Apply #security principles to your #architecture to protect against attacks on your data and systems

Hope you started year 2022 in Good Health in a difficult pandemic time.

Starting 2022 by asking yourself, how is your Security by Design doing in 2022
Your Security is one of the most important aspects of any architecture for your Business.
It provides confidentiality, integrity, and availability assurances against attacks and abuse of your valuable data and systems. Losing these assurances can negatively impact your business operations and revenue, and your organization’s reputation.

Here you find Awesome information about Applying security principles to your architecture to protect against attacks on your data and systems:

Microsoft Architecture and Security Docs

Here you find more information about NIST Cybersecurity Framework

The Microsoft Cybersecurity Reference Architectures (MCRA) describe Microsoft’s cybersecurity capabilities. These References and diagrams can support you with implementing Security by design.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Microsoft Defender for Cloud (formerly known as Azure Security Center) community repository. This repository contains:

• Security recommendations that are in private preview
• Programmatic remediation tools for security recommendations
• PowerShell scripts for programmatic management
• Azure Policy custom definitions for at-scale management of Microsoft Defender for Cloud
• Logic App templates that work with Defender for Cloud’s Logic App connectors (to automate response to Security alerts and recommendations)
• Logic App templates that help you run regular tasks or reports within the scope of Microsoft Defender for Cloud
• Custom workbooks to visualize Defender for Cloud data

Become a Microsoft Defender for Cloud Ninja

Security and Learning is a ongoing process, I always say Learning on the Job 😉 is important to keep Up-to-Date every day of the week. Microsoft Tech Community platform and Microsoft Learning can support you to get the knowledge.

Become a Microsoft Defender for Cloud Ninja here

Conclusion

Microsoft and the community has a lot of good security information to start with for your Data and Systems to keep your business solution as save as possible. Here they write New blogposts for the community about Defender for Cloud

Keep in Mind “Security is only as strong as the weakest component in the Chain”

So keep your Security up-to-date and do assessments on vulnerabilities to keep your data and systems secure. Monitoring => Alerting => Remediation is 24/7/365 Process with Security people in the business.

#Microsoft Defender for Cloud videos with @yuridiogenes #Security

Here you will find all the Microsoft Defender for Cloud videos with Yuri

Here you find all the Azure Security Center in the Field Videos with Yuri

You can follow Yuri Diogenes also on Twitter

 

Windows Admin Center 21.10 Packet Monitoring Preview Extension #WAC #Winserv

Windows Admin Center Packet Monitoring

Packet monitoring allows you to diagnose your server by capturing and displaying network traffic through the networking stack in a log that is filtered, organized, and easy to follow and manipulate.​

Download Windows Admin Center Here

Filter the Captured packets by PacketMon.

Before you start the capture you can set the filter, with great options and see differences between two IP-Addresses for example.

Capture is running.

You can explore every packet in details for trouble shooting.

You can save your Captures for later.

Conclusion

A great tool for trouble shooting in Windows Admin Center 21.10 with Packet Monitoring (preview) to get the bits and bytes in detail.

Windows Admin Center 21.10 Build 1.3.2111.01001 Secured-Core #Security #WindowsAdminCenter

Windows Admin Center Security

Secured-core – recommended for the most sensitive systems and industries like financial, healthcare, and government agencies. Builds on the previous layers and leverages advanced processor capabilities to provide protection from firmware attacks.

In Windows Admin Center Security you can Configure Secured-Core :

Secured-Core in Windows Admin Center 21.10

You can activate 6 secured-Core feature :

• Hypervisor Enforced Code Integrity (HVCI)
• Boot DMA Protection
• System Guard
• Secure Boot
• Virtualization-based Security (VBS)
• Trusted Platform Module 2.0 (TPM2.0)

You now can simply activate the Security Feature.
Needs a Reboot

Hypervisor Enforced Code Integrity (HVCI) is enabled.

More information about Secured-Core Features

Windows Admin Center Community on LinkedIn

What’s New in Windows Server 2022 Security! #Winserv #Security #WindowsServer2022 #SecOps

Microsoft Security Compliance Toolkit 1.0

The Microsoft Security Configuration Toolkit enables enterprise security administrators to effectively manage their enterprise’s Group Policy Objects (GPOs).  Using the toolkit, administrators can compare their current GPOs with Microsoft-recommended GPO baselines or other baselines, edit them, store them in GPO backup file format, and apply them via a domain controller or inject them directly into testbed hosts to test their effects. For more information, see Windows Security Baselines.

 

Baseline security policies for Windows Server 2022.

But what’s new in Microsoft Windows Server 2022?

Here we have some new Windows Server 2022 security features :

• Secured-core server

• Hardware root-of-trust

• Firmware protection

• Virtualization-based security (VBS)

• Secure connectivity

  • Transport: HTTPS and TLS 1.3 enabled by default on Windows Server 2022

  • Secure DNS: Encrypted DNS name resolution requests with DNS-over-HTTPS

  • Server Message Block (SMB): SMB AES-256 encryption for the most security conscious

  • SMB: East-West SMB encryption controls for internal cluster communications

  • SMB over QUIC

• Azure Arc enabled Windows Servers

• Windows Admin Center

• Azure Automanage – Hotpatch

You can read more information on these topics on Microsoft Docs

Windows Server 2022 security features

In the following steps you will see some of the security features of Microsoft Windows Server 2022.

When your Windows Server 2022 is running on a Hypervisor like Hyper-V, you can set Memory integrity under Windows Security to ON.
This prevents attacks from inserting malicious code into high security processes. When you set this security feature on, the Server needs a reboot to activate.
Memory Integrity needs a reboot.

Windows Security Notifications.

By default Virus & Threat protection notification is active, when you want notifications about Microsoft defender firewall blocking a new application, you have to turn this feature on and select the firewalls.

In Windows security we have also ransomware protection. 
Protect your files against threats like ransomware, and see how to restore files in case of an attack.
You can do this by Controlled folder access.
Protect files, folders and memory on your Server from unauthorized changes by software.

Protected folders.

New in Windows Server 2022 is Tamper protection in Windows Security.
This Prevents others from tampering with important security features.

 

This was all Microsoft Windows Server 2022 security in the VM, but how about your Windows Server 2022 Hyper-V Hypervisors?

Hypervisor-protected Code Integrity (HVCI) is a virtualization based security (VBS) feature available in Windows. In the Windows Device Security settings, HVCI is referred to as Memory Integrity.

HVCI and VBS improve the threat model of Windows and provide stronger protections against malware trying to exploit the Windows Kernel. VBS leverages the Windows Hypervisor to create an isolated virtual environment that becomes the root of trust of the OS that assumes the kernel can be compromised. HVCI is a critical component that protects and hardens this virtual environment by running kernel mode code integrity within it and restricting kernel memory allocations that could be used to compromise the system.

See Virtualization Based Security System Resource Protections for more details on these protections.

 

Here you find a great video with a session of Jeff Woolsey Principal Program Manager at Microsoft. It’s all about What’s new in Windows Server 2022.

Conclusion

Start with Microsoft Windows Server 2022 today and make your test environment to play with Windows Server 2022 and Security.
Make your core business application solution more secure then ever, and let a ethical hacker do pen tests on your solution.
When you have security by default in your architectural designs, and test your Windows Server 2022 for production workloads it makes a big different to keep your environment and solution safe. And when you monitor your Windows Server 2022 solution pro-active with Azure Monitor, Azure Security Center, Azure Defender like this with Azure Arc enabled Servers

This keeps you in Control on Security by design for your business.

JOIN Microsoft Ignite 2021 Event November 2-4 #MSIgnite #Azure #Winserv #Windows11 #Hybrid

Microsoft Ignite 2021

Join Microsoft and the Community November 2–4, 2021 to explore the latest tools, training sessions, technical expertise, networking opportunities, and more. You can register here

Here you find some great MSIgnite guidance on Microsoft Tech Community :

Check out what’s new in Security at Microsoft Ignite

Surface at Microsoft Ignite: November 2021

Your Guide to Microsoft Teams at Microsoft Ignite Fall 2021

Windows at Microsoft Ignite: November 2021

A developer’s guide to Ignite 2021

Bring Azure Kubernetes Services to a Hybrid Environment (The Blueprint Files)

Follow @MS_Ignite on Twitter

Of course you can make your own schedule from the session catalog here

Don’t forget your Registration and have a Great innovative Microsoft Ignite 2021 Event 😉

 

Follow #Microsoft Windows 11 Insider Preview program by Video #WindowsInsiders #WIMVP #Windows11

Watch how Windows 11 is being designed

Are you exited as I am about the New Microsoft Windows 11 Insider preview builds on your device? The Microsoft Windows Insider Program team is keeping you up-to-date about the new features in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build by videos on YouTube.
You can find the Windows Insider Channel here

When you like to start testing new features with Windows 11 Insider Preview Build, you can become a Windows Insider to get started

Before you register as a Windows Insider, It’s important how you want to fly with new releases and or updates of Windows 11 Insider Preview Build. This because there are different Channels and they are explained well at this site.
( Read this first before you begin)

The Windows Insider Program Team is really active on Twitter, I advice you to follow them:

Jason Howard

Amanda Langowski

Brandon LeBlanc

Eddie Leonard

Jen Gentleman

And of course the Windows Insider Program it self on Twitter : @WindowsInsider

Conclusion so far

I Like Windows 11 Insider Preview Build very much. As a Datacenter Administrator I like the New Windows Terminal under the Start button with a right click. The look and feels of Windows 11 Insider Preview Build is awesome and the Microsoft Windows Team did a lot of work to make configuring Windows 11 Insider Preview Build as easy as possible for the end-users. I wish you a lot of fun as a Windows Insider and don’t forget to give your Feedback in the Feedback Hub of Windows Insider.

Windows Server Insider 2022 Datacenter Azure version #WindowsInsiders #WIMVP #Azure #Winserv

Installing Windows Server Insider Datacenter Azure Edition

In my last blogpost we installed Windows 11 Insider Preview Enterprise Build on a Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine. Now we do the same with Windows Server 2022 Insider build version on Microsoft Azure Cloud.

IMPORTANT

This blogpost is for testing only and not ready for production environments yet!

Before you Search for the Windows Server Insider Preview image, you need some preview features added to your azure subscription first. Here you find more information

One of the features is Inquest Hot patching, which we activate via Azure Cloud Shell with Bash Azure CLI :

az feature register –namespace Microsoft.Compute –name InGuestHotPatchVMPreview
az feature register –namespace Microsoft.Compute –name InGuestAutoPatchVMPreview
az feature register –namespace Microsoft.Compute –name InGuestPatchVMPreview

Register via Azure CLI with these commands.

Feature registration can take up to 15 minutes. To check the registration status:

az feature show –namespace Microsoft.Compute –name InGuestHotPatchVMPreview
az feature show –namespace Microsoft.Compute –name InGuestAutoPatchVMPreview
az feature show –namespace Microsoft.Compute –name InGuestPatchVMPreview

When registration is done, you will see this message.

Once the feature has been registered for your subscription, complete the opt-in process by propagating the change into the Compute resource provider.

Type the following Azure CLI commandline :

az provider register –namespace Microsoft.Compute

Now your Microsoft Azure Subscription is ready for the new Features with the Windows Server 2022 Insider Preview Datacenter Azure Edition Build.

You need the Core edition when you want to try hotpatching.
and you need to be a Windows Server Insider.

Here you can Register for the Windows Server Insider Program

Create the Virtual Machine.

Add Storage to your Virtual Machine.
Because it’s for testing only I selected SSD.

Set your network settings.

Set Management settings like Hotpatch Preview.

At Advanced tab you can add Extensions and Custom scripts.
Click on Review + Create

Validation is passed, Click on Create and the
Windows Server Insider 2022 Datacenter Azure Edition will deploy.

IMPORTANT

Check the Network Security Group (NSG) of the Virtual Machine in Azure and set the security settings!

Set the Security Settings in the NSG.

Because we Installed the Windows Server Insider Core version,
Windows Admin Center (Preview) is very handy for Management.

Running Windows Server 2022 Insider Build 10.0.20348.166 in Azure
with Windows Admin Center (Preview) for Testing.

Now we wait for the Hotpatch 😉

Conclusion

Microsoft Azure Cloud platform is great for testing new products like Windows Server Insider Build versions, Windows 11 Insider Preview and the new Azure features. So when this becomes GA in the future you have already the experience and did some feedback to the Microsoft Product Team 😉

#WindowsInsiders 11 Preview Enterprise Build in #Azure Cloud

Windows 11 Enterprise Preview in Azure

When you joined the Microsoft Windows Insider Program you can use the Windows 11 preview build images from the Azure Marketplace.
Here you can see the Windows 11 Preview plans in the Microsoft Azure Market place.

As a Windows Insider it’s great to have your machine in the Microsoft Azure Cloud to test new features of Windows 11 Preview. You don’t have to buy compatible hardware for Windows 11 Preview, and you only pay for the machine when you use it in the Cloud.
Here you find the Windows 11 Preview minimal requirements.

In the following steps I deploy Windows 11 Preview Enterprise in Azure Cloud.

Create your Windows 11 Preview Machine in Azure Cloud.

For this you need a Microsoft Azure Subscription to create a Windows 11 Preview Virtual Machine in the Cloud. In the Azure template for deployment you can select the right size Virtual Machine, Storage, networks, and Management extensions like security and Azure Monitor.

Before you Connect your Windows 11 Preview VM, make sure the security for RDP is set in the Network Security Group (NSG)

Set security for your RDP session in the NSG.

Go to Settings => Windows Update => Windows Insider Program.
Click on Get Started.
First step link an account to join the program.
(This must be your Windows Insiders account)

Sign in selection and continue.

IMPORTANT

Here you select your Windows Insider Channel, read the information and choose your
Windows Insider Build Channel. As a Windows Insider MVP I choose for the Dev Channel to give feedback to the product Team and get the first new features of Windows 11 Preview.

Read the recommendations and click on Continue.

Review the Agreements for your Device.
Click on Continue if you agree.

Restart the Virtual Machine into the Dev Channel for
the latest updates.

Set your Windows Update Advanced options.

Here we have Windows 11 Preview Insider Build 22000.160 on Azure Cloud 😉

After this I went to the Windows Insider Feedback Hub to do my settings :

At Settings of the Feedback Hub you can update the software.
and of course your personal settings.

I Like the Windows Insider Feedback Hub in Dark mode.

IMPORTANT

When you are ready with testing and sending feedback to Microsoft don’t forget to Stop the Virtual Machine! This save you money.

Conclusion

Microsoft Azure Cloud Services and Windows 11 Preview Insider Builds working together gives you flexibility and as a Windows Insider you can test every Windows 11 Preview Build from any place with a Internet connection. I like to give Microsoft feedback to make Windows Awesome for everyone on the planet 🙂

Follow Windows Insiders on Twitter :

@WindowsInsider

Jason Howard

Amanda Langowski

Brandon LeBlanc

Eddie Leonard

Jen Gentleman

Windows 11

 

 

Azure Monitor Insights for Arc enabled Kubernetes Clusters anywhere #Azure #Kubernetes

Azure Monitor Insights for Monitoring your Containers.

In the last blogpost I wrote about Microsoft Azure Arc Services and how to connect a Docker for Desktop Kubernetes Cluster for testing your DevOps solution like Container Apps, Functions, App Services in a test environment. Here you find the Link to the Installation.

One of the Microsoft Azure Arc features is Azure Monitor Insights for monitoring your Kubernetes Cluster and the Containers.

Azure Arc Insights for Kubernetes Cluster anywhere

In the following step-by-step guide we will configure Azure Monitor Insights for your Kubernetes Cluster.

I Connected my Analytics Workspace CloudMVPLab.
Click on Configure.

Onboarding your Kubernetes Cluster will take some minutes.

After a while your Kubernetes Cluster Analytics data will show in Insights.

Here you see a navigation bar with the following topics

• What’s New
• Cluster
• Reports
• Nodes
• Controllers
• Containers.

Insights reports of the Kubernetes Cluster

Here you can Click on default reports of your Kubernetes Cluster.

Storage Capacity and Health Status report of your Kubernetes Cluster.

Storage Capacity more in Details.

Deployments Report of your Kubernetes Cluster.

Workload details Report of your Kubernetes Cluster.

Kubelet report of your Kubernetes Cluster

Data Usage of your Kubernetes Cluster

Data Usage

Insights the Nodes of the Kubernetes Cluster

Insights of the Nodes and on the right you can view Analytics.

Here you can work with Log Analytics on your Cluster.

Insights in Controllers of your Kubernetes Cluster

Insights of your Controllers

Insights Containers of your Kubernetes Cluster

Container Insights of your Kubernetes Cluster

Container Insights with Azure Log Analytics.

So with Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes Clusters you can monitoring your Cluster and running Containers to keep you in Control on what is happening on the Cluster but also with your Container Apps and microservices. After this you can set Alerts and notifications when something is going wrong or offline. With this running you can start running your own App services, Containers or Azure functions on your Kubernetes Cluster.

Microsoft Senior Cloud Advocate Thomas Maurer explains in this awesome video how to add Azure App Services to your Kubernetes Cluster

Conclusion

This configuration with Docker for Desktop Kubernetes Cluster is for testing purpose only and can be used for your own DevOps solutions before you deploy on Production Ready Clusters. With Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes Clusters you get the powerful Microsoft Azure Features and solutions in a secure way on your Kubernetes Cluster. I wish you lot of success with Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes Clusters to make Awesome Apps and IT solutions for the Business 😉