Introducing the new File Integrity Monitoring with Defender for Endpoint integration
As the final and most complex piece of this puzzle is the release of File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) powered by Defender for Endpoint, marks a significant milestone in the Defender for Servers simplification journey. The new FIM solution based on Defender for Endpoint offers real-time monitoring on critical file paths and system files, ensuring that any changes indicating a potential attack are detected immediately. In addition, FIM offers built-in support for relevant security regulatory compliance standards, such as PCI-DSS, CIS, NIST, and others, allowing you to maintain compliance.Guidance for handling CVE-2025-31324 using Microsoft Security capabilities
Short Description Recently, a CVSS 10 vulnerability, CVE-2025-31324, affecting the "Visual Composer" component of the SAP NetWeaver application server, has been published, putting organizations at risk. In this blog post, we will show you how to effectively manage this CVE if your organization is affected by it. Exploiting this vulnerability involves sending a malicious POST request to the "/developmentserver/metadatauploader" endpoint of the SAP NetWeaver application server, which allows allow arbitrary file upload and execution. Impact: This vulnerability allows attackers to deploy a webshell and execute arbitrary commands on the SAP server with the same permissions as the SAP service. This specific SAP product is typically used in large organizations, on Linux and Windows servers across on-prem and cloud environments - making the impact of this vulnerability significant. Microsoft have already observed active exploits of this vulnerability in the wild, highlighting the urgency of addressing this issue. Mapping CVE-2025-31324 in Your Organization The first step in managing an incident is to map affected software within your organization’s assets. Using the Vulnerability Page Information on this CVE, including exposed devices and software in your organization, is available from the vulnerability page for CVE-2025-31324. Using Advanced Hunting This query searches software vulnerable to the this CVE and summarizes them by device name, OS version and device ID: DeviceTvmSoftwareVulnerabilities | where CveId == "CVE-2025-31324" | summarize by DeviceName, DeviceId, strcat(OSPlatform, " ", OSVersion), SoftwareName, SoftwareVersion To map the presence of additional, potentially vulnerable SAP NetWeaver servers in your environment, you can use the following Advanced Hunting query: *Results may be incomplete due to reliance on activity data, which means inactive instances of the application - those installed but not currently running, might not be included in the report. DeviceProcessEvents | where (FileName == "disp+work.exe" and ProcessVersionInfoProductName == "SAP NetWeaver") or FileName == "disp+work" | distinct DeviceId, DeviceName, FileName, ProcessVersionInfoProductName, ProcessVersionInfoProductVersion Where available, the ProcessVersionInfoProductVersion field contains the version of the SAP NetWeaver software. Optional: Utilizing software inventory to map devices is advisable even when a CVE hasn’t been officially published or when there’s a specific requirement to upgrade a particular package and version. This query searches for devices that have a vulnerable versions installed (you can use this link to open the query in your environment): DeviceTvmSoftwareInventory | where SoftwareName == "netweaver_application_server_visual_composer" | parse SoftwareVersion with Major:int "." Minor:int "." BuildDate:datetime "." rest:string | extend IsVulnerable = Minor < 5020 or BuildDate < datetime(2025-04-18) | project DeviceId, DeviceName, SoftwareVendor, SoftwareName, SoftwareVersion, IsVulnerable Using a dedicated scanner You can leverage Microsoft’s lightweight scanner to validate if your SAP NetWeaver application is vulnerable. This scanner probes the vulnerable endpoint without actively exploiting it. Recommendations for Mitigation and Best Practices Mitigating risks associated with vulnerabilities requires a combination of proactive measures and real-time defenses. Here are some recommendations: Update NetWeaver to a Non-Vulnerable Version: All NetWeaver 7.x versions are vulnerable. For versions 7.50 and above, support packages SP027 - SP033 have been released and should be installed. Versions 7.40 and below do not receive new support packages and should implement alternative mitigations. JIT (Just-In-Time) Access: Cloud customers using Defender for Servers P2 can utilize our "JIT" feature to protect their environment from unnecessary ports and risks. This feature helps secure your environment by limiting exposure to only the necessary ports. The Microsoft research team has identified common ports that are potential to be used by these components, so you can check or use JIT for these. It is important to mention that JIT can be used for any port, but these are the most common ones. Learn more about the JIT capability Ports commonly used by the vulnerable application as observed by Microsoft: 80, 443, 50000, 50001, 1090, 5000, 8000, 8080, 44300, 44380 Active Exploitations To better support our customers in the event of a breach, we are expanding our detection framework to identify and alert you about the exploitation of this vulnerability across all operating systems (for MDE customers). These detectors, as all Microsoft detections, are also connected to Automatic Attack Disruption, our autonomous protection vehicle. In cases where these alerts, alongside other signals, will allow for high confidence of an ongoing attack, automatic actions will be taken to contain the attack and prevent further progressions of the attack. Coverage and Detections Currently, our solutions support coverage of CVE-2025-31324 for Windows and Linux devices that are onboarded to MDE (in both MDE and MDC subscriptions). To further expand our support, Microsoft Defender Vulnerability management is currently deploying additional detection mechanisms. This blog will be updated with any changes and progress. Conclusion By following these guidelines and utilizing end-to-end integrated Microsoft Security products, organizations can better prepare for, prevent and respond to attacks, ensuring a more secure and resilient environment. While the above process provides a comprehensive approach to protecting your organization, continual monitoring, updating, and adapting to new threats are essential for maintaining robust security.Microsoft Defender for Cloud Customer Newsletter
What's new in Defender for Cloud? Defender for Cloud’s CSPM sensitive scanning capabilities now include Azure files. This feature is in GA. Learn more about it here. File integrity monitoring (FIM) update Staring June 2025, FIM requires a minimum Defender for Endpoint (MDE) client version. For Windows devices, please make sure you have Windows 10.8760 or later and for Linux, 30.124082. For more details, please refer to our documentation. Blogs of the month In December, our team published the following blog posts we would like to share: AKS Security Dashboard Strategy to Execution: Operationalizing Microsoft Defender CSPM MDC Named a Leader in Frost Radar TM for CNAPP for the 2nd Year in a Row! GitHub Community Learn more about MDC and XDR integration by following this lab – module 25. Visit our GitHub page. Defender for Cloud in the field MDC Ignite updates 2024 Cloud detection response (CDR) for Defender for Containers Improvements in Container's posture management Visit our YouTube page! Customer journey Discover how other organizations successfully use Microsoft Defender for Cloud to protect their cloud workloads. This month we are featuring Properstar, a leading real estate platform, partnered with Microsoft to simplify unstructured real estate data and leverage dynamic AI-powered solutions like Azure Open AI to provide relevant search results. Then, they were able to scale up, using Defender for Cloud to implement data protection and regulatory compliance. Security community webinars Join our experts in the upcoming webinars to learn what we are doing to secure your workloads running in Azure and other clouds. Check out our upcoming webinars this month in the link below! I would like to register Watch past webinars We offer several customer connection programs within our private communities. By signing up, you can help us shape our products through activities such as reviewing product roadmaps, participating in co-design, previewing features, and staying up-to-date with announcements. Sign up at aka.ms/JoinCCP. We greatly value your input on the types of content that enhance your understanding of our security products. Your insights are crucial in guiding the development of our future public content. We aim to deliver material that not only educates but also resonates with your daily security challenges. Whether it’s through in-depth live webinars, real-world case studies, comprehensive best practice guides through blogs, or the latest product updates, we want to ensure our content meets your needs. Please submit your feedback on which of these formats do you find most beneficial and are there any specific topics you’re interested in https://aka.ms/PublicContentFeedback. Note: If you want to stay current with Defender for Cloud and receive updates in your inbox, please consider subscribing to our monthly newsletter: https://aka.ms/MDCNewsSubscribeDefender for Endpoint and Defender for Cloud- which dashboard should you use?
Microsoft Defender for Servers is a plan that is part of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. When you enable Microsoft Defender for Servers, you get a range of awesome functionality designed to protect your servers, including file integrity monitoring, adaptive application control, just in time access, among others. One additional capability that comes included with Defender for Servers is Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. See more details about the integrated solution here. Background One advantage of this native integration is the centralization of alerts, in other words, when an alert is triggered by MDE, it will be surfaced in the Microsoft Defender for Cloud / Security Alerts dashboard, as shown below: If you select one alert, you can get more details about it and take action on the alert to start your investigation or remediation of it. You can also click on the link to be brought directly to the Microsoft 365 portal to investigate the alerts there. In addition of appearing in the Security Alerts in Defender for Cloud, it will also appear in the Microsoft 365 Defender Alerts page, as shown the example below: From this dashboard you can perform a deeper investigation of the alert, as shown the example below: Which dashboard should you look at? As you can see, these alerts can be investigated from both dashboards of Microsoft Defender for Servers in the Azure Portal and from Microsoft Defender for Endpoint in Microsoft 365 Defender. So which dashboard should you use? The answer is your choice and lies entirely with how your Information Security Team is consuming the alerts and managing the devices. However, we can give you some guidance on best practises that we have seen to work with many customers. Check out this handy diagram to help you with your dashboard selection! A SIEM is the recommended started point for investigation for all Defender for Cloud alerts (not just those coming from MDE). Note: You might see duplicate alerts in Microsoft Sentinel, coming from Microsoft defender for Cloud and Defender for Endpoint. This is a known behaviour if Defender for Endpoint sensor was onboarded via Defender for Cloud. In the absence of a SIEM and if you’re a general SOC team doing the investigation (not focused on just endpoints), we recommend that you start your investigation of alerts on Microsoft Defender for Cloud, and you can easily go to Microsoft 365 Defender to further your hunt via Defender for Endpoint. On the other hand, if you’re a team who focuses entirely on endpoints who are doing the investigation of the alerts, then you can use just the Microsoft 365 Portal. In summary, you can use whichever dashboard or method you choose to investigate the alerts, but you can decide based on the criteria listed above. Reviewers YuriDiogenes , Principal PM Manager, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Tiander Turpijn , Principal Program Manager, Microsoft Sentinel JeremyTan , Senior Program Manager, Microsoft SentinelAgentless scanning for virtual machines in the cloud – technical deep dive
Over the past three years, a notable shift has unfolded in the realm of cloud security. Increasingly, security vendors are introducing agentless scanning solutions to enhance the protection of their customers. These solutions empower users with visibility into their security posture and the ability to detect threats — all achieved without the need to install any additional software, commonly referred to as an agent, onto their workloads.Microsoft Defender for Cloud - strategy and plan towards Log Analytics Agent (MMA) deprecation
Log Analytics agent (also known as MMA) is on a deprecation path and will be retired in Aug 2024. The purpose of this blogpost is to clarify how Microsoft Defender for Cloud will align with this plan and what is the impact on customers.Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for Linux and Microsoft Defender for Servers
When it comes to protecting servers in hybrid and multicloud environments, Microsoft Defender for Servers as part of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the solution you might be looking for. However, with all the features, dependencies, and complexity, it might become challenging to always make the right decision when planning, integrating, and deploying Defender for Servers across your environment. With this blog, we are focusing on deployment and integration of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint with Microsoft Defender for Servers on Linux machines.Protecting Containers: A Primer for Moving from an EDR-based Threat Approach
Many Security teams are familiar with an EDR-based approach to security. However, container protection within their cloud ecosystem can seem much more challenging and complex. Protecting containers requires an understanding of the complete attack surface that containers expose--whether you are running them using an orchestrator like Kubernetes or locally using Docker. In this article, we will describe the attack surface, how it compares and aligns with the security technologies you might already have, and then make the case for a stronger focus on pre-deployment protections, adding to standard EDR post-deployment detections.
