Azure Sentinel is a cloud-based security information and event management (SIEM) solution provided by Microsoft. Designed to offer a holistic view of business security, with the ability to aggregate and analyze huge amounts of data from different sources, Sentinel helps organizations identify abnormal behavior patterns and manage security incidents more effectively. In addition, its scalability and flexibility make it suitable for any type of IT infrastructure, improving the protection of digital assets in a constantly evolving threat landscape. In this article, we'll take a closer look at what it is, what are its main features, the differences with other Azure cybersecurity services, and the payment models for using the service.
Cybersecurity is becoming an increasingly important issue in the contemporary digital landscape, with companies and organizations around the world investing significant amounts of money to better protect their IT infrastructures.
Microsoft has not stood idly by and has spent the last few years working on cybersecurity solutions to provide to users of Microsoft Azure, the second most used cloud computing platform in the world.
One of the results of this work on the security of Redmond's cloud infrastructure is Azure Sentinel (also known as Microsoft Sentinel), a cloud-based SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) solution, whose main capacity is to detect, collect information, investigate and respond to modern cyber threats.
Due to the large flow of data, an organization often loses control of all data, and Sentinel serves precisely to keep its company under control, ensuring that its data is not compromised.
The information is stored in the Azure Monitor log analysis space while Sentinel continues to carry out its work of collecting, detecting, investigating and responding to any vulnerability, keeping business data safe.
Azure Sentinel can become a critical component of any organization's cybersecurity strategy, and by taking advantage of its advanced threat detection and response capabilities, complete visibility, affordability, and simplified management, companies can improve their security posture and always stay one step ahead of the dangers of the digital world. Let's see in more detail how.
Azure Sentinel is a cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) and security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) solution that helps collect data from a variety of sources, analyze it to detect threats and respond to incidents quickly and effectively.
But what exactly does SIEM mean? AND SOUND? The first is nothing more than the acronym for Security Information and Event Management, a security solution that combines the functions of security information management (SIM) and security event management (SEM) in a single integrated system.
The SIEM has the task of collecting, analyzing and correlating log data and security events from different sources within an IT infrastructure, in order to detect threats, anomalies and security breaches.
On the other hand, SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) defines a technological solution that integrates security orchestration, automation and incident response to improve the efficiency of security operations.
The benefits of SOAR include improved speed and efficiency, as automation reduces response times and manual workload, accelerates the threat detection and mitigation process, and centralizes the management of security operations, offering a unified and complete view of the organization's security posture.
This approach allows organizations to manage an increasing number of security events without having to increase staff proportionately. Finally, the orchestration and automation capabilities allow for a proactive and preventive response, improving the organization's ability to deal with emerging threats.
Azure Sentinel uses Azure Log Analytics as part of its architecture, a platform for collecting, storing and analyzing logs and performance data that provides Sentinel with a solid foundation for analyzing and correlating security data.
For data analysis and query creation, the service uses Kusto Query Language (KQL), which is a query language designed to query large volumes of data. KQL is particularly effective for analyzing logs and identifying behavior patterns.
Sentinel works according to a cycle that begins with log management, continues with the normalization of schemes, data validation, detection and investigation, and includes automatic responses to alerts. Here's how Sentinel provides this end-to-end functionality:
Now that we have a clearer idea of how Azure Sentinel operates in general, let's take a closer look at some of its key components to better understand their functions:
We have created the Infrastructure & Security team, focused on the Azure cloud, to better respond to the needs of our customers who involve us in technical and strategic decisions. In addition to configuring and managing the tenant, we also take care of:
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As a complete, all-in-one SIEM/SOAR solution, Microsoft Sentinel is effective at detecting, investigating, and responding to the full spectrum of threat actors and cyberattacks.
While Sentinel offers reliable protection against phishing attacks, botnets, malware, and more, it could be even more crucial in countering some of the latest and most innovative threats. Let's see some of them in the list below:
Sentinel isn't the only security tool provided by Azure. In fact, the Microsoft cloud computing platform has numerous services dedicated to cybersecurity, each with its specific objectives and uses.
But as always, when the options are numerous, the level of confusion also increases in proportion to which tool does what and in which contexts to use one rather than the other, especially if you are just starting to familiarize yourself with the Azure platform.
So let's take a moment to clarify the differences between Azure Sentinel and two of the services it's most often confused with by new users: Azure Monitor and Azure Defender.
Azure Monitor and Azure Sentinel are two tools that serve different purposes in the context of managing their cloud environments.
Azure Monitor is designed to collect, analyze and act on telemetry data from applications and services running on Azure and its main purpose is to monitor the performance, availability and state of Azure resources, providing metrics, logs and alerts to help keep applications and services running efficiently. A particularly useful tool for system administrators, developers, and IT operators who want to monitor the health and performance of their cloud resources.
On the other hand, Azure Sentinel is designed for security teams that need a SIEM platform to protect their IT infrastructure from cyber threats and provides an integrated security solution that detects, investigates and responds to threats to the security of their digital infrastructures. Sentinel aggregates security data from different sources (including Azure Monitor) to identify potential threats and offers specific tools for managing and responding to security incidents.
Azure Monitor and Sentinel, while sharing the common goal of optimizing the security and performance of your Azure and non-Azure environments, adopt distinct but complementary approaches. While Monitor excels at providing operational insights and performance analysis, Sentinel offers advanced security analysis along with proactive threat hunting and incident response capabilities.
Therefore, “Azure Monitor vs. Sentinel” should not represent an exclusive choice, but rather one should consider their respective advantages holistically, using both together to build a robust cybersecurity posture. By understanding and using these Azure tools correctly, it is possible to exploit them in a synergistic way, making sure that our cybersecurity analysts and experts can work with as detailed an overview of the situations as possible.
In the case of Azure Defender for Cloud, a cloud workload protection platform (CWPP), the difference with Sentinel is not so much a difference in purpose as in scale. In fact, both are specific services for cybersecurity, but they operate on different levels in this area.
Defender is an asset security management solution, specifically designed to protect Azure resources and hybrid workloads, providing integrated protection for virtual machines, SQL databases, containers, applications and much more using a combination of agent-based technologies (small software programs installed directly on cloud resources, such as virtual machines or containers, to monitor and collect data on activities and behaviors) and without agents to detect and respond to threats that may jeopardize the proper conduct of their operations.
Its main purpose is to detect and respond to threats directly on protected workloads, using features such as security configuration assessment, continuous monitoring and vulnerability protection, while focusing on resource-level security and providing recommendations to improve security posture and protect against threats specific to workloads running on Azure.
Azure Sentinel, on the other hand, offers a centralized and unified view of security across the entire IT environment where it operates by collecting and analyzing security data from numerous sources to proactively detect and respond to threats.
This is more or less the difference between a factory security guard responsible for monitoring a specific critical area (Defender) and a control tower (Sentinel) that observes all movements inside and outside the factory, collecting information from various guard points to identify potential threats, analyze suspicious behavior patterns and coordinate a strategic response at a global level and not an individual area.
Both services are therefore complementary in carrying out their functions and can be used together, exploiting their different focuses to provide complete and in-depth protection of security resources and operations on Azure at every level.
Azure Sentinel, being a cloud-based service, has pricing and cost structures that vary compared to traditional on-premises security solutions. The cost is mainly based on the volume of data collected and the number of users or analysts accessing the platform.
Here we will limit ourselves to giving an overview of the factors that influence the total cost of the service. If you want to have precise estimates and prices by individual region and currency, we refer you to the official Azure Sentinel page (available hither), where there is also an option to request a quote tailored to your needs.
The main cost factor for Microsoft Sentinel is the amount of data collected on the platform. This includes log data from various sources, such as Windows Event Logs, Azure services, and third-party integrations.
The cost per gigabyte (GB) of data collected varies depending on the type of data and the region where the data is stored. These rates may be subject to change, so it's essential to stay up to date on the latest pricing information from Microsoft.
In addition to the costs of ingesting data, Microsoft Sentinel also charges the cost for the number of users or analysts who access the platform. This cost is based on the number of active users, which includes both users with read-only access and users with read-write access.
It's important to note that user licenses are charged on a monthly per user basis, so organizations must carefully plan and manage the number of users to control costs.
Microsoft Sentinel offers different licensing models and pricing to meet the diverse needs of organizations. Understanding these models can help you choose the option that works best for your business.
When estimating the costs of Microsoft Sentinel, organizations should consider several factors to avoid incurring unnecessary surcharges while using the service. Below we provide a small list with the most important ones to begin to get an idea of which aspects to consider:
Cybersecurity has never been more crucial in the world of data protection than it is today, with organizations around the world working hard to ensure the security of their critical business data.
There are a lot of SIEM tools on the market right now. However, many IT professionals continue to rely on Microsoft's Azure Sentinel for its ease of use and its robust capabilities for collecting, analyzing, and correlating data from various Azure sources that allow them to quickly detect and respond to security incidents.
Its native integration with other Microsoft solutions and the possibility of integrating it with third-party solutions thanks to customized connectors, as well as the use of the latest artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to identify abnormal behavior, make it an incredibly solid tool for all those companies that want to protect their IT infrastructures in an efficient and scalable way.
Azure Sentinel offers data collection from various sources, advanced threat detection through analytics, incident investigation, and automated threat response capabilities.
Azure Sentinel is designed to identify and counter a wide range of cybersecurity threats, including malware attacks, phishing attempts, unauthorized access, and other suspicious activities within an organization’s IT infrastructure.
Unlike other Azure security services that focus on specific aspects of protection, Azure Sentinel provides a holistic view of enterprise security by integrating SIEM and SOAR capabilities for comprehensive threat management.
Azure Sentinel uses a pricing model based on the volume of data analyzed and the features utilized, offering pay-as-you-go options or predefined plans to allow organizations to choose the best fit for their needs.
To start using Azure Sentinel, you need a Microsoft Azure account. Then, you can configure Azure Sentinel in the Azure portal, connect the desired data sources, and begin monitoring your infrastructure to detect and respond to security threats.
The Infra & Security team focuses on the management and evolution of our customers' Microsoft Azure tenants. Besides configuring and managing these tenants, the team is responsible for creating application deployments through DevOps pipelines. It also monitors and manages all security aspects of the tenants and supports Security Operations Centers (SOC).
