Securing cloud environments involves more than just ticking compliance boxes—you also need to stay ahead of constantly evolving threats. If you’re using Azure, you need the right security tools to protect your data, applications, and infrastructure from potential risks.
Azure provides security tools that help businesses protect their systems. Knowing which tools to use—and how they fit into your security strategy—makes a big difference in keeping your environment safe. Let’s break down the top Azure security tools by category so you can find the best options for your needs.
Top tools for Azure security
Keeping an Azure environment secure requires more than just enabling a few settings. You also need a combination of tools that cover identity management, data protection, network security, threat detection, and compliance. Without a comprehensive security configuration, vulnerabilities can expose sensitive data, disrupt operations, or lead to compliance violations.
Azure provides built-in security tools to help businesses strengthen their cloud security, and various third-party solutions are available as well. Some focus on preventing unauthorized access, while others detect threats in real time or ensure compliance with industry regulations. Which tools you need depends on your security needs and risk tolerance.
Below, you’ll find a categorized list of essential Azure security tools, including what they do best and how they fit into an overall security strategy:
| Category | Tools | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Identity and access management (IAM) | Microsoft Entra ID Permissions Management | Enforcing least-privilege access |
| IAM | Azure Active Directory (AAD) | Managing user identities and access permissions |
| Data protection | Azure Key Vault | Storing and managing sensitive information securely |
| Data protection | Microsoft Purview | Centralizing, classifying, and protecting data |
| Network and application security | Network security groups | Filtering traffic based on security rules |
| Network and application security | Azure DDoS Protection | Defending against DDoS attacks |
| Compliance and governance | Azure Policy | Enforcing organizational standards and compliance |
| Compliance and governance | Microsoft Defender for Cloud | Securing Azure, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments |
| Threat detection and response (TDR) | Azure Sentinel | Providing AI-driven security analytics and response |
| TDR | Microsoft Defender for Cloud | Identifying and mitigating security threats |
Azure Security Best Practices [Cheat Sheet]
Explore detailed aspects of Azure best practices, from role-based access control (RBAC) to cloud security posture management, that you can adapt to secure your Azure subscriptions.
Download now
Azure tools for IAM
Without a solid IAM strategy, unauthorized access can expose sensitive data and disrupt operations. Azure provides two powerful tools to help organizations enforce strict access policies while keeping workflows seamless:
1. Microsoft Entra ID
Microsoft Entra ID centralizes identity and access management (IAM) in Azure, ensuring that every access request follows a unified security framework. It enforces security policies, reduces overly permissive roles, and sends automated alerts when access permissions exceed least-privilege standards.
Here are three key features that help organizations strengthen access control and protect identities:
Fine-grained access control: Entra ID enforces role-based access control (RBAC), allowing organizations to assign built-in or custom roles that limit permissions based on job responsibilities.
Identity protection: It detects suspicious activity using machine learning and automatically adjusts security controls with conditional access policies to block potential threats.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA): It strengthens account security with options like Microsoft Authenticator, Windows Hello for Business, and FIDO security keys. These prevent unauthorized access even if credentials are compromised.
Limitations:
Complex setup: Configuring custom roles and conditional access policies takes time and requires expertise.
Limited third-party integrations: Some non-Microsoft applications need additional configuration or licensing for seamless integration.
Potential latency issues: Global enterprises may experience authentication delays in certain regions, especially during peak usage.
2. Azure AD Privileged Identity Management
Privileged accounts pose one of the highest security risks if misused or compromised. Azure AD Privileged Identity Management (PIM) helps organizations manage, monitor, and control access to critical resources with these features:
Approval workflows: Administrators enforce approval requirements before granting elevated access, ensuring authorization for critical actions.
Access reviews: Regularly scheduled access reviews enforce the principle of least privilege by identifying and revoking unnecessary permissions.
Audit logs and alerts: PIM monitors privileged access requests and alerts administrators to unusual activity, helping them respond to potential security threats.
Limitations:
Steep learning curve: Configuring PIM for different roles and permissions requires familiarity with Microsoft Entra ID and security best practices, which may be challenging for new users.
User friction: Just-in-time access and approval workflows, while increasing security, can disrupt workflows if users frequently need urgent access.
Limited visibility into external identities: PIM primarily focuses on managing privileged access within Microsoft Entra ID, making it less effective for tracking external accounts with elevated permissions.
Both Microsoft Entra ID and Azure AD PIM work together to enforce strong identity and access policies, minimize security risks, and ensure that users have the right level of access when they need it.
Azure security tools for data protection
Keeping sensitive data secure in the cloud requires the right tools. Azure offers built-in solutions that protect encryption keys, secrets, and sensitive information and ensure compliance. Here are three key security tools that protect data in Azure:
1. Azure Key Vault
Sensitive data is one of the most valuable assets in any system, making it a prime target for cyber threats. Instead of leaving secrets vulnerable in application code or configuration files, Azure Key Vault provides a secure, centralized way to manage encryption keys, passwords, certificates, and other critical data.
Beyond secure storage, Key Vault plays a crucial role in modern development workflows. It integrates with CI/CD pipelines, ensuring security is baked into the software development process rather than treated as an afterthought. Here are three key features that make it effective:
Centralized secret management: Applications can securely retrieve secrets without hardcoding them by referencing Key Vault’s secure URIs.
Secure access controls: RBAC via Microsoft Entra ID guarantees that only authorized users and services can access stored secrets. Access policies further limit permissions.
Governance and monitoring: Built-in auditing tracks key usage, while automated key rotation ensures that encryption remains strong without manual intervention.
Limitations:
Performance overhead: Frequent requests to Key Vault can introduce latency, especially in high-performance applications that require rapid access to secrets.
Cost considerations: While it enhances security, using Key Vault for a large number of secrets or frequent transactions may lead to higher costs compared to on-premises solutions.
Limited offline access: Since Key Vault is a cloud-based service, accessing secrets in environments with limited or no internet connectivity can be challenging.
2. Microsoft Purview
Managing data security goes beyond encryption—it includes knowing what data you have, where it lives, and how it moves. That’s where Microsoft Purview helps. It gives organizations the visibility and control they need to classify, track, and protect sensitive data across their cloud environment. Here’s how Microsoft Purview strengthens data security:
Data catalog: It creates a unified inventory of data assets across Azure, on-premises, and multi-cloud environments, making it easier to manage and discover information.
Data classification: It identifies sensitive information, such as personal data or financial records, so organizations can apply appropriate protection policies.
Data security: It prevents unauthorized exposure by enforcing data loss prevention, insider risk management, and privileged access controls.
Limitations:
Complex setup and maintenance: Configuring Purview for large-scale environments requires careful planning and continuous updates to keep classification rules and governance policies effective.
Limited real-time enforcement: While Purview provides insights and tracking, it does not actively block unauthorized data access or movement in real time, requiring integration with other security tools for enforcement.
High resource consumption: Automated data scanning and classification can introduce performance overhead, especially in environments with large data volumes or frequent changes.
Network and application security tools for Azure
Securing your network and applications in Azure requires layered protection. Azure provides four built-in tools to control traffic flow, enforce security policies, and safeguard workloads from threats:
1. Network security groups
Controlling inbound and outbound traffic at the network level is essential for securing Azure resources. Network Security Groups (NSGs) act as a stateful firewall that filters traffic to and from Azure Virtual Networks, subnets, and virtual machines (VMs) based on security rules.
NSGs provide several key features that enhance security and simplify traffic management in Azure environments:
Security rules: NSGs use five-tuple rules—source, source port, destination, destination port, and protocol—to define inbound and outbound traffic policies. This approach ensures precise filtering and stronger security.
Rule prioritization: Azure processes NSG rules based on priority values, making sure the most critical security policies take effect first.
Augmented security rules: Instead of manually defining IP addresses, you can simplify security management by using service tags and Application Security Groups (ASGs). Service tags represent Azure services, while ASGs group VMs with similar security needs, making policy management more scalable and efficient.
Limitations:
Lack of deep packet inspection: NSGs filter traffic based on basic attributes like IP addresses and ports but do not analyze packet contents, making them insufficient for detecting advanced threats.
Limited application-layer control: Unlike web application firewalls (WAFs), NSGs cannot enforce policies based on HTTP/HTTPS requests, leaving applications vulnerable to certain types of attacks.
Complex rule management at scale: Managing NSG rules across multiple networks and VMs can become difficult, especially in large environments where frequent updates are needed.
2. Azure DDoS Protection
Azure DDoS Protection prevents large-scale attacks that attempt to flood your applications with traffic, ensuring continuous availability for legitimate users. It offers two tiers of protection: DDoS Network Protection, which automatically mitigates threats across all resources within a protected virtual network, and DDoS IP Protection, which secures specific public IP addresses with added benefits like cost protection, discounts, and access to DDoS rapid response support.
Azure DDoS Protection continuously monitors traffic, detects threats in real time, and automatically mitigates attacks to keep applications secure. It offers:
Two protection tiers: Network protection secures entire virtual networks, while IP Protection focuses on individual public IPs with additional cost benefits and rapid response support.
Multi-layered defense: Works across layers 3 and 4, and integrates with Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) to protect against layer 7 attacks.
Advanced insights: Provides attack analytics, real-time alerts, and detailed reports for proactive security management.
Limitations:
No application-layer (Layer 7) protection: Azure DDoS Protection primarily defends against network-layer (Layers 3 and 4) attacks but relies on Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) for Layer 7 threats like HTTP floods.
Limited protection for outbound traffic: While it effectively blocks inbound DDoS attacks, it does not block malicious outbound traffic from compromised internal resources.
Azure security tools for compliance management
Ensuring compliance in cloud environments requires tools that enforce security policies and monitor regulatory standards. Azure Policy helps organizations define and enforce rules, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud continuously monitors workloads to detect risks and maintain compliance. Together, these tools provide a proactive approach to securing cloud resources.
1. Azure Policy
Azure Policy enforces governance rules to ensure organizations create, configure, and manage resources according to security and compliance standards. It enforces security rules, control costs, and configure resources via predefined and custom policies. For example, you could strengthen security and prevent unauthorized access with a policy that enforces SSH key authentication for Linux virtual machines.
Azure Policy provides key features that help enforce compliance and security across cloud environments:
Initiatives: Azure Policy groups multiple policies into initiatives, simplifying the enforcement of broad security objectives. This structure allows organizations to manage compliance more efficiently and apply consistent security policies at scale.
RBAC permissions: Azure Policy assigns role-based access control (RBAC) permissions to ensure that only authorized users can manage policy settings and modify compliance rules.
Remediation tasks: Azure Policy automatically identifies and corrects non-compliant resources to ensure continuous enforcement of security and compliance standards across Azure environments.
Limitations:
Limited cross-cloud support: Azure Policy is designed for Azure environments only and does not natively enforce governance across multi-cloud setups without additional third-party tools.
Remediation limitations: While Azure Policy can identify and correct non-compliant resources, some changes (like modifying running workloads) may require manual intervention.
Complexity in custom policy creation: Writing custom policy definitions requires familiarity with JSON-based policy syntax, making it challenging for teams without Azure policy expertise.
2. Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) that secures Azure, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. It integrates DevSecOps practices, Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), and Cloud Workload Protection into a single platform.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers several security features that help organizations protect their cloud environments:
Secure score: It evaluates an organization's security posture and generates actionable recommendations to enhance compliance and reduce vulnerabilities.
Attack path analysis: It leverages graph-based algorithms to analyze network traffic, detect potential vulnerabilities, and help organizations proactively mitigate security threats.
CSPM capabilities: It continuously monitors the security state of cloud workloads, offers integrated compliance recommendations, and supports third-party integrations to improve visibility and threat detection.
Limitations:
Limited multi-cloud capabilities: While Defender for Cloud supports AWS and GCP, its features are more robust in Azure, leading to gaps in visibility and protection across third-party cloud providers.
Complex configuration for custom policies: Setting up custom security rules and integrating Defender for Cloud with third-party security tools requires advanced knowledge of Azure security policies.
Dependency on Azure ecosystem: Some advanced features (like attack path analysis) work best within Azure-native services, limiting effectiveness in hybrid or multi-cloud environments with diverse security stacks.
Azure threat detection tools
Identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities is a critical step in securing cloud workloads. Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender provide a powerful solution by detecting security risks across cloud environments so you can take action before threats become attacks.
Microsoft Sentinel
Microsoft Sentinel is a scalable, cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) solution. It helps simplify security operations by providing intelligent security analytics, threat intelligence, and automated responses to protect your organization from evolving cyber threats.
Here are some key features that enhance its threat detection and response capabilities:
Threat detection: Continuously monitors security logs from Azure, third-party services, and on-premises environments to identify anomalies and potential attacks.
Incident response: Uses automated playbooks to contain threats and reduce response time, ensuring a swift and effective defense. Sentinel’s incident response capabilities quickly analyze and mitigate security threats before they escalate.
Threat hunting: Leverages the MITRE ATT&CK framework and machine learning to proactively uncover hidden security risks, allowing security teams to take action before a breach occurs.
Limitations:
High ingestion costs: Sentinel collects and analyzes large amounts of security data, but log ingestion and storage costs can add up quickly, especially for organizations with extensive monitoring needs.
Complex setup and tuning: While Sentinel automates threat detection, security teams must fine-tune detection rules and queries to minimize false positives and optimize performance.
Limited third-party integrations: Although Sentinel supports third-party security tools, some custom integrations require additional configuration and may not be as seamless as with Microsoft-native services.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Besides compliance management, Microsoft Defender for Cloud is also useful for TDR. It strengthens security across Azure and multi-cloud environments by identifying vulnerabilities and providing actionable insights. Here are some key features that help organizations detect and respond to security risks effectively:
Multi-cloud support: Scans virtual machines across Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud to detect security risks and maintain a consistent security posture.
OS scanning: Conducts vulnerability assessments for Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS, ensuring comprehensive protection across different operating systems.
Actionable recommendations: Generates reports with Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) references and step-by-step remediation guidance to help organizations address security issues efficiently.
Limitations:
Limited depth in third-party cloud scanning: While Defender for Cloud supports AWS and Google Cloud, its security assessments for these platforms lack the depth of its Azure-based scanning, leading to potential blind spots.
Inconsistent OS vulnerability coverage: Some Linux distributions and mobile platforms (e.g., Android, iOS) may lack the detailed vulnerability assessments available for Windows environments.
Latency in vulnerability updates: CVE-based scanning depends on frequent updates, but there can be a lag in recognizing new vulnerabilities, delaying response times.
Top considerations when choosing security tools for Azure
The right Azure security tools should offer features that enhance your network's protection against evolving threats. These are some key aspects to consider:
AI-powered threat intelligence: Tools that use AI will help you analyze security data, detect anomalies, and predict potential threats. For example, Microsoft Defender for Cloud leverages AI to provide real-time risk assessments, while Wiz offers deep cloud visibility and automated threat detection.
Zero trust security: A strong security posture requires identity-based access control, continuous verification, and least-privilege principles. Solutions like Microsoft Entra ID and Wiz enforce zero trust by restricting access based on user identity, device security, and workload behavior.
Quantum-resistant encryption: As cryptographic threats evolve, security tools must adopt encryption methods that withstand quantum computing attacks. Azure offers post-quantum cryptography research and hybrid encryption approaches to future-proof sensitive data.
Enhancing Azure security with third-party tools
Azure’s built-in security tools provide a strong foundation, but third-party solutions enhance visibility and offer specialized protection. Wiz, a cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP), delivers comprehensive security for Azure environments by integrating posture management, workload protection, and threat detection into a single solution.
Some core benefits include:
Security graph: Wiz analyzes the relationships between different technologies in your Azure environment, uncovering critical pathways to potential breaches. This allows you to quickly identify and address the most significant risks in your Azure cloud by visualizing complex relationships in a simple, intuitive graph.
Attack path analysis: Wiz prioritizes security issues in Azure by identifying toxic combinations of risks that have a high probability of exploitation and significant business impact. This helps security teams focus on the most critical vulnerabilities that could lead to a breach in your Azure environment, enabling efficient remediation efforts.
Cloud threat intelligence: Wiz provides out-of-the-box coverage for the latest cloud threats targeting Azure. This allows you to quickly identify and remediate affected resources, ensuring you're protected against emerging threats and can maintain a strong security posture in Azure.
Not sure if your cloud security is strong enough? Take Wiz’s Cloud Security Self Assessment to uncover vulnerabilities and get actionable insights to strengthen your defenses.