How to strengthen security with Microsoft Defender For Cloud

Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is capable of detecting a variety of threats in your cloud applications. Some of the types of threats it can identify include.

Malware and viruses: Detects malicious files or programs that try to spread or damage your applications and data. Phishing and phishing: Identifies attempts to trick users into revealing sensitive information, such as passwords or personal data. Unauthorized access: Detects unusual login activity or unauthorized access attempts to your applications. Anomalous behavior: Monitors user and application behavior to detect unusual patterns or suspicious activity. Data Leaks: Identify unauthorized transfer of sensitive data outside of your applications. Brute force attacks: Detects repeated and automatic attempts to guess passwords or login credentials. Known Vulnerabilities: Scans your applications for known vulnerabilities and alerts you so you can apply patches or mitigations. Malicious administration activities: Monitors administrator actions and detects unexpected changes in configuration or permissions. Risky activities: Identifies activities that could pose a security risk, such as mass file downloading or accessing sensitive data.

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How to activate and configure it

To activate Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, you must meet the following prerequisites: Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps must be present in your account as a standalone product or as part of a license package. You must have one of the appropriate roles to activate application governance and access it. Roles include:

Company Administrator

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Security administrator

Global Administrator

The basic steps to set it up:

Log in to the Microsoft 365 security portal:

Sign in to the Microsoft 365 security portal with the appropriate credentials.

Sign in to the Microsoft 365 security portal with the appropriate credentials.

Navigate to the Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps configuration:

Sign in to the Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps configuration.

• In the left pane, select "Settings" or "Security."
• Select "Settings" or "Security."
• Settings.
• Look for "Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps" or "Cloud Apps Protection."
• Search for "Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps" or "Cloud Application Protection".

Set security policies:

Define the security policies you want to apply to your cloud applications. This includes configuring access rules, permissions and threat detection. Consider the following options:

• Access policies: Control who can access the applications and what actions are allowed.
• Permissions policies: Defines the permissions users have on applications.
• Threat detection: Sets automatic alerts and actions in case of suspicious activities.
  
  

Integrates with other security solutions:

• Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps integrates with other Microsoft security tools, such as Microsoft Defender ATP and Azure Sentinel. Be sure to configure these integrations for more complete protection.
  

  Monitors and adjusts settings:

  • Regularly reviews the logs and alerts generated by Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.
  • Adjust policies as needed to adapt to the changing needs of your organization.

Train your users:

• Provide training and awareness of cloud security best practices.
• Informs users about policies and actions to be taken in the event threats are detected.

The Cloud Discovery dashboard is designed to provide more insight into how cloud applications are used in the organization. It provides an at-a-glance overview of the types of applications being used, open alerts and risk levels of the organization's applications. It also shows who the users are that use the applications the most and provides a location map of the application headquarters. The Cloud Discovery dashboard has many options for filtering data. With filtering, you can generate specific views based on what you are most interested in and easy-to-understand graphs to give you an overview at a glance.

Review Cloud Discovery dashboard

The first thing you should do to get an overview of your Cloud Discovery applications is to go to the Cloud Discovery dashboard and review this information:

• First, look at the organization's overall cloud application usage in the High-level usage overview.
• Then, drill down one level to see which categories are most commonly used in the organization for each of the different usage metrics. You can see what portion of this usage corresponds to authorized applications.
• Drill down even further and see all the applications in a specific category on the Detected Applications tab.
• You can view the top users and source IP addresses to identify the organization's predominant cloud application users.
• Check how the detected applications are spread based on geographic location (according to their headquarters) on the application headquarters map.
• Finally, don't forget to check the detected application risk score in the application risk introduction. Check the detection alerts status to see how many open alerts to investigate.