How does Defender for Cloud collect data?

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Defender for Cloud collects data from your Azure virtual machines (VMs), Virtual Machine Scale Sets, IaaS containers, and non-Azure (including on-premises) machines to monitor for security vulnerabilities and threats. Some Defender plans require monitoring components to collect data from your workloads.

Data collection is required to provide visibility into missing updates, misconfigured OS security settings, endpoint protection status, and health and threat protection. Data collection is only needed for compute resources such as VMs, Virtual Machine Scale Sets, IaaS containers, and non-Azure computers.

You can benefit from Microsoft Defender for Cloud even if you don’t provision agents. However, you'll have limited security and the capabilities listed aren't supported.

Data is collected using:

Why use Defender for Cloud to deploy monitoring components?

Visibility into the security of your workloads depends on the data that the monitoring components collect. The components ensure security coverage for all supported resources.

To save you the process of manually installing the extensions, Defender for Cloud reduces management overhead by installing all required extensions on existing and new machines. Defender for Cloud assigns the appropriate Deploy if not exists policy to the workloads in the subscription. This policy type ensures the extension is provisioned on all existing and future resources of that type.

Tip

Learn more about Azure Policy effects, including Deploy if not exists, in Understand Azure Policy effects.

What plans use monitoring components?

These plans use monitoring components to collect data:

Availability of extensions

The Azure Preview Supplemental Terms include additional legal terms that apply to Azure features that are in beta, preview, or otherwise not yet released into general availability.

Log Analytics agent

Aspect Azure virtual machines Azure Arc-enabled machines
Release state: Generally available (GA) Generally available (GA)
Relevant Defender plan: Foundational Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) for agent-based security recommendations
Microsoft Defender for Servers
Microsoft Defender for SQL		 Foundational Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) for agent-based security recommendations
Microsoft Defender for Servers
Microsoft Defender for SQL
Required roles and permissions (subscription-level): Owner Owner
Supported destinations: Azure virtual machines Azure Arc-enabled machines
Policy-based: No Yes
Clouds: Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet

Supported operating systems for the Log Analytics agent

Defender for Cloud depends on the Log Analytics agent. Ensure your machines are running one of the supported operating systems for this agent as described on the following pages:

Also ensure your Log Analytics agent is properly configured to send data to Defender for Cloud.

Deploying the Log Analytics agent in cases of a pre-existing agent installation

The following use cases explain how deployment of the Log Analytics agent works in cases when there's already an agent or extension installed.

  • Log Analytics agent is installed on the machine, but not as an extension (Direct agent) - If the Log Analytics agent is installed directly on the VM (not as an Azure extension), Defender for Cloud will install the Log Analytics agent extension and might upgrade the Log Analytics agent to the latest version. The installed agent will continue to report to its already configured workspaces and to the workspace configured in Defender for Cloud. (Multi-homing is supported on Windows machines.)

    If the Log Analytics is configured with a user workspace and not Defender for Cloud's default workspace, you'll need to install the "Security" or "SecurityCenterFree" solution on it for Defender for Cloud to start processing events from VMs and computers reporting to that workspace.

    For Linux machines, Agent multi-homing isn't yet supported. If an existing agent installation is detected, the Log Analytics agent won't be deployed.

    For existing machines on subscriptions onboarded to Defender for Cloud before 17 March 2019, when an existing agent will be detected, the Log Analytics agent extension won't be installed and the machine won't be affected. For these machines, see to the "Resolve monitoring agent health issues on your machines" recommendation to resolve the agent installation issues on these machines.

  • System Center Operations Manager agent is installed on the machine - Defender for Cloud will install the Log Analytics agent extension side by side to the existing Operations Manager. The existing Operations Manager agent will continue to report to the Operations Manager server normally. The Operations Manager agent and Log Analytics agent share common run-time libraries, which will be updated to the latest version during this process.

  • A pre-existing VM extension is present:

    • When the Monitoring Agent is installed as an extension, the extension configuration allows reporting to only a single workspace. Defender for Cloud doesn't override existing connections to user workspaces. Defender for Cloud will store security data from the VM in the workspace already connected, if the "Security" or "SecurityCenterFree" solution was installed on it. Defender for Cloud might upgrade the extension version to the latest version in this process.
    • To see to which workspace the existing extension is sending data to, run the TestCloudConnection.exe tool to validate connectivity with Microsoft Defender for Cloud, as described in Verify Log Analytics agent connectivity. Alternatively, you can open Log Analytics workspaces, select a workspace, select the VM, and look at the Log Analytics agent connection.
    • If you have an environment where the Log Analytics agent is installed on client workstations and reporting to an existing Log Analytics workspace, review the list of operating systems supported by Microsoft Defender for Cloud to make sure your operating system is supported.

Learn more about working with the Log Analytics agent.

Defender for Containers extensions

This table shows the availability details for the components required by the protections offered by Microsoft Defender for Containers.

By default, the required extensions are enabled when you enable Defender for Containers from the Azure portal.

Aspect Azure Kubernetes Service clusters Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters
Release state: • Defender sensor: GA
• Azure Policy for Kubernetes: Generally available (GA)		 • Defender sensor: Preview
• Azure Policy for Kubernetes: Preview
Relevant Defender plan: Microsoft Defender for Containers Microsoft Defender for Containers
Required roles and permissions (subscription-level): Owner or User Access Administrator Owner or User Access Administrator
Supported destinations: The AKS Defender sensor only supports AKS clusters that have RBAC enabled.
Policy-based: Yes Yes
Clouds: Defender sensor:
Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet
Azure Policy for Kubernetes:
Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet		 Defender sensor:
Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet
Azure Policy for Kubernetes:
Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet

Learn more about the roles used to provision Defender for Containers extensions.

Troubleshooting

Next steps

This page explained what monitoring components are and how to enable them.

Learn more about: