Discover unprotected resources with Defender for Cloud
5 minutes
5 Questions
Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a comprehensive solution for identifying and managing unprotected resources across your cloud environment. This capability is essential for Security Operations Analysts who need to maintain visibility into their organization's security posture.
When you access…Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a comprehensive solution for identifying and managing unprotected resources across your cloud environment. This capability is essential for Security Operations Analysts who need to maintain visibility into their organization's security posture.
When you access Defender for Cloud in the Azure portal, the service automatically scans your subscriptions and connected environments to identify resources that lack adequate protection. The Inventory blade displays all discovered assets, including virtual machines, storage accounts, databases, and containers, along with their current security status.
To discover unprotected resources, navigate to Defender for Cloud and select the Inventory section. Here, you can filter resources by their protection status, showing which assets have Defender plans enabled and which remain vulnerable. The dashboard highlights resources missing endpoint protection, encryption, or other critical security controls.
The Recommendations section provides actionable insights about unprotected resources. Each recommendation includes a severity rating, affected resource count, and remediation steps. Common findings include virtual machines missing antimalware solutions, storage accounts with public access enabled, and SQL databases requiring advanced threat protection.
Defender for Cloud uses the Secure Score metric to quantify your overall protection level. As you address unprotected resources, your score improves, providing measurable progress tracking. The service also identifies resources across multi-cloud environments, including AWS and Google Cloud Platform when connectors are configured.
For Security Operations Analysts, establishing regular review cycles for the asset inventory ensures new resources receive appropriate protection. You can configure continuous export to send findings to Log Analytics workspaces or Azure Event Hubs for integration with SIEM solutions like Microsoft Sentinel. Workflow automation enables automatic responses when unprotected resources are detected, such as triggering alerts or initiating remediation processes. This proactive approach helps maintain consistent security coverage across your entire infrastructure.
Discover Unprotected Resources with Defender for Cloud
Why is it Important?
Discovering unprotected resources is a critical first step in securing your cloud environment. Organizations often have resources deployed across multiple subscriptions and regions, making it challenging to maintain visibility. Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a centralized view to identify resources that lack adequate security coverage, helping security operations analysts prioritize remediation efforts and reduce the attack surface.
What is it?
Defender for Cloud is a Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP) solution. The discovery of unprotected resources refers to the ability to identify:
• Virtual machines not protected by endpoint protection • Storage accounts with public access enabled • Databases lacking encryption • Resources missing network security groups • Workloads not covered by Defender plans • Resources with missing security configurations
How Does it Work?
1. Asset Inventory: Defender for Cloud continuously scans your Azure subscriptions, AWS accounts, and GCP projects to create a comprehensive asset inventory. This inventory shows the security status of each resource.
2. Security Recommendations: Based on Azure Security Benchmark and regulatory standards, Defender for Cloud generates recommendations for resources that need attention. Each recommendation includes severity ratings and remediation steps.
3. Secure Score: The secure score provides a measurement of your security posture. Unprotected resources negatively impact this score, making it easy to track improvement over time.
4. Coverage Dashboard: The Defender for Cloud coverage section shows which workloads are protected by enhanced security features and which remain unprotected.
Key Features for Discovery:
• Inventory filtering - Filter resources by protection status, resource type, or subscription • Unhealthy resources view - Quickly identify resources failing security assessments • Regulatory compliance dashboard - See compliance gaps across standards • Attack path analysis - Identify vulnerable resources that could be exploited
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Discover Unprotected Resources with Defender for Cloud
Tip 1: Remember that the Asset Inventory blade is the primary location for viewing all discovered resources and their security status across multi-cloud environments.
Tip 2: Understand the difference between Foundational CSPM (free) and Defender CSPM (paid). The free tier provides basic recommendations, while the paid tier offers advanced features like attack path analysis.
Tip 3: Know that Secure Score calculations are based on the ratio of healthy resources to total assessed resources. Questions may ask how enabling protections affects the score.
Tip 4: Be familiar with the Recommendations blade structure - recommendations are grouped by security control and show affected resources count.
Tip 5: For questions about multi-cloud scenarios, remember that Defender for Cloud can discover unprotected resources in AWS and GCP through native connectors.
Tip 6: When asked about automating responses to unprotected resources, think about Workflow Automation using Logic Apps triggered by recommendations.
Tip 7: The Coverage section under Environment Settings shows which Defender plans are enabled - this is essential for identifying workload types lacking protection.
Tip 8: Questions about identifying specific unprotected resource types often reference the recommendation title, such as 'Endpoint protection should be installed on machines' or 'Storage accounts should use private link.'