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Keyvault security recommendations

This article lists all the Keyvault security recommendations you might see in Microsoft Defender for Cloud.

The recommendations that appear in your environment are based on the resources that you're protecting and on your customized configuration. You can see the recommendations in the portal that apply to your resources.

To learn about actions that you can take in response to these recommendations, see Remediate recommendations in Defender for Cloud.

Tip

If a recommendation description says No related policy, usually it's because that recommendation is dependent on a different recommendation.

For example, the recommendation Endpoint protection health failures should be remediated relies on the recommendation that checks whether an endpoint protection solution is installed (Endpoint protection solution should be installed). The underlying recommendation does have a policy. Limiting policies to only foundational recommendations simplifies policy management.

Read this blog to learn how to protect Your Azure Key Vault and why Azure role based access control is critical for security.

Azure Keyvault recommendations

Role-Based Access Control should be used on Keyvault Services

Description: To provide granular filtering on the actions that users can perform, use Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to manage permissions in Keyvault Service and configure relevant authorization policies. (Related policy: Azure Key Vault should use RBAC permission model - Microsoft Azure).

Severity: High

Type: Control plane

Key Vault secrets should have an expiration date

Description: Secrets should have a defined expiration date and not be permanent. Secrets that are valid forever provide a potential attacker with more time to compromise them. It is a recommended security practice to set expiration dates on secrets. (Related policy: Key Vault secrets should have an expiration date).

Severity: High

Type: Control plane

Key Vault keys should have an expiration date

Description: Cryptographic keys should have a defined expiration date and not be permanent. Keys that are valid forever provide a potential attacker with more time to compromise the key. It is a recommended security practice to set expiration dates on cryptographic keys. (Related policy: Key Vault keys should have an expiration date).

Severity: High

Type: Control plane

Key vaults should have soft delete enabled

Description: Deleting a key vault without soft delete enabled permanently deletes all secrets, keys, and certificates stored in the key vault. Accidental deletion of a key vault can lead to permanent data loss. Soft delete allows you to recover an accidentally deleted key vault for a configurable retention period. (Related policy: Key vaults should have soft delete enabled).

Severity: High

Type: Control plane

Azure Key Vault should have firewall enabled or public network access disabled

Description: Enable the key vault firewall so that the key vault is not accessible by default to any public IPs or disable public network access for your key vault so that it's not accessible over the public internet. Optionally, you can configure specific IP ranges to limit access to those networks.

Learn more at: Network security for Azure Key Vault and https://aka.ms/akvprivatelink. (Related policy: Azure Key Vault should have firewall enabled or public network access disabled).

Severity: Medium

Type: Control plane

Description: Azure Private Link lets you connect your virtual networks to Azure services without a public IP address at the source or destination. The Private Link platform handles the connectivity between the consumer and services over the Azure backbone network. By mapping private endpoints to key vault, you can reduce data leakage risks. Learn more about private links at: [https://aka.ms/akvprivatelink.] (Related policy: Azure Key Vaults should use private link).

Severity: Medium

Type: Control plane