Deployment (Part 3)

By Ashwin Venugopal -

 






To read part 1, please click here
To read part 2, please click here





Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA)

MMA is used across multiple Microsoft solutions and has undergone a few name changes as its features and functionality have evolved. If it is being considered to be used, then following areas should be covered during a Microsoft Sentinel deployment project:
  • Consider the timelines and the strategy for a migration to AMA (Azure Monitor Agent) before the MMA end-of-life. 
  • Consider the central deployment and management methodology for MMA.
  • Determine which endpoints are in scope for deployment as these affect the log ingestion volume significantly. 

Azure Monitor Agent (AMA)

Organizations with MMA as the main Microsoft Sentinel agent should start planning the migration to AMA as soon as possible to avoid a rushed migration. One of the main advantages of AMA is the ability to control the log collection policy centrally and apply different policies against different groups of computers, regardless if they are Azure VMs, on-premises servers or VMs in third-party cloud platforms like AWS and GCP. 

AMA is supported on both Windows and Linux OS (MMA was used only on Windows, with the OMS agent acting as its counterpart on Linux). AMA allows increased granularity of the types of log collected and multi-homing-AMA offers the ability to implement multiple log collection options for each of them. These two options combined enables the ability to split the stream of log data, with the critical sent to Microsoft Sentinel for real-time monitoring, while less important log can be sent to a more cost effective storage option.

Deploying the AMA on Linux allows for the collection of any syslog message or local logs that follow a consistent naming convention. Any Linux agent with AMA installed can act as a syslog collector for remote syslog log sources.

Deploying Syslog Collector

For remote syslog log collection, Microsoft Sentinel requires a syslog server with Linux rsyslog or syslog-ng syslog servers with rsyslog as the most common choice. The server can be deployed on-premises, as a VM or physical server - or as a VM in Azure or other cloud environments. Its main requirement is to provide routing and connectivity from the log sources that need to send syslog data. 

The hardware requirements for the syslog collector depend on the expected logging volume. Generally, syslog collector will simply receive the logs and forward them to Microsoft Sentinel. It is used to receive both plain syslog logs and CEF, but, the same facility should not be used by both CEF and non-CEF log sources. 

Conclusion

This part discuss about MMA, AMA, and syslog collector. 







To read part 1, please click here
To read part 2, please click here
















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Project Resourcing (Part 2)

By Ashwin Venugopal -
Image
  To read part 1, please click  here Engineering - SIEM The SIEM engineers configures Microsoft Sentinel, including Log Analytics, Logic Apps, workbooks, and playbooks. They are also responsible for the following high-level tasks: Initial configuration of Azure tenant, including provisioning required resources, assigning access roles, and configuring workspace parameters like log retention, resource tagging, and blueprints.  Deployment and configuration of syslog/CEF log collection agents in appropriate locations to collect logs from on-premises devices. Generally, it will be joint effort of both system engineer and SIEM engineer, involving configuration and potential troubleshooting.  Working with system owners to enable log forwarding and configuring any required parsing of log data in Log Analytics.  Working with security operations to create and deploy KQL analytic rules to offer detections for SOC/Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSRIT) use. Tuning of alert rule parameter
Read more

Design Planning (Part 3)

By Ashwin Venugopal -
Image
  To read part 1, please click  here To read part 2, please click  here Complex Organizational Structures SIEM can be an expensive security control, hence, it is common multiple businesses to contribute to the overall expense. Various organizational units may require a level of access to specific dashboards or sets of data. Microsoft Sentinel offers the ability to assign table-level permissions and limit the level of access to the minimum required to perform requisite job functions.  Role-based Access Control (RBAC) Requirements Microsoft Sentinel offers an extensive list of Azure built-in roles that can be used to provide granular access according to the job requirements and permitted level of access. Some of them are various Microsoft Sentinel dedicated roles: Microsoft Sentinel Contributor- Can perform all engineering-related configuration, such as creating alert rules, configuring data connectors, and additional similar tasks.  Microsoft Sentinel Reader- Can query the log data stor
Read more