What's New: SOC Process Framework is Now Live in Content Hub!
I am excited to announce that the SOC Process Framework has been updated and moved into Sentinel's Content Hub for installation across multiple workbooks, watchlists, and the amazing Get-SOCActions Playbook for analyst actions to be taken during Triage and Investigation. When you click on the SOC Process Framework Tile in Content Hub, you will see the Description details, as well as the content associated with the Framework, i.e. (7) Workbooks, (12) Watchlists, (1) Playbook. By clicking on the "Install" button, you will be prompted to follow the on-screen instructions. This Content Hub Solution contains all resources for the SOC Process Framework Microsoft Sentinel Solution. The SOC Process Framework Solution is built in order to easily integrate with Microsoft Sentinel and build a standard SOC Process and Procedure Framework within your Organization. By deploying this solution, you'll be able to monitor progress within your SOC Operations and update the SOC CMMI Assessment Score. This solution consists of the following resources: Integrated workbooks interconnected into a single workbook for single pane of glass operation. One Playbook for pushing SOC Actions to your Incidents. Multiple Watchlists helping you maintain and organize your SOC efforts, including IR Planning, SOC CMMI Assessment Score, and many more. Workbooks The workbooks contained in this solution have visualizations about the SOC Progress, Procedures, and Activity and provides an overview of the overall SOC Maturity. These workbooks and their dependances are deployed for you through this solution. NOTE: Be aware that after you have installed the workbooks, you must save the workbooks and edit the Watchlist Queries and run them, so they initialize for the framework to leverage the applied watchlists. Please use the steps below to initialize the Watchlist Queries. Save Workbook's and Edit Watchlist Queries Step 1. Save and Open the Workbook, "Update SOC Maturity Score". Step 2. Edit Workbook and click the Edit button to open the pills. Step 3. Click the box next to Watchlist. Step 4. Click the pencil icon to open the Settings Context Pane. Step 5. Click the "Run Query" button to execute the query and initialize the link between the workbook and the watchlists. Step 6. Click the "Save" Icon to save these settings. Step 7. Click Done Editing in the Workbook. Step 8. Click the "Save" Icon in the Workbook to save the Workbook. Step 9. Repeat Steps for the Workbooks called out below. Repeat this process for the following Workbooks: Workbook: Update SOC IR Planning Workbook: SOC Process Framework Watchlists The watchlists contained within this solution have information that pertain to Incident Response Planning, the SOC Maturity (CMMI) Scoring, Recommended SOC Actions, and more... All of these watchlists give the customer ease of access to updating pertinent information regarding their SOC Operations and more. Playbooks Currently the only Playbook in this solution is the Get-SOCActions Playbook for delivering custom Analyst Actions to take per Incident. This allows Organizations the ability to create/add their own scripted actions they want an Analyst to take. After deploying this Solution, please see the Post-Deployment Instructions before executing the Playbook. Post-Deployment Instructions After deploying this Solution and its associated playbook, you must authorize the connections leveraged within the Playbook before running. Visit the playbook resource. Under "Development Tools" (located on the left), click "API Connections". Ensure each connection has been authorized. Note: If you've deployed the [SOC Process Framework Playbook](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/Azure-Sentinel/master/Solutions/SOC Process Framework/Playbooks/Get-SOCActions/azuredeploy.json) playbook, you will only need to authorize the Microsoft Sentinel connection. Now that I have covered the installation of this framework, let's get to the content updates that have been made to this solution as a whole that I know you will be excited to learn more about! This solution contains a large number of updates: 4 new workbooks outlining the growth path along the SOC Journey and best practices regarding building a SOC Team. 2 new workbooks that outline both Incident Response Planning and SOC Maturity. 12 new Watchlists from SOC Contacts to IR Planning as well as ~800 questions regarding your SOC Maturity Score. New Content in the SOC Process Framework: SOC Capability Maturity Model Integration Incident response planning SOC RaMP (Rapid Modernization Plan) SOC Part-Time Staff SOC Small Staff SOC Medium Staff SOC Large Staff SOC Framework for Microsoft 365 Defender Planning Readiness Catalog of Services Roles Develop & Test SOC Tasks Investigations Phishing Incident Automation with Shifts for Teams Additional Tools in the SOC Tools and Resources Content API Call outs to update Watchlists without leaving the Framework SOC Maturity Update SOC Incident Response Planning This solution is supported by Microsoft Support and will be updated regularly with new content. We hope you enjoy the new version of the SOC Process Framework and that it will help you to mature your businesses SOC Operations!Create Codeless Connectors with the Codeless Connector Builder (Preview)
Hate JSON templates? Looking to make your own Codeless Connectors for Microsoft Sentinel? You’re in luck. This workbook sets out to create a UI experience for creating Codeless Connectors in order to make it as easy as possible.Automating bulk onboarding of Azure IaaS and PaaS resources into Microsoft Sentinel
The end-to-end guide details the onboarding of Azure IaaS and PaaS resources into Microsoft Sentinel as well as ensuring automatic onboarding of resources created in future. It also includes related built-in as well as custom analytics rules, workbooks, and playbooks.Integrating Fluent Bit with Microsoft Sentinel
This guide will walk you through the steps required to integrate Fluent Bit with Microsoft Sentinel. Beware that in this article, we assume you already have a Sentinel workspace, a Data Collection Endpoint and a Data Collection Rule, an Entra ID application and finally a Fluent Bit installation. As mentioned above, log ingestion API supports ingestion both in custom tables as built-in tables, like CommonSecurityLog, Syslog, WindowsEvent and more. In case you need to check which tables are supported please the following article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/logs/logs-ingestion-api-overview#supported-tables Prerequisites: Before beginning the integration process, ensure you have the following: An active Azure subscription with Microsoft Sentinel enabled; Microsoft Entra ID Application taking note of the ClientID, TenantID and Client Secret – create one check this article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity-platform/quickstart-register-app?tabs=certificate A Data Collection Endpoint (DCE) – to create a data collection endpoint, please check this article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/essentials/data-collection-endpoint-overview?tabs=portal A Data Collection Rule (DCR) – fields from the Data Collection Rule need to match exactly to what exists in table columns and also the fields from the log source. To create a DCR please check this article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/essentials/data-collection-rule-create-edit?tabs=cli Depending on the source, it might require a custom table to be created or an existing table from log analytics workspace; Fluent Bit installed on your server or container – In case you haven’t yet installed Fluent Bit, in the following article you'll find the instructions per type of operating system: https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/installation/getting-started-with-fluent-bit High level architecture: Step 1: Setting up Fluent Big configuration file Before we step-in into the configuration, Fluent Bit has innumerous output plugins and one of those is through Log Analytics Ingestion API both to supported Sentinel tables but also for custom tables. You can check more information about it here in Fluent Bit documentation: https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/pipeline/outputs/azure_logs_ingestion Moving forwarder, in order to configure Fluent Bit to send logs into Sentinel log analytics workspace, please take note of the specific input plugin you are using or intend to use to receive logs and how can you use it to output the logs to Sentinel workspace. For example most of the Fluent Bit plugins allow to set a “tag” key which can be used within the output plugin so that there’s a match in which logs are intended to send. On the other hand, in a scenario where multiple input plugins are used and all are required send logs to Sentinel, then a match of type wildcard "*" could be used as well. Another example, in a scenario where there are multiple input plugins of type “HTTP” and you want to just send a specific one into Sentinel, then the “match” field must be set according to the position of the required input plugin, for example “match http.2”, if the input plugin would the 3 rd in the list of HTTP inputs. If nothing is specified in the "match" field, then it will assume "http.0" by default. For better understanding, here’s an example of how a Fluent Bit config file could look: First, the configuration file is located under the path ”/etc/fluent-bit/fluent-bit.conf” The first part is the definition of all “input plugins”, then follows the “filter plugins” which you can use for example to rename fields from the source to match for what exists within the data collection rule schema and Sentinel table columns and finally there’s the output plugins. Below is a screenshot of a sample config file: INPUT plugins section: In this example we’re going to use the “dummy input” to send sample messages to Sentinel. However, in your scenario you could leverage other’s input plugins within the same config file. After everything is configured in the input section, make sure to complete the “FILTER” section if needed, and then move forward to the output plugin section, screenshot below. OUTPUT plugins section: In this section, we have output plugins to write on a local file based on two tags “dummy.log” and “logger”, an output plugin that prints the outputs in json format and the output plugin responsible for sending data to Microsoft Sentinel. As you can see, this one is matching the “tag” for “dummy.log” where we’ve setup the message “{“Message”:”this is a sample message for testing fluent bit integration to Sentinel”, “Activity”:”fluent bit dummy input plugn”, “DeviceVendor”:”Ubuntu”}. Make sure you insert the correct parameters in the output plugin, in this scenario the "azure_logs_ingestion" plugin. Step 2: Fire Up Fluent Bit When the file is ready to be tested please execute the following: sudo /opt/fluent-bit/bin/fluent-bit -c /etc/fluent-bit/fluent-bit.conf Fluent bit will start initialization all the plugins it has under the config file. Then you’re access token should be retrieved if everything is well setup under the output plugin (app registration details, data collection endpoint URL, data collection rule id, sentinel table and important to make sure the name of the output plugin is actually “azure_logs_ingestion”). In a couple of minutes you should see this data under your Microsoft Sentinel table, either an existing table or a custom table created for the specific log source purpose. Summary Integrating Fluent Bit with Microsoft Sentinel provides a powerful solution for log collection and analysis. By following this guide, hope you can set up a seamless integration that enhances your organization's ability to monitor and respond to security threats, just carefully ensure that all fields processed in Fluent Bit are mapped exactly to the fields in Data Collection Rule and Sentinel table within Log Analytics Workspace. Special thanks to “Bindiya Priyadarshini” that collaborated with me on this blog post. Cheers!
Leveraging CEF with Azure Monitor Agent (AMA) for GCP-Hosted Fortinet Firewall and Syslog Forwarder,
Blog Title: "Leveraging CEF with Azure Monitor Agent (AMA) for GCP-Hosted Fortinet Firewall and Syslog Forwarder, connected via Azure Arc to Stream Fortinet logs to Microsoft Sentinel with Data Collection Rules." Who Will Benefit from This Blog? This blog is tailored to those seeking to set up an integrated Security and Monitoring system using Microsoft tools like Azure Monitor Agent, Azure Arc, and Microsoft Sentinel, with a focus on handling Fortinet logs in CEF format hosted in Other Cloud viz GCP in Blog context. The audience that will benefit from this blog includes IT professionals, cloud administrators, security experts, and anyone responsible for managing and monitoring cloud infrastructure, particularly in multi-cloud environments.Microsoft Sentinel for SAP Agentless connector GA
Dear Community, Today is the day: Our new agentless connector for Microsoft Sentinel Solution for SAP applications is Generally Available now! Fully onboarded to SAP’s official Business Accelerator Hub and ready for prime time wherever your SAP systems are waiting – on-premises, hyperscalers, RISE, or GROW – to be protected. Let’s hear from an agentless customer: “With the Microsoft Sentinel Solution for SAP and its new agentless connector, we accelerated deployment across our SAP landscape without the complexity of containerized agents. This streamlined approach elevated our SOC’s visibility into SAP security events, strengthened our compliance posture, and enabled faster, more informed incident response” SOC Specialist, North American aviation company Use the video below to kick off your own agentless deployment today. #Kudos to the amazing mvigilante for showing us around the new connector! But we didn’t stop there! Security is being reengineered for the AI era - moving from static, rule-based controls to platform-driven, machine-speed defence that anticipates threats before they strike. Attackers think in graphs - Microsoft does too. We’re bringing relationship-aware context to Microsoft Security - so defenders and AI can see connections, understand the impact of a potential compromise (blast radius), and act faster across pre-breach and post-breach scenarios including SAP systems - your crown jewels. See it in action in below phishing-compromise which lead to an SAP login bypassing MFA with followed operating-system activities on the SAP host downloading trojan software. Enjoy this clickable experience for more details on the scenario. Shows how a phishing compromise escalated to an SAP MFA bypass, highlighting cross-domain correlation. The Sentinel Solution for SAP has AI-first in mind and directly integrates with our security platform on the Defender portal for enterprise-wide signal correlation, Security Copilot reasoning, and Sentinel Data Lake usage. Your real-time SAP detections operate on the Analytics tier for instant results and threat hunting, while the same SAP logs get mirrored to the lake for cost-efficient long-term storage (up to 12 years). Access that data for compliance reporting or historic analysis through KQL jobs on the lake. No more – yeah, I have the data stored somewhere to tick the audit report check box – but be able to query and use your SAP telemetry in long term storage at scale. Learn more here. Findings from the Agentless Connector preview During our preview we learned that majority of customers immediately profit from the far smoother onboarding experience compared to the Docker-based approach. Deployment efforts and time to first SAP log arrival in Sentinel went from days and weeks to hours. ⚠️ Deprecation notice for containerized data connector agent ⚠️ The containerised SAP data connector will be deprecated on 30 September 2026. This change aligns with the discontinuation of the SAP RFC SDK, SAP's strategic integration roadmap, and customer demand for simpler integration. Migrate to the new agentless connector for simplified onboarding and compliance with SAP’s roadmap. All new deployments starting October 31, 2025, will only have the new agentless connector option, and existing customers should plan their migration using the guidance on Microsoft Learn. It will be billed at the same price as the containerized agent, ensuring no cost impact for customers. Note📌: To support transition for those of you on the Docker-based data connector, we have enhanced our built-in KQL functions for SAP to work across data sources for hybrid and parallel execution. Spotlight on new Features Inspired by the feedback of early adopters we are shipping two of the most requested new capabilities with GA right away. Customizable polling frequency: Balance threat detection value (1min intervals best value) with utilization of SAP Integration Suite resources based on your needs. ⚠️Warning! Increasing the intervals may result in message processing truncation to avoid SAP CPI saturation. See this blog for more insights. Refer to the max-rows parameter and SAP documentation to make informed decisions. Customizable API endpoint path suffix: Flexible endpoints allow running all your SAP security integration flows from the agentless connector and adherence to your naming strategies. Furthermore, you can add the community extensions like SAP S/4HANA Cloud public edition (GROW), the SAP Table Reader, and more. Displays the simplified onboarding flow for the agentless SAP connector You want more? Here is your chance to share additional feature requests to influence our backlog. We would like to hear from you! Getting Started with Agentless The new agentless connector automatically appears in your environment – make sure to upgrade to the latest version 3.4.05 or higher. Sentinel Content Hub View: Highlights the agentless SAP connector tile in Microsoft Defender portal, ready for one-click deployment and integration with your security platform The deployment experience on Sentinel is fully automatic with a single button click: It creates the Azure Data Collection Endpoint (DCE), Data Collection Rule (DCR), and Microsoft Entra ID app registration assigned with RBAC role "Monitoring Metrics Publisher" on the DCR to allow SAP log ingest. Explore partner add-ons that build on top of agentless The ISV partner ecosystem for the Microsoft Sentinel Solution for SAP is growing to tailor the agentless offering even further. The current cohort has flagship providers like our co-engineering partner SAP SE themselves with their security products SAP LogServ & SAP Enterprise Threat Detection (ETD), and our mutual partners Onapsis and SecurityBridge. Ready to go agentless? ➤ Get started from here ➤ Explore partner add-ons here. ➤ Share feature requests here. Next Steps Once deployed, I recommend to check AryaG’s insightful blog series for details on how to move to production with the built-in SAP content of agentless. Looking to expand protection to SAP Business Technology Platform? Here you go. #Kudos to the amazing Sentinel for SAP team and our incredible community contributors! That's a wrap 🎬. Remember: bringing SAP under the protection of your central SIEM isn't just a checkbox - it's essential for comprehensive security and compliance across your entire IT estate. Cheers, MartinGo agentless with Microsoft Sentinel Solution for SAP
What a title during Agentic AI times 😂 📢UPDATE: Agentless reached GA! See details here. Dear community, Bringing SAP workloads under the protection of your SIEM solution is a primary concern for many customers out there. The window for defenders is small “Critical SAP vulnerabilities being weaponized in less than 72 hours of a patch release and new unprotected SAP applications provisioned in cloud (IaaS) environments being discovered and compromised in less than three hours.” (SAP SE + Onapsis, Apr 6 2024) Having a turn-key solution as much as possible leads to better adoption of SAP security. Agent-based solutions running in Docker containers, Kubernetes, or other self-hosted environemnts are not for everyone. Microsoft Sentinel for SAP’s latest new capability re-uses the SAP Cloud Connector to profit from already existing setups, established integration processes, and well-understood SAP components. Meet agentless ❌🤖 The new integration path leverages SAP Integration Suite to connect Microsoft Sentinel with your SAP systems. The Cloud integration capability of SAP Integration Suite speaks all relevant protocols, has connectivity into all the places where your SAP systems might live, is strategic for most SAP customers, and is fully SAP RISE compatible by design. Are you deployed on SAP Business Technology Platform yet? Simply upload our Sentinel for SAP integration package (see bottom box in below image) to your SAP Cloud Integration instance, configure it for your environment, and off you go. Best of all: The already existing SAP security content (detections, workbooks, and playbooks) in Microsoft Sentinel continues to function the same way as it does for the Docker-based collector agent variant. The integration marks your steppingstone to bring your SAP threat signals into the Unified Security Operations Platform – a combination of Defender XDR and Sentinel – that looks beyond SAP at your whole IT estate. Microsoft Sentinel solution for SAP applications is certified for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Private Edition RISE with SAP, and SAP S/4HANA on-premises. So, you are all good to go😎 You are already dockerized or agentless? Then proceed to this post to learn more about what to do once the SAP logs arrived in Sentinel. Final Words During the preview we saw drastically reduced deployment times for SAP customers being less familiar with Docker, Kubernetes and Linux administration. Cherry on the cake: the network challenges don’t have to be tackled again. The colleagues running your SAP Cloud Connector went through that process a long time ago. SAP Basis rocks 🤘 Get started from here on Microsoft Learn. Find more details on our blog on the SAP Community. Cheers MartinMicrosoft Sentinel & Cyberint Threat Intel Integration Guide
Explore comprehensive guide on "Microsoft Sentinel & Cyberint Threat Intel Integration Guide," to learn how to integrate Cyberint's advanced threat intelligence with Microsoft Sentinel. This detailed resource will walk you through the integration process, enabling you to leverage enriched threat data for improved detection and response. Elevate your security posture and ensure robust protection against emerging threats. Read the guide to streamline your threat management and enhance your security capabilities.
