly help during periods of peak utilization. Also, Microsoft maintains and operates one of the worlds' largest networks.

What is Azure Virtual WAN?

Azure Virtual WAN: Azure Virtual WAN allows seamless interoperability between your VPN connections and ExpressRoute circuits. As mentioned earlier, Azure Virtual WAN also support any-to-any connections between resources in different on-prem global locations, in different regional hub and spoke virtual networks

What is Azure peering?

Azure virtual network peering: If you deploy your resources in more than one Azure regions and/or if you aggregate the connectivity of remotely working employees using multiple virtual networks, you can establish connectivity between the multiple Azure virtual networks using virtual network peering. For more information, see Virtual network peering.

What is Azure VPN gateway?

Azure VPN gateway supports both Point-to-Site (P2S) and Site-to-Site (S2S) VPN connections. Using the Azure VPN gateway you can scale your employee's connections to securely access both your Azure deployed resources and your on-premises resources. For more information, see How to enable users to work remotely.

How to support remote workforce?

Another way to support a remote workforce is to deploy a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) hosted in your Azure virtual network, secured with an Azure Firewall. For example, Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) is a desktop and app virtualization service that runs in Azure. With Azure Virtual Desktop, you can set up a scalable and flexible environment in your Azure subscription without the need to run any additional gateway servers. You are only responsible for the AVD virtual machines in your virtual network. For more information, see Azure Firewall remote work support.

How many concurrent connections are there in SSTP?

If you are using Secure Sockets Tunneling Protocol (SSTP), the number of concurrent connections is limited to 128. To get a higher number of connections, we suggest transitioning to OpenVPN or IKEv2. For more information, see Transition to OpenVPN protocol or IKEv2 from SSTP.

What is Azure RBAC?

Using Azure RBAC, you can segregate duties within your team and grant only the amount of access to users that they need to perform their jobs. Instead of giving everybody unrestricted permissions in your Azure subscription or resources, you can allow only certain actions at a particular scope.

How to make roles more manageable?

To make role assignments more manageable, avoid assigning roles directly to users. Instead, assign roles to groups. Assigning roles to groups instead of users also helps minimize the number of role assignments, which has a limit of 2,000 role assignments per subscription.

How does PIM protect privileged accounts?

PIM helps protect privileged accounts by providing just-in-time privileged access to Azure AD and Azure resources. Access can be time bound after which privileges are revoked automatically.

Can you give everyone access to Azure?

Instead of giving everybody unrestricted permissions in your Azure subscription or resources, you can allow only certain actions at a particular scope. When planning your access control strategy, it's a best practice to grant users the least privilege to get their work done.

How to restrict access to Azure infrastructure?

You can restrict access to infrastructure and platform services management in Azure by using multi-factor authentication, X.509 management certificates, and firewall rules. The Azure portal and SMAPI require Transport Layer Security (TLS). However, services and applications that you deploy into Azure require you to take protection measures that are appropriate based on your application. These mechanisms can frequently be enabled more easily through a standardized hardened workstation configuration.

Why provision Azure management certificate on RD gateway?

Provision an Azure management certificate on the RD Gateway so that it is the only host allowed to access the Azure portal.

How does Azure work?

Azure subscribers may manage their cloud environments from multiple devices, including management workstations, developer PCs, and even privileged end-user devices that have task-specific permissions. In some cases, administrative functions are performed through web-based consoles such as the Azure portal. In other cases, there may be direct connections to Azure from on-premises systems over Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), Terminal Services, client application protocols, or (programmatically) the Azure Service Management API (SMAPI). Additionally, client endpoints can be either domain joined or isolated and unmanaged, such as tablets or smartphones.

What is Azure cloud service?

Azure cloud services configuration is performed through either the Azure portal or SMAPI, via the Windows PowerShell command-line interface or a custom-built application that takes advantage of these RESTful interfaces. Services using these mechanisms include Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), Azure Storage, Azure Websites, and Azure Virtual Network, and others.

What is RD gateway?

To centralize all administrative access and simplify monitoring and logging, you can deploy a dedicated Remote Desktop Gateway (RD Gateway) server in your on-premises network, connected to your Azure environment.

Can you use Azure logon restrictions?

You can use Azure logon restrictions to constrain source IP addresses for accessing administrative tools and audit access requests. To help Azure identify management clients (workstations and/or applications), you can configure both SMAPI (via customer-developed tools such as Windows PowerShell cmdlets) and the Azure portal to require client-side management certificates to be installed, in addition to TLS/SSL certificates. We also recommend that administrator access require multi-factor authentication.

Does Azure have authentication?

Some applications or services that you deploy into Azure may have their own authentication mechanisms for both end-user and administrator access, whereas others take full advantage of Azure AD. Depending on whether you are federating credentials via Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS), using directory synchronization or maintaining user accounts solely in the cloud, using Microsoft Identity Manager (part of Azure AD Premium) helps you manage identity lifecycles between the resources.

How to access Azure virtual machines?

It's possible to reach Azure virtual machines by using Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. These protocols enable the management VMs from remote locations and are standard in datacenter computing.

How to find Azure virtual network security appliances?

To find available Azure virtual network security appliances, go to the Azure Marketplace and search for "security" and "network security."

What is Azure Private Link?

Use Azure Private Link to access Azure PaaS Services (for example, Azure Storage and SQL Database) over a private endpoint in your virtual network. Private Endpoints allow you to secure your critical Azure service resources to only your virtual networks. Traffic from your virtual network to the Azure service always remains on the Microsoft Azure backbone network. Exposing your virtual network to the public internet is no longer necessary to consume Azure PaaS Services.

What is Azure native control?

Azure native controls. Azure Firewall and the web application firewall in Application Gateway offer basic security with a fully stateful firewall as a service, built-in high availability, unrestricted cloud scalability, FQDN filtering, support for OWASP core rule sets, and simple setup and configuration.

Can you disable RDP and SSH?

We recommend that you disable direct RDP and SSH access to your Azure virtual machines from the internet. After direct RDP and SSH access from the internet is disabled, you have other options that you can use to access these VMs for remote management.

When to configure user defined routes?

We recommend that you configure user-defined routes when you deploy a security appliance for a virtual network. We talk about this in a later section titled secure your critical Azure service resources to only your virtual networks.

Can Azure access be on-premises?

Access from On-premises and peered networks: Access services running in Azure from on-premises over ExpressRoute private peering, VPN tunnels, and peered virtual networks using private endpoints. There's no need to configure ExpressRoute Microsoft peering or traverse the internet to reach the service. Private Link provides a secure way to migrate workloads to Azure.

What is the best practice for managing access control?

When planning your access control strategy, it's a best practice to manage to least privilege. Least privilege means you grant your administrators exactly the permission they need to do their job. There are three aspects to consider when you assign a role to your administrators: a specific set of permissions, over a specific scope, for a specific period of time. Avoid assigning broader roles at broader scopes even if it initially seems more convenient to do so. By limiting roles and scopes, you limit what resources are at risk if the security principal is ever compromised. Azure AD RBAC supports over 65 built-in roles. There are Azure AD roles to manage directory objects like users, groups, and applications, and also to manage Microsoft 365 services like Exchange, SharePoint, and Intune. To better understand Azure AD built-in roles, see Understand roles in Azure Active Directory. If there isn't a built-in role that meets your need, you can create your own custom roles.

How to enable MFA in Azure AD?

You can enable MFA on Azure AD roles using two methods: 1 Role settings in Privileged Identity Management 2 Conditional Access

What are the three aspects to consider when assigning a role to your administrator?

There are three aspects to consider when you assign a role to your administrators: a specific set of permissions, over a specific scope, for a specific period of time. Avoid assigning broader roles at broader scopes even if it initially seems more convenient to do so.

Can you assign roles to Azure AD groups?

If you have an external governance system that takes advantage of groups, then you should consider assigning roles to Azure AD groups, instead of individual users. You can also manage role-assignable groups in PIM to ensure that there are no standing owners or members in these privileged groups. For more information, see Management capabilities for privileged access Azure AD groups.

What is Azure Virtual Desktop?

Azure Virtual Desktop is a service under Azure. To maximize the safety of your Az ure Virtual Desktop deployment, you should make sure to secure the surrounding Azure infrastructure and management plane as well. To secure your infrastructure, consider how Azure Virtual Desktop fits into your larger Azure ecosystem. To learn more about the Azure ecosystem, see Azure security best practices and patterns.

How to prevent unwanted system access?

You can prevent unwanted system access by configuring Azure Virtual Desktop to lock a machine's screen during idle time and requiring authentication to unlock it.

Why do I need multifactor authentication?

Requiring multi-factor authentication for all users and admins in Azure Virtual Desktop improves the security of your entire deployment. To learn more, see Enable Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication for Azure Virtual Desktop.

What is session host?

Session hosts are virtual machines that run inside an Azure subscription and virtual network. Your Azure Virtual Desktop deployment's overall security depends on the security controls you put on your session hosts. This section describes best practices for keeping your session hosts secure.

What is VBS in security?

Virtualization-based Security (VBS) uses the hypervisor to create and isolate a secure region of memory that's inaccessible to the OS. Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity (HVCI) and Windows Defender Credential Guard both use VBS to provide increased protection from vulnerabilities.

What is trusted launch?

Trusted launch are Gen2 Azure VMs with enhanced security features aimed to protect against “bottom of the stack” threats through attack vectors such as rootkits, boot kits, and kernel-level malware. The following are the enhanced security features of trusted launch, all of which are supported in Azure Virtual Desktop. To learn more about trusted launch, visit Trusted launch for Azure virtual machines (preview).

Is Azure Virtual Desktop secure?

When you use Azure Virtual Desktop, it’s important to understand that while some components come already secured for your environment, you'll need to configure other areas yourself to fit your organization’s security needs.

What is Azure Secure Score?

Secure Score within Azure Security Center is a numeric view of your security posture. If it is at 100 percent, you are following best practices. Otherwise, work on the highest priority items to improve the current security posture. Many of the recommendations below are included in Azure Secure Score.

What does Azure Defender do?

Azure Defender (formerly Azure Security Center Standard) will alert you if your VM is under a brute force attack.

What are some examples of vulnerabilities?

A good example is the recent vulnerabilities affecting the Remote Desktop Protocol called “ BlueKeep .”.

What is RDP port?

The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a remote access solution that is very popular with Windows administrators. Because of its popularity, it’s a very attractive target for threat actors. Do not be fooled into thinking that changing the default port for RDP serves any real purpose.

How to learn more about Microsoft security?

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

What are the areas of shared responsibility?

The areas of the shared responsibility model we will touch on in this blog are as follows: 1 Tools 2 Identity and directory infrastructure 3 Applications 4 Network Controls 5 Operating System

Is Azure Backup Service good?

Azure Backup Service. In addition to turning on security , it’s always a good idea to have a backup. Mistakes happen and unless you tell Azure to backup your virtual machine there isn’t an automatic backup. Fortunately, it’s just a few clicks to turn on.

What is the first thing that’s required to ensure smooth remote access via a VPN?

The first thing that’s required to ensure smooth remote access via a VPN is to plan out a comprehensive network security policy.

What is remote access VPN?

The most basic form of VPN remote access is through a RAS. This type of VPN connection is also referred to as a Virtual Private Dial-up Network (VPDN) due to its early adoption on dial-up internet.

Why use two factor authentication for VPN?

Adopting two-factor authentication for remote access through VPN further boosts your network security. Now let’s take a look at why you should choose a particular VPN type as a secure connection methodology instead of the alternatives.

What is client-side software?

The client-side software is responsible for establishing a tunneling connection to the RAS and for the encryption of data.

What is the line of defense for remote access?

So, you have a three-layer line of defense working to protect remote access to your network: anti-virus, firewall, and VPN. The network security team should monitor alerts from these defenses constantly.

Why do devices have administrator rights?

To ensure that no unauthorized software is able to install itself, or by a user, and cause a virus, worm, Trojan or malware infection on a device, each device must deny administrator rights to the user of that particular device or all the employees in general. This ensures protection against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Where is the Secure Sockets Layer?

A Secure Sockets layer connection operates at the Transport Layer or Application Layer of the OSI Model of protocols. SSL VPN gateways are deployed behind the perimeter firewall, with rules which grant or deny access to specific applications.

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