Advanced Threat Protection for Azure SQL Database

Keeping your database protected is of utmost importance. In today’s post, I want to introduce the Advanced Threat Protection offering for Azure SQL Database that is currently in Preview and discuss what this one-stop shop includes to help you rest assured that your SQL Database is protected.

SQL Advanced Threat Protection is a unified package for advanced SQL serving capabilities. It includes functionality for discovery and classifying of sensitive data, managing database vulnerabilities and detecting anomalous activities that may be a threat to your database. It also provides a SQL go-to location for enabling and managing those capabilities.

Here’s a breakdown of what it offers:

1. Data Discovery and Classification – Provides capabilities built into Azure SQL Database for discovery, classifying, labeling and protecting the sensitive data in your databases. It can be used to provide visibility into your database classification estate and to track the access to sensitive data within the database and beyond its borders.

2. Vulnerability Assessment – This is an easy to use service that can discover, track and help you to remediate potential database vulnerabilities. It provides visibility into your security estate and includes steps to resolve security issues, as well as enhancing your database fortifications.

3. Threat Detection – Detects anomalous activities that indicate unusual and potentially harmful attempts to access or exploit your database. It continuously monitors your database for suspicious activities.  It also provides immediate security alerts for potential vulnerabilities, SQL injection attacks and anomalous database action patterns. These threat alerts provide details of suspicious activities and recommends actions on how to investigate and mitigate the threat.

In the brief video demo below, I will show you how to enable the Advanced Threat Protection capabilities. Database security and protection is on everyone’s mind. With the Advanced Threat Protection for Azure SQL Database, you can ease some of that worry with the protection and alerts that it provides.

If you’d like to learn more about Threat Protection or about any Azure product or service, you’re in the right place. Click the link below or contact us – our team of Azure experts are always here to help.