Category Archives: Azure Security

Allgemein, Azure, Azure Arc, Azure Automanage, Azure Network, Azure Security, Azure VM, Cloud, Microsoft

My favorite Microsoft Ignite 2022 Fall Highlights

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After the pandemic beguns Microsoft switched the both big conference Microsoft Build and Microsoft Ignite to virtual only events. The Ignite was two times a year in 2020 and 2021. For 2022 it was long time not clear will it go back to an in-person event or still stay as a virtual event.

The Microsoft Ignite 2022 has start 2 hours ago as an hybrid event delivered from Seattle with 6 Spotlight events around the globe and delivered as before virtually. I’m a little disappointed because a lot of the content is pre-recorded and even great speakers like Donovan Brown don’t hold their sessions live in Seattle but are only shown there virtually as well.

In this article I will share the important announcements from my perspective from the Microsoft Ignite 2022. Most of you know me as an Azure Governance, (Hybrid) Infrastructure and Security guy, so please forgive me for focusing on these things.

Continue reading My favorite Microsoft Ignite 2022 Fall Highlights →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Security, Cloud, Microsoft

Azure Firewall Basic is available as Public preview

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Microsoft announces with the Azure Firewall Standard and Premium two new Firewall Services available as PaaS solution what are a great benefit to classic Firewall deployments, because of native Autoscaling Features, no need for VM Management and more. Unfortunately the price was to high for SMBs, with 900€ for the Standard and over 1200€ for the Premium Edition. A frequently requested Features, was a cheaper variant aimed at small and medium businesses.

This wish has been answered and is now available in the form of the Azure Firewall Basic edition. The Azure Firewall Basic (AzFw Basic) is available as public preview and the planned subscription must first be prepared before the deployment can begin with some Powershell commands. This article will guide you through the setup process for a Hub and Spoke Network and the main difference between the three Azure Firewall editions.

Azure Firewall edition comparison

Microsoft already introduced the Azure Firewall as Standard Edition in 2018 and expanded it with numerous updates in 2019. The Firewall Manager followed at the end of 2019 to manage various Azure firewalls under one roof. Mid of 2021 Microsoft announced the Azure Firewall Premium edition and extend the capabilities compared to the standard edition by the following features: TLS Inspetion, IDPS, Web categories and URL Filerting.

The acceptance of the firewall has been high so far due to the numerous features and the fact that the firewall is provided as a PaaS solution. As an SMB solution, the prices called are too high and that is where the Basic Edition is now trying to attract attention.

The following table list the difference between the edition. Please note the Maximum throughput between the different edition. Azure Basic Firewall is limited at time of article of 2 VMs under the hood and a maximum troughput of 250 (maybe increase to GA).

Continue reading Azure Firewall Basic is available as Public preview →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Active Directory, Azure Security, Cloud, Microsoft

Microsoft will disable Legacy Authentication 1st of October 2022 – What this means and what you have to do

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Many of my customers move to the cloud in the last recent years. This means for existing environments a start of a journey away from on-prem system going forward to cloud environments. We all know a journey starts with preperation and needs different steps and is always not a good idea to work on all systems together. But on the other hand, same system still exists in there old way and use sometimes old, unsecure protocols for communication and authentication.

To adress this issues Microsoft announce Septemper 2019 in a blog article “Improving security” the disabling of support for Basic authentication for the protocols like EWS, POP, IMAP and Remote Powershell. After the plan the corona crisis came up and Microsote decided to postpone the disabling of the noted protocols.

In September 2021 Microsoft released new information about this in the article “Basic authentication and Exchange Online” including some updated information. Microsoft will disable basic authentication beginning 1st of October 2022 for all protocols except SMTP auth. This means the following protocols will be disabled:

  • Exchange Web Services (EWS)
  • Exchange ActiveSync (EAS)
  • POP
  • IMAP,
  • Remote PowerShell
  • MAPI
  • RPC
  • OAB
Continue reading Microsoft will disable Legacy Authentication 1st of October 2022 – What this means and what you have to do →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Active Directory, Azure Arc, Azure Governance, Azure Security, Azure Sentinel, Azure Virtual Desktop, Cloud, Community, Events, Microsoft

Speaking at Experts Live Netherlands 2022

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The full event month of September is slowly coming to an end and what better way to end it than with a great Azure conference? I´m really happy to announce that I will speak at the Experts Live Netherlands. The Experts Live Netherlands is one of the biggest Experts Live conferences next to Experts Live Europe and celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.

Continue reading Speaking at Experts Live Netherlands 2022 →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Active Directory, Azure Security, Cloud, Community, Events, Microsoft

Cloud Identity Summit 2022 Recap

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After 8 Months of planning the Cloud Identity Summit 2022 is over and I can say it was really a pleasure to help to organize this great Community event from my perspective. Four years ago Thomas Naunheim come up with the Idea to create a event focus on Identity for the Community. We discuss this in our Azure Bonn Orga Team and finally the Cloud Identity Summit was born. At the end of 2019 we plan the first edition for 2020 as a in-person event, but things changed and we changed the format to an virtual event and this also for 2021.

Back in february we start planning for the 3rd edition 2022 and we decided to go back to our original idea to hold it as a in-person event, but with the experience of two virtual events we move it to an hybrid event. Yesterday was our 1st Cloud Identity Summit 2022 as hybrid edition and I can say, I was really exited about it. Why?

CIS 2022 – Conference view
Continue reading Cloud Identity Summit 2022 Recap →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Network, Azure Security, Azure Sentinel, Certifications, Cloud, Microsoft

How I passed the Microsoft Cybersecurity Architect exam SC-100 and why I am now a Microsoft Cybersecurity Architect Expert

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Three months ago on 7th of April Microsoft announce a new exam for security architects and introduce again the existing exams SC-200, SC-300, AZ-500 and MS-500. The article contains the new announcement of the new exam SC-100 to become Microsoft Cybersecurity Architect.

I took the Microsoft Cybersecurity Beta exam #SC100 and got yesterday the confirmation that I passed the exam. This is great news for me as it confirms that I am gaining a better and better knowledge in Azure Security topics.

In this article I will introduce the exam, how to get the Microsoft Cybersecurity Architect Expert award and which materials I used to prepare for the exam.

Continue reading How I passed the Microsoft Cybersecurity Architect exam SC-100 and why I am now a Microsoft Cybersecurity Architect Expert →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Arc, Azure Governance, Azure Security, Cloud, Community, Events, Microsoft

Speaking at Scottish Summit 2021 about Azure Policy and Azure Security Center

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I am pleased to have received an invitation to speak at the upcoming Scottish Summit 2021. The Scottish Summit was estabhlished in 2020. This year the conference is becoming an online-only conference and will be streamed on all social media channels. The conference itself is growing into a really big conference with many parallel tracks with different language. The main conference starts on Saturday 27/02/21 and there will be many sessions on Microsoft Cloud services (like Azure, M365 and so on).

Azure Governance is an important topic for any customer using cloud resources. In my session, I will show the power of Azure Policy and Azure Security Center to define guardrails for your Azure environment and bring it into a compliant and secure state. I will go live with my session at Saturday 27/02/21 starting 1PM. If you are interested in how Azure Policy and Azure Security Center work together and how these services are handled, please feel free to join my session and ask questions.

There are quite a few Microsoft Cloud sessions planned for the Conference. Go to the website, plan your agenda and grab your ticket. There’s also an App available for iOS and Android. I hope to see you there.

Allgemein, Azure, Azure Automanage, Azure Backup, Azure Bastion, Azure Governance, Azure Monitor, Azure Network, Azure Security, Azure VM, Cloud, Community, Microsoft, Windows Server

Azure VM Best Practices

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Last year Gregor Suttie and Richard Hooper launched the Azure Advent Calendar and I got to support with a session on Azure Bastion. This year they improved on the idea with the Festive Tech Calendar. I’m happy to be back with an article on Azure VM best practices. I hope you find the article helpful and I would appreciate feedback.

Over the past few months, I have conducted many customer workshops, designed and implemented Landing Zones, and migrated or placed VMs into Azure. One of the most common customer questions has been about best practices for Azure VMs to maximize performance and efficiency, minimize costs, increase security, and reduce management overhead. This article is based on my real-world experience and recommendations based on several Azure projects.

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Allgemein, Azure, Azure Active Directory, Azure Governance, Azure Security, Cloud, Community, Meetup, Microsoft

Speaking with Thomas Naunheim at GermanyClouds Meetup about Azure Governance Best Practices

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In the past Thomas Naunheim and I do a lot of architecture and designing prinicple for integrating Azure in company environments. We have the idea to create a Azure Governance Best Practices session in the last couple of months to give the community our insights and best practices for Starting/Integrating Azure environments. The goal is to give you insights, where you can find the best documentations to start with a Cloud journey and which technical Azure features help to bring and hold your environment in an compliant and secure state.

The session contains the following topics:

  • Cloud Adoption Framework
  • Well-architecture Framework
  • Insights about Azure Policies and Azure Security Center
  • Azure Enterprise Scale architecture
  • Azure Ops
  • Identity and Access Management

We are exited to hold the session at the GermanyClouds Meetup on november 26. Did you interested in this topics or you are in the beginning or implementig phase, join us. We will happy to see you there and get your questions.

The session will not been recorded.

Allgemein, Azure, Azure Bastion, Azure Network, Azure Security, Cloud, Microsoft

Azure Bastion now supports VNET Peering

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Update 2 on 01/12/2021

Microsoft has changed the #AzureBastion minimum subnet size from /27 to /26. Installed #Azure Bastion are unaffected, but new deployments require the new subnet size. Please remember this. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/bastion/bastion-faq#subnet

Update – 12/2020

Azure Bastion is now available in West Germany Central.

Azure Bastion is a service to avoid deployment own Jumphosts and reach Azure VMs over the Management Ports (SSH and RDP) in a secure way without the need to assign Public IPs directly to Azure VMs.

Azure Bastion got a really big improvement and now supports Azure VNET Peering. This includes all VNET peering models, inside a single subscription and VNET peering across different subscriptions.

Continue reading Azure Bastion now supports VNET Peering →