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Security in information technology has always been a topic of discussion, one that comes with various backgrounds, tools, responsibilities, education, and change! The SC-200 exam comprises a wide range of topics that introduce Microsoft technologies and general operations for security analysts in enterprises. This book is a comprehensive guide that covers the usefulness and applicability of Microsoft Security Stack in the daily activities of an enterprise security operations analyst.
Starting with a quick overview of what it takes to prepare for the exam, you'll understand how to implement the learning in real-world scenarios. You'll learn to use Microsoft's security stack, including Microsoft 365 Defender, and Microsoft Sentinel, to detect, protect, and respond to adversary threats in your enterprise. This book will take you from legacy on-premises SOC and DFIR tools to leveraging all aspects of the M365 Defender suite as a modern replacement in a more effective and efficient way.
By the end of this book, you'll have learned how to plan, deploy, and operationalize Microsoft's security stack in your enterprise and gained the confidence to pass the SC-200 exam.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
Manage, monitor, and respond to threats using Microsoft Security Stack for securing IT systems
Trevor Stuart
Joe Anich
BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI
Copyright © 2022 Packt Publishing
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I want to dedicate this book to the love of my life, Iveth. Thank you for always supporting me, encouraging me, and allowing me to live out my dreams. Most of all, thank you for your love!
– Trevor Stuart
I want to dedicate this book to the boys, John, Jeff, Trent, and Bgriz. John, hoping you can read by the time this comes out, it'll be so exciting!
– Joe Anich
Trevor Stuart has over 15 years of experience in IT. He started with SMS and Active Directory and maintained exposure in the field through various naming changes and technical additions. Trevor has a passion for IT but more so for cybersecurity. Trevor swiftly moved into cybersecurity and focused on securing privileged access, hardening operating systems, implementing tiering within AD, tying identities to modern authentication mechanisms, scaling out identities to the hybrid world, carrying out application migration in a secure manner in Azure, and leveraging built-in security controls in multiple clouds and platforms to secure workloads. Trevor is a technology enthusiast at heart and the world of cybersecurity lights the fire of passion inside of him.
Joe Anich has 13 years of experience in the IT industry ranging from endpoint management with a focus on Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM, formerly SCCM) and Intune to endpoint security and incident response. As Joe dug deeper into security, he realized where his passion resided, and that was in incident response working with the Microsoft Detection and Response Team (DART). Working in incident response has given Joe insight into SOC operations and how to help teams around the world improve their security posture within the Microsoft 365 security stack. Outside of IR, he is in constant pursuit of continued education, whether that be SANS courses such as the GCED or GCFA or internal threat hunting training.
Nitish Anand, CISSP, is a cybersecurity analyst at Microsoft. Nitish has been actively working in the cybersecurity domain for the past 7 years, primarily in a Security Operations Center. His career in cybersecurity began at Wipro Technologies working in the financial domain as a security analyst, and then working with Value Labs LLP for one of the healthcare clients. For the last 3 years, Nitish has been working for Microsoft and has focused primarily on SIEM use case development and tuning and malware and phishing analysis. Nitish received his bachelor's degree in computer science and engineering in 2014 from Cochin University, Kochi. He holds CCNA, ITIL, CEH, and other security certifications. In his free time, he loves photography and traveling.
Rafik Gerges is a highly successful security and compliance professional, with 12 years of experience in cybersecurity and compliance. He holds an information risk management master's degree, in addition to a machine learning diploma and 30+ international certifications.
Rafik has successfully created new IPs, product enhancement, and readiness and go-to-market materials, led consulting teams, and much more.
Besides being an innovative engineer, Rafik spends his free time working out at the gym, practicing boxing, being his own mechanic, and hanging out with friends.
Chris Smith spent 8 years in the United States Marine Corps serving in all disciplines of IT, including system administration, network administration, and defensive cyber operations. Upon discharge from the Marine Corps, Chris joined Microsoft and now supports organizations through their security journey. He has since developed skillsets in Azure, Microsoft 365, security operations, and incident response. Using these skills, Chris assists organizations in the deployment and operation of tools such as Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Identity, and Defender for Cloud.
My greatest thanks to the authors of this book and the Packt team for affording me the opportunity to help develop this content.
This book covers in detail all the objectives of the SC-200: Microsoft Security Operations Analyst exam. It offers a blend of theory and practical examples that will help you not only pass this exam but also implement the knowledge in real-world scenarios.
This SC-series prep book is meant for current or future IT professionals who seek to pass the Microsoft SC-200 exam, but most importantly want to know more about how the Microsoft SC-200 exam and the Microsoft security stack aid in the successful mitigation and threat hunting activities that are required of a security analyst every day!
Chapter 1, Preparing for the Microsoft Exam and SC-200 Objectives, gets you started in your preparation for the exam.
Chapter 2, The Evolution of Security and Security Operations, provides a brief history of the evolution of SOC operations.
Chapter 3, Implementing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, covers working through Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) deployments.
Chapter 4, Implementing Microsoft Defender for Identity, covers working through Microsoft Defender for Identity (MDI) deployments.
Chapter 5, Understanding and Implementing Microsoft Defender for Cloud (Microsoft Defender for Cloud Standard Tier), covers working through the setup and configuration of Defender for Cloud deployments.
Chapter 6, An Overview: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Alerts, Incidents, Evidence, and Dashboards, provides a walk-through of alerts in the M365D portal.
Chapter 7, Microsoft Defender for Identity: Alerts and Incidents, provides a walk-through of alerts in the M365D portal.
Chapter 8, Microsoft Defender for Office: Threats to Productivity, provides a walk-through of alerts in the M365D portal.
Chapter 9, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and Protecting your Cloud Apps, provides a walk-through of alerts in the M365D portal.
Chapter 10, Setting Up and Configuring Microsoft Sentinel, provides a walk-through of alerts in the Sentinel portal.
Chapter 11, Advanced Threat Hunting, Microsoft 365 Defender Portal, and Sentinel, provides a walk-through of KQL, queries, and basic threat hunting skills.
Chapter 12, Knowledge Check, provides a knowledge check.
To get the most of out this book, come with some prior knowledge of the following:
MITRE ATT&CK frameworkSecurity monitoring Security engineeringLog Analytics (Azure)Level 50-100 knowledge of Microsoft security technologies, including the following:Microsoft Defender for EndpointMicrosoft Defender for IdentityMicrosoft Defender for Office 365Microsoft Defender for Cloud AppsMicrosoft Defender for CloudMicrosoft SentinelYou should also currently be, or aspire to be, working in a security analyst role.
It is important to note that in November 21 some Microsoft Security Services have been renamed. These are renamed as follows:
Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS) is now called Microsoft Defender for Cloud AppsSystem Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) is now called Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM) Azure Sentinel is now called Microsoft SentinelAzure defender is now Microsoft Defender for Cloud Azure Security Center is now called Microsoft Defender for CloudPlaybook is now called Workflow automationWe also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781803231891_ColorImages.pdf.
There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.
Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "To configure the host side of the network, you need the tunctl command from the User Mode Linux (UML) project."
A block of code is set as follows:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
printf ("Hello, world!\n");
return 0;
}
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
$ sudo tunctl -u $(whoami) -t tap0
Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Click Flash from Etcher to write the image."
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Section 1 will give you an understanding of the exam, as well as providing evolutionary context to how security operations have changed over time.
This part of the book comprises the following chapters:
Chapter 1, Preparing for the Microsoft Exam and SC-200 ObjectivesChapter 2, The Evolution of Security and Security OperationsWelcome to Microsoft SC-200 Exam Prep and Beyond and Chapter 1, Preparing for Your Microsoft Exam and SC-200 Objectives. This chapter is dedicated to ensuring that you are ready for the Microsoft SC-200 exam and that you fully understand the objectives, along with how they apply in the real world. It's one thing to pass an exam but a whole other thing to apply exam topics to your day-to-day job. Let's get into it!
In both traditional and modern enterprises, the Microsoft security operations analyst is the key pivot point and collaborator with both individual contributors and enterprise stakeholders. This role in most organizations has one goal in mind – to protect against, secure against, detect, and respond to threats present in an enterprise as expeditiously as possible. They are responsible for reducing organizational risk by rapidly remediating active attacks in the environment, advising on improvements to threat protection practices, and referring violations of organizational policies to appropriate teams and stakeholders. Historically, this level of responsibility came with a lot of tooling, alert fatigue, manual or human interaction in investigations, and so on.
What we hope to make clear is that there has been a massive evolution of security operations for most enterprises. Tooling has changed, and the power of the cloud has added great value to tools that Security Operations Team (SOC) analysts are required to use day to day to successfully deliver in the Microsoft security operations analyst position for enterprises today.
This chapter will cover the following topics to get us started:
Preparing for a Microsoft examIntroducing the resources available and accessing Microsoft LearnCreating a Microsoft demo tenantIt is important to note that in November 21 some Microsoft Security Services have been renamed. These are renamed as follows:
Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS) is now called Microsoft Defender for Cloud AppsSystem Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) is now called Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM) Azure Sentinel is now called Microsoft Sentinel Azure defender is now Microsoft Defender for Cloud Azure Security Center is now called Microsoft Defender for CloudPlaybook is now called Workflow automationIn order to proceed with this chapter, you need to have the following requirements ready:
Full understanding of Defender for Endpoint, from onboarding and configuring endpoints to investigating alerts.Understanding of Microsoft 365 Defender with identity protection, Defender for Office, Defender for Identity, Defender for Cloud Apps to DLP, and insider risk.Microsoft Defender for Cloud: Be familiar with Azure services that can be protected.Configuring Sentinel, connecting logs, handling detections, investigations, and threat hunting.Kusto Query Language (KQL).When preparing for a Microsoft exam, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, Microsoft always provides the Skills measured section on the exam page, which will list everything in play for assessment during the exam. In this Skills measured outline, it will also give an estimate of what percentage of the exam will be about that subject. In our experience, those are usually spot on, so it's worth noting that if you're lacking in some of the bigger sections, spend more time studying and practicing in the lab on those subjects.
Another thing worth mentioning is that a lot of the sections mentioned in this Skills measured outline will align with the modules for the SC-200 learning path, so if you incorporate that into your training, you'll find it easy to ramp up in the section of the outline you're looking for. I'll talk more about the learning path modules in the next section. If you're curious about learning more outside of the module links provided on the exam page, go to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/ and search for more topics of interest.
Generally, when I prepare for these exams, I'm looking at all resources available, whether that be the product documentation, learning path modules, or testing things out in a lab, with the lab being the most important to me, as that seems to stick out more. We'll cover setting up labs for testing in later sections.
Once you're settled on preparation for the exam, it becomes a lot clearer when considering the resources available, which we will cover in the next section. So, for now, let's focus on diving into what's laid out for us!
When looking at training or studying resources, Microsoft does a great job of giving you structure as it pertains to the exams. The following is the list we're focusing on for resources, starting with the learning paths on the exam page:
The learning path for the SC-200 exam: https://aka.ms/LearnSC200.Search for the Docs page that aligns with Skills measured: Docs.microsoft.com.The Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Evaluation lab: https://aka.ms/MDEEvaluation.When looking into everything available to begin your journey toward taking the SC-200 exam, as well as learning the skills needed to be successful in your career as a SOC analyst specializing in the M365 security stack, it's important to know that it takes time. There is a lot of content for all the features available; therefore, it's beneficial to take your time to pick it all up.
For me, I always start in the order of the bullet list provided at the start of this section, and I'll explain why. I like to go through the learning paths and listen to the content laid out for me. There are some basic knowledge checks to ensure that you're getting the information down. If there are items in the modules that I'm either stuck on or just want additional information on, I start looking for the Docs page that aligns. Once I've completed the learning path, I'll start setting up a lab and essentially starting in the order outlined in the exam.
In the next sections, I will summarize some of the larger portions of the learning paths, as they're critical to ensure that you learn, for both the exam and tasks that you may encounter in your career. As for the third bullet point in the list, we'll discuss that in the next topic of this chapter after learning a little more about what the learning path has to offer!
We will start with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE), Microsoft's endpoint detection and response platform. Having a basic understanding of this platform will be critical for success, which includes understanding how to create the Defender for Endpoint environment, onboard endpoints to be monitored, and configuring the various settings. So, for example, you will need to be familiar with the rights needed to access the https://securitycenter.windows.com portal for the first time and go through the wizard that guides you through your initial configuration.
Beyond setting up the tenant, you will need to know onboarding devices in your environment quite well. You will want to understand the various operating systems in your environment to ensure they are supported, addressing any down-level devices that may no longer be supported. Make notes, as there are numerous configuration differences as you move down-level, whether that be the type of onboarding method or the state of Microsoft Defender Antivirus, especially if you are running any third-party antivirus software. We will cover that in more depth later in the book.
In Figure 1.1, you can see an example of the onboarding page for MDE, where you'll select the different operating systems and deployment methods. You'll notice that as you change the OS or deployment methods, you're presented with different packages or information to help with onboarding the sensor. Along with this, a command you can run in Command Prompt to throw a test alert is available. This is really just an easy test to see that the sensor is reporting back properly:
Figure 1.1 – Endpoint onboarding
As you onboard your devices, you will want to start defining who can access what device pages and take what actions on those devices. At this point, understanding Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) will be important, as that will help ensure the various roles in your SOC have the right access to perform their job. Creating your device groups will also be extremely critical to ensure that you have the proper remediation settings for your subsets of devices, as you will be applying different auto-remediation settings to different device groups.
The last topic to familiarize yourself with during that initial tenant setup and device onboarding will be configuring the advanced features. Here, you will switch settings on and off depending on what you want to light up in the environment. These include features such as integration with Microsoft Defender for Identity, Cloud App Security, Azure Information Protection, Secure Score, and Intune.
Being able to detect, investigate, and respond to threats in your environment will be at the forefront of your thinking.
When focusing on the other aspects of Microsoft 365 Defender, you will need to know about protections such as Identity Protection within Azure AD. This means understanding how to configure Azure AD Identity Protection policies such as sign-in risk and user risk, as well as investigating and remediating risks detected by the policies you have put into place.
Another aspect of the Microsoft 365 Defender umbrella is Microsoft Defender for Office (MDO) 365, the set of protections that help safeguard your organization against malware and viruses as they come in through email or malicious links. With MDO, you will need to understand how to configure various policies such as Safe Links or Safe Attachments, as well as policies such as anti-malware, anti-phishing, and anti-spam.
Continuing down the list of capabilities within Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Defender for Identity (MDI) will be especially important to know; I would say more so for real-world skills, as the exam will not go very deep into it. We will cover MDI in much more depth later in the book, as we feel it is one of the, if not the, most important security tools in the suite. For the exam though, have a good understanding of configuring the sensors on your servers, reviewing alerts in the portal, and how MDI integrates into other tools such as Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.
Next up is Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (MDCA), which we alluded to earlier in the chapter. With MDCA, you will want to have a good understanding of the cloud app security framework, how to explore apps that are discovered within Cloud Discovery, how to protect your data and apps with Conditional Access with App Control policies, classifying and protecting sensitive information, and detecting threats.
Lastly, we need to know about Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and insider risk. Being able to understand and describe the different data loss prevention components in Microsoft 365, such as investigating DLP alerts in the compliance center (a dedicated DLP dashboard), as well as within Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps where you'll see file policy violation alerts if you have file policies created, will be necessary.
When it comes to insider risk, you will need to be able to understand and explain how to use insider risk management with the Microsoft 365 framework to prevent, detect, and contain internal risks. This will help with scenario-based questions where you need to choose solutions that meet the need. Most of these things we can do with pre-defined policy templates and insider risk policies. With those, knowing and understanding the types of actions you can take on cases within risk management cases will be good to know.
Microsoft Defender will be one of the lengthier sections, primarily because you need to understand a good chunk of the Azure services that can be protected. Starting with Microsoft Defender for Cloud, which will be the primary portal for Microsoft Defender for Cloud, you will learn to assess your environment and understand the resources you have that need protection. The integrations available make it quite easy to see the risk and take action to bring that workload into a protected state. Beyond connecting workloads, Azure assets, and non-Azure resources, you will need to understand remediating security alerts within Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
Microsoft Sentinel is Microsoft's cloud-native Security Information and Events Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) solution. While it is new in the SIEM space, it has quickly gained much traction within the cybersecurity space due to its scalability, cost benefits as compared to traditional on-premises SIEMS (such as SPLUNK), and its quick integration capabilities to existing systems.
Microsoft Sentinel topics end up being about 20% of the SC-200 exam from a content perspective, and due to that, be prepared to cover the following topics – we will dive a bit deeper than the requirements to merely pass this section of the exam so that you are prepared to immediately apply the knowledge in your enterprise today.
Topics covered in KQL and data analysis are as follows:
Begin understanding KQL statement structure: This will be a critical item to begin to know. The main way a Microsoft security operations analyst will begin threat hunting and creating automation will be backed by KQL.Begin understanding results from KQL: This will be another high-priority item to begin to know. It is one thing for a Microsoft security operations analyst to create KQL statements, but being able to confidently understand results will make or break automation and dispositions on threats.Begin to understand how to build multi-table statements using KQL: As we move from basic queries and basic resultant sets of data, we will take it one step further and begin sharing information on how to build multi-table statements using KQL. As a Microsoft security operations analyst, you will find this extremely useful in your day-to-day threat hunting and dashboard building.Begin working with data in Microsoft Sentinel using KQL: Once we have covered the preceding topics, we will move into data manipulation and management. This will be another highly necessary skill set to possess as a Microsoft security operations analyst. We will begin extracting data from structured and unstructured string fields, integrating external data, and creating parsers with functions. Soon, you will see the true power you have at your fingertips using Microsoft Sentinel as your SIEM and SOAR solution.Topics covered in Setup and configuration are as follows:
Create and manage Microsoft Sentinel workspaces: One of the first things the Microsoft security operations analyst will have to decide will be the overall SIEM architecture with Microsoft Sentinel. Will you use one or many workspaces to fuel the data? How will you manage RBAC? What about your cross-workspace queries? Will logging and alerting be centralized? Decentralized? We will look in depth at the options and best practices accordingly.Query logs in Microsoft Sentinel: As a Microsoft security operations analyst, you must be able to understand how to query data, tables, and