Azure Sentinel: Use Cloud SIEM for Advanced Threat Detection. Azure Sentinel simplifies security operations with intelligent security analytics and scales as you grow. It modernizes your security operations center (SOC) by uncovering sophisticated threats and responding with a comprehensive SIEM solution for proactive threat detection, investigation, and response.
With Microsoft continually investing in its security stack, Sentinel continues to make waves amongst the SIEM/SOAR landscape. With companies moving towards a “native first” approach, Sentinel may be at the top of your list during that next contract renewal.
Why Choose Azure Sentinel?
Aside from meeting your “native first” strategy, Azure Sentinel is fully equipped to meet the SOCs needs.
Key Features
- Data Collection and Ingestion: it supports a wide range of data sources, including logs, telemetry, and alerts from Azure services, third-party solutions, and on-premises environments. This allows organizations to consolidate security data from diverse sources into a single platform.
Advanced Analytics and Detection: employs advanced analytics, including machine learning and AI, to detect anomalies, patterns, and potential security incidents. Create custom detection rules and queries to identify suspicious activities and threats specific to their Azure environments.
Incident Investigation and Hunting: provides tools for efficient incident investigation and threat hunting. Security analysts drill down into security incidents, explore related events, and gather info to understand the scope and impact of potential threats.
Automated Response and Orchestration: Automation is a key feature allowing organisations to respond quickly to security incidents. Automated playbooks are created to execute predefined responses or trigger actions based on specific detection outcomes. This reduces the time between detection and response.
Integration with Azure Services: integrates with other Azure services, such as Entra ID, Azure Security Center (Defender), and Azure Monitor. This enhances the overall security posture.
Threat Intelligence Integration: This allows to correlate security events with known indicators of compromise (IoCs) and provide timely alerts on emerging threats.
Customization and Extensibility: highly customizable. Security teams create custom dashboards, queries, and reports to track relevant security metrics and trends. Additionally, the platform supports the use of third-party connectors and solutions for broader coverage.
Pay-As-You-Go Model
There is no need for building heavy infrastructure, just to support your SIEM. Instead, it’s a quick deployment, and pay as you use.
Check out their free data sources of Azure Sentinels here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/sentinel/billing?tabs=simplified%2Ccommitment-tiers
Getting Started With Azure Sentinel
Find instructions how to setup an instance here:
For Pricing, see: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/details/microsoft-sentinel/
Detecting and Responding with Azure Sentinel
Azure Sentinel uses machine learning to profile users, entities, and environment for attacks that might not be caught using predefined methodologies. This empowers Tier 1 analysts to focus their efforts less on sifting through mountains of data and more on highlighting relevant incidents.
Azure Sentinel lets you create advanced analytics rules that generate incidents that you assign and investigate. An incident may include multiple alerts, and it’s an aggregation of all the relevant evidence for a specific investigation. Let Azure Sentinel know what kind of threats you’re looking for and how to find them and monitor detected threats by investigating incidents.
Sentinel also incorporates proven Azure services, like Log Analytics and Logic Apps, enriching investigation and detection with AI. It provides threat intelligence stream and enables you to bring your own threat intelligence.
For more on how to leverage Azure Sentinel for threat detection and responding, see highlighted phrase above.
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Azure Sentinel Capabilities
- Collects data at cloud scale across all users, devices, applications, and infrastructure, both on-premises and in multiple clouds.
- Detects previously uncovered threats and minimizes false positives using analytics and unparalleled threat intelligence.
- Investigates threats with artificial intelligence (AI) and hunt suspicious activities at scale, tapping into decades of cybersecurity work at Microsoft.
- Responds to incidents rapidly with built-in orchestration and automation.
How Does Azure Sentinel Perform
Azure Sentinel, a part of Microsoft security suite, designed to run alongside their Defender XDR products and it bolsters Microsofts native defence.
Gartners Magic Quadrant is a well known “gauge” of how vendors, or products perform within their field. With 2023, it was seen that Microsoft continues to be a leader in this security space.
MITRE Framework Dashboard
Azure Sentinel utilises the MITRE framework, to help its customers visualise coverage, and tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) within their domain.
The below dashboard, shows an example of how your SOC visualises their landscape, and gains insight into what alerts fit what TTP. This then allows your SOC to contextualise their risk within their estate and address accordingly.
See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sentinel/mitre-coverage
Here, Azure Sentinel becomes central log/alert repo, the framework helps to guide organisations of blind spots.
Achieve this by running attack simulations, and seeing how your alerts, map within the MITRE framework. This helps to further mature your SOC and bolster you blue teams capabilities.
Hunting For Threats
Running this SOC model won’t ensure protection. You need to establish threat hunting capabilities amongst your team. Thankfully with Sentinel, this doesn’t mean starting at square one.
Content hub allows you to pull in and add pre-defined queries, as to assist your security team. While this may seem limited via the content hub, it’s worth pointing out that the community editions are also managed on GitHub: https://github.com/Azure/Azure-Sentinel/tree/master/Hunting%20Queries
Visualising Threats
Whilst the dashboards may give you enough context, they may not suit your need. This is why Azure Sentinel allows Workbooks to help your SOC, or security team develop dashboards to visualise threats, alerts and risk.
Those familiar with Azure Monitor may already utilise or be aware of the many benefits of creating/managing Azure Workbooks.
Similar to the hunting queries, the community share pre-designed workbooks either through the content hub, or GitHub repo: https://github.com/Azure/Azure-Sentinel/tree/master/Workbooks
Automating Response
Visualising and hunting for threats is great, but you will need to respond. Whilst Azure Sentinel allows capabilities you would expect from other SIEM/SOAR solutions, you also have a blank canvas to automate response. Whilst other solutions may be limited to automation, as often it’s defined within the SIEM, Azure Sentinels automation is configured outside, using Logic Apps( flexible and customisable).
This gives your SOC the ability to respond to criteria how you see fit.
Azure Sentinel: Use Cloud SIEM for Advanced Threat Detection Conclusion
If you’ve read the information above and are still questioning whether Azure Sentinel is the right choice for you, here’s a closing statement: If you’re seeking a solution developed by a leader in the security space, one that allows full customization to meet your SOC needs without the burden of paying for or maintaining large infrastructure, then Azure Sentinel may be the right fit for you.
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