Globally, 70% of organizations have cited that around 25% of their cybersecurity budgets goes to waste. Hence, it's crucial to adopt a solution that maximizes risk protection and returns on investments in the long run. Microsoft Sentinel has emerged as the most popular end-to-end security solution for threat detection, incident response, and threat remediation. More than 96% of security leaders who have adopted Microsoft Sentinel have reported a noticeable improvement in their threat detection capabilities.
So, if you are keen on deploying Microsoft Sentinel solution suite, here's a Microsoft Sentinel implementation guide curated for you. Keep reading.
How to Deploy Microsoft Sentinel Phase by Phase?
Plan for overview and prerequisites
The SOC architect reviews the Azure tenant prerequisites.
- For accessing Azure, organizations require a Microsoft Entra ID license and tenant.
- To monitor resource creation and billing, create an Azure subscription.
- Assign specific permissions to the subscription.
- Allocate roles at resource group level for least privileged access.
- Set up role-based access controls (RBAC) to enable more stringent permissions and access.
- Establish a log analytics workspace to store data that Sentinel ingests and examines it for any analytics or any anomalies.
Design a workspace architecture
While building a Microsoft Sentinel workspace, organizations should take into consideration these following factors:
- Requiring a single tenant or multiple tenants
- Compliance with regulations regarding data collection and storage
- Setting up access controls to Microsoft Sentinel data
Consider data connectors
- Organizations need to choose the data sources they want to ingest into Microsoft Sentinel.
- Determining data size will help in defining budgets and timelines of the project deployments.
This can be done by reviewing business use cases or data of an existing SIEM solution.
Assign roles and permissions
Define role-based access controls to authorize specific access to Microsoft Sentinel. Security teams can assign these roles directly to the Sentinel workspace or in a resource group or subscription.
Plan budget
Consider the costs involved in data ingestion for Azure Log Analytics, Microsoft Sentinel and playbook deployments.
Read this blog to know how to automate incident security management with Microsoft Sentinel
Outline the Deployment Phase
A SOC analyst is usually responsible for Microsoft Sentinel deployment:
- Implement Microsoft Sentinel, health and audit features, and enable solutions and content in cognizance with the organization's needs.
- Configure Microsoft Sentinel Security content such as data connectors, automation rules, watchlists, workbooks, and playbooks to identify, monitor, and remediate security threats across the systems.
- Leverage User and Entity Behaviour Analytics to streamline and optimize the analysis process.
- Enable data retention and archive, to retain important and critical data.
Traditional SOC vs Modern SOC- Which one to choose? Read this blog
Prepare a Checklist for Post-deployment
A designated SOC engineer takes charge of the review.
Re-evaluate security incident processes: Assess the security incidents across the IT environment. Assign different incidents to different layers of the SOC. Check if the SOC is well-equipped to handle a security incident.
Re-evaluate and upgrade analytics rules: After assessing security incidents, check if the analytics rules are responding rapidly to the security incidents.
- Reduce false positives through automation or upgrading analytics rules.
- Leverage Sentinel's in-built insights to assess the analytics rules and enable suggestions and recommendations accordingly.
Re-evaluate automation rules and playbooks: Ensure that the playbook and automation rules can respond to security threats and incidents as quickly as expected.
Double check watchlists: Ensure that the watchlists are updated and have incorporated changes in the security environments such as new use cases or the addition of new users.
Review commitment tiers: Check if the commitment tiers set up are in sync with the existing system configuration.
Monitor ingestion costs with these two steps:
- Implementing Workspace Usage Report that gives a holistic view into the workspace's costs, usage, and data consumption statistics. It helps to track data ingestion costs through creating rule-based alerts and custom views.
- For a granular view, enable the Microsoft Sentinel cost workbook that gives an exclusive view into the Sentinel costs including costs of ingesting and retaining data, Logic Apps billing information, etc.
Revamp Data Collection Rules (DCRs): Check if the data ingestion and use cases are in line with the DCRs. Use ingestion-time transformation to filter out any irrelevant data.
Review analytics rules aligned with MITRE framework:
- To evaluate an organization's security coverage, ensure that the analytics rules are based on the tools, tactics, and techniques of the ATT&CK® framework.
- SOCs should have an in-built process to enable proactive hunting. Hunting helps to identify potential undetected security threats and anomalies. Based on this, they can implement appropriate security actions such as creating new incidents, threat intelligence measures, or new detections.
Want to know the ins and outs of Microsoft Sentinel? Deep-dive into this blog
What to Keep in Mind During Microsoft Sentinel Implementation?
- Define the data sources that need to be ingested and analyzed with Microsoft Sentinel, the use cases that need to be covered, and the metrics that need to be measured with.
- Select the appropriate subscription and pricing models based on data size for ingestion, devices and users that need to be safeguarded, specific features, and budgetary requirements.
- Configure data connectors that align with different sources and ingest easily into Sentinel. Microsoft Sentinel supports data sources from Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, or third-party solutions.
- Set up and configure workspaces and assign relevant roles and permissions to users and groups.
- Customize automation and analytics rules specific to the needs and requirements of the organization. Security teams can also import analytics rules from Azure Sentinel GitHub community.
Level Up your Security Transformation with Microsoft Sentinel and Cloud4C
Given that an organization is affected by a cybersecurity attack every 44 seconds, investing in intelligent security solutions is crucial. Microsoft Sentinel stands out with its unprecedented capabilities and Cloud4C, one of the leading managed cloud services providers, offers end-to-end Microsoft Sentinel consulting solutions for leading global enterprises including Fortune 500s.
As a managed Microsoft Sentinel expert, we help organizations adopt Microsoft's intelligent cloud native SIEM and SOAR platform aligned with their security needs. From conducting security gap assessment, to building proof of concept and providing deployment blueprints across single or multiple landscapes-we help in improving the security posture in a sustainable and cost-effective manner, ensuring that companies can maximize full value from their Sentinel investments.
Want to know how to implement Microsoft Sentinel and embrace a security-first organization? Get in touch with our representatives or visit our website.
