Microsoft releases Defender for Azure Cosmos DB in preview

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Microsoft Defender for Cloud users can access an early preview of Defender for Azure Cosmos DB, Microsoft announced on Tuesday.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud helps organizations identify and address weak points in their cloud infrastructure through cloud workload protection (CWP) and cloud security posture management (CSPM), the company said.

Defender for Azure Cosmos DB support has now been added to Microsoft Defender for Cloud, allowing for centralized management of database security across multiple cloud environments.

“Databases are constantly evolving to handle new use cases, incorporate more intelligence, and store more data, giving developers and organizations a wide range of database types to meet their varying needs,” commented Inbal Argov, senior product manager of Microsoft Defender for Cloud.

Screen shot showing new tools in Microsoft's Defender for Azure that help prevent SQL injection attacks

“Because aspects including architecture, capabilities, configuration options, and authentication methods are unique to each database type, so are the security threats—requiring custom security measures and protection capabilities to address the most common threats across databases,” added Argov.

The new Defender for Azure Cosmos DB proactively monitors Azure Cosmos DB accounts and protects them from a range of attack vectors, including attacks made from the application layer, SQL injections, unusual access patterns, compromised identities, and malicious insiders.

Threat detections are made using Microsoft Threat Intelligence, the Microsoft Defender SQL query analysis engine, and the Microsoft Defender behavioral models.

A fully managed NoSQL database, Azure Cosmos DB also helps facilitate non-relational data models with multiple SDKs and APIs, ultra-fast response times, and instant scalability.

The service can be enabled at either the subscription level or the resource level.