Microsoft today announced the immediate or pending general availability of three security-related services for its Azure cloud. They are Security Center, Active Directory Identity Protection and Active Directory Privileged Identity Management.
Security Center helps customers protect against, detect and respond to threats, providing a single-screen view of an attack campaign, all related alerts, and what resources were affected, Microsoft said. Since entering preview in December, it has been used by more than 100,000 Azure subscribers. It works alongside offerings from partners including Barracuda and Qualsys and includes expanded support for Linux, the company said. Security Center is generally available today.
Active Directory Identity Protection detects suspicious activities of end users and privileged identities based on signals like brute-force attacks, leaked credentials, and logins from unfamiliar locations and infected devices. Based on these suspicious activities, it calculates a user’s risk severity, and risk-based policies can be configured to protect against future threats. This service remains in preview and is set for official release later in the quarter, Microsoft said.
Active Directory Privileged Identity Management manages identifies in Azure and in online Microsoft products such as Office 365. It deals with issues including malicious or rogue administrators, administrator credentials that are leaked through phishing attacks or are cached on compromised systems, and user accounts that are granted temporary elevated privileges and become permanent. This service went into preview in May and is set for official release in August.
Though anxiety over cloud security is diminishing, it remains an issue, a recent study showed.
