Unlocking Azure Firewall Premium Security and Scalability

Azure Firewall Premium is a powerful security solution that offers advanced threat protection and scalability for your organization's network. It provides a high-performance, cloud-based firewall that can handle large volumes of traffic.

With Azure Firewall Premium, you can expect a 50% increase in throughput compared to the standard version. This makes it an ideal choice for large enterprises with complex network architectures.

Azure Firewall Premium also offers advanced threat protection features, including sandboxing and machine learning-based detection. These features help to identify and block advanced threats that might evade traditional security solutions.

The scalability of Azure Firewall Premium is also worth noting, with support for up to 50 million connections per second. This makes it an ideal choice for organizations with rapidly growing networks or those that require high levels of availability.

Azure Firewall Premium is a robust security service that offers advanced threat protection capabilities. It uses 58,000+ established and advanced threat detection methods to keep you safe from attacks.

Azure Firewall Premium supports advanced threat protection capabilities like malware and TLS inspection. It's recommended to secure highly sensitive applications, such as payment processing, due to its higher-performing underlying engine.

The features of Azure Firewall Premium include URL Filtering, which expands Azure Firewall's FQDN filtering capacity to consider an entire URL. Azure Firewall Premium also includes Threat Intelligence, which can be enabled by IP addresses and domains in the Microsoft Threat Intelligence feed.

Here are some key features of Azure Firewall Premium:

Azure Firewall Premium offers a range of advanced features that make it a top choice for securing sensitive applications.

Stateful firewall, application FQDN filtering, network traffic filtering rules, and outbound SNAT support are all available in the Premium version.

Threat intelligence-based filtering, web categories, intrusion detection and prevention system (IDPS), TLS inspection, and URL filtering are also included, but only in the Premium version.

Here's a comparison of the features available in each version of Azure Firewall:

Azure Firewall Premium uses advanced hardware and a higher-performing underlying engine, making it ideal for heavier workloads and higher traffic volumes.

With features like threat intelligence-based filtering, web categories, and IDPS, Azure Firewall Premium provides robust security for sensitive applications.

Azure Firewall offers two primary versions: Basic and Standard. The Basic version provides a more stripped-down experience with limited features.

The Standard version, on the other hand, is a more robust option that offers a wider range of features and capabilities. It's designed for larger, more complex networks.

The Basic version is ideal for small to medium-sized networks that require basic security and firewall functionality. It's a cost-effective solution for businesses with limited budgets.

The Standard version, however, is better suited for large enterprises with complex network architectures. It provides advanced features like threat intelligence and more granular policy control.

In terms of pricing, the Basic version is significantly cheaper than the Standard version. However, the Standard version offers more value for businesses that require advanced security features.

Azure Firewall is a security feature that helps monitor and controls your Azure resources. It allows you to grant and block access from one part of your network to another if the firewall detects a suspicious action.

Traffic coming in or out of your virtual network gets filtered through Azure Firewall before reaching its destination. This means you can rest assured that all traffic is being checked for potential threats.

With the Azure Monitor, you can keep track of your Azure Firewall configuration and analyze logs for any suspicious activities. This helps you stay on top of your network's security.

The Premium version of Azure Firewall gains the ability to check TLS connections to make sure they’re being used in an appropriate manner. This adds an extra layer of security to prevent hackers from entering your network.

Azure Firewall also provides security measures to block known threats from entering your Azure cloud environment by checking that traffic is encrypted as it’s supposed to be with the proper certificates.

To configure Azure Firewall Premium, you'll want to start by navigating to the Firewall Policies page. Go to https://portal.azure.com/#blade/HubsExtension/BrowseResourceBlade/resourceType/Microsoft.Network%2FfirewallPolicies.

Here, you'll need to select the target policy and then head to the TLS inspection settings. Set "Enabled" and choose the authentication method to Managed Identity, Key Vault, and Certificate. Save your changes to ensure they take effect.

To complete the configuration, don't forget to check the "TLS inspection" box when creating application rules for outbound traffic. This will enable the necessary security features for your Azure Firewall Premium setup.

As you set up and configure your Azure Firewall, it's essential to follow best practices to ensure optimal performance.

Organize your rules using firewall policy into Rule Collection Groups and Rule Collections, prioritizing them based on their use frequency. This will help streamline rule configuration and processing.

Adding multiple public IP addresses to your firewall can prevent SNAT port exhaustion. Consider adding multiple public IP addresses (PIPs) to your firewall.

To further enhance performance, consider upgrading to Azure Firewall Premium. This offers a higher-performing underlying engine and includes built-in accelerated networking software.

Here are some specific steps to follow when configuring your Azure Firewall:

In a hub-spoke network architecture pattern, Azure Firewall plays a crucial role in securing and inspecting network traffic.

The hub is a virtual network (VNet) in Azure that serves as a central point of connectivity to your on-premises network.

Azure Firewall secures and inspects network traffic, and also routes traffic between VNets.

A secured hub is an Azure Virtual WAN Hub with associated security and routing policies configured by Azure Firewall Manager.

Use secured virtual hubs to easily create hub-and-spoke and transitive architectures with native security services for traffic governance and protection.

To set up TLS inspection testing with a VM, you'll need both the VM and Firewall to be in the same Hub VNet. This is crucial for the test to work properly. The VM should be deployed in a subnet with a private IP address, such as 10.150.196.4.

Here are the specific requirements for the VM and Firewall setup:

Once you've set up the VM and Firewall, you'll need to create a route table and attach it to the VM subnet. This will override the default route to force traffic through the Firewall. You'll also need to create a User-Defined Route (UDR) to force the VM's outbound traffic through the Firewall.

To test TLS inspection, you'll need to create a DNAT rule, an application rule with TLS inspection, and a Firewall DNAT rule to allow RDP to the VM. You'll also need to create a Firewall Application Rule to test TLS inspection for a specific service, such as Github.

Azure Firewall Premium offers robust security and filtering capabilities to protect your cloud resources. It acts as a secure barrier between your Azure Virtual Network and the internet, inspecting and filtering traffic at layers 3, 4, and 7.

Azure Firewall provides a stateful firewall that supports both inbound and outbound filtering, ensuring that only authorized traffic passes through. This helps mitigate potential threats and keeps your network secure.

URL filtering is a powerful feature that extends FQDN filtering to consider an entire URL, allowing you to filter traffic based on specific URLs. For example, you can filter traffic to www.contoso.com/a/c instead of just www.contoso.com.

Azure Firewall Premium also offers advanced network security capabilities, including deep packet inspection at the application layer. This enables fine-grained control over network traffic, allowing administrators to define and enforce application-specific rules.

The IDPS (Intrusion Detection and Prevention System) feature in Azure Firewall Premium allows you to monitor your network for malicious activity, log information about it, and report it. It can detect attacks in all ports and protocols for nonencrypted traffic.

Here are some key facts about IDPS:

Azure Firewall Premium's IDPS also allows you to decrypt HTTPS traffic using its TLS inspection capability, enabling better detection of malicious activities.