Zero to Hero with App Service, Part 6: Securing your web app

by Scott Muniz | Aug 17, 2020 | Uncategorized

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

The Azure App Service is offered as two deployment types: the multi-tenant service and the App Service Environment. In the multi-tenant service there are thousands of customers on the same infrastructure. Your apps are always secured but the network, the address space and some other components are shared. In an App Service Environment you have a single tenant version of App Service that runs in your Azure Virtual Network. The next two articles are focused on how to configure network security in the multi-tenant App Service.

In this article, you will learn how to secure your standalone app in the multi-tenant App Service. In the next article, we will cover how to build a secure multi-tier web application.

Networking overview

There are two aspects that need to be secured for a web app, inbound traffic and outbound traffic. Inbound traffic are visitors going to your web page, or clients sending requests to your API. Outbound traffic is when your web app makes an outbound call to a database, cache, message queue, or other service. The inbound traffic passes through a load balancer to a set of shared front end servers before reaching the workers which your apps run on. The outbound traffic leaves those workers and goes out through one of the outbound load balancers used by the scale unit. In the diagram below, the inbound and outbound load balancers are shown in green.

All traffic to and from the components inside App Service is strictly locked down and secured to prevent malicious actions. This includes preventing any worker-to-worker communication. This means users just need to secure the networking path to and from their apps–all other traffic is secured for you.

Features and Services

The following tutorial uses a number of Azure Networking features and services. Here is a quick breakdown of the features used in this article.

• Web Application Firewall: The Web Application Firewall (or WAF for short) sits between your applications and your end users. It protects your applications against common attacks like cross-site-scripting or SQL injection.
• Virtual Network: The Azure Virtual Network (VNet) is the building block for creating your network in Azure. A VNet is similar to a physical network that you would have in an on-premises network: you can assign an address space for a VNet and apply subnets to organize the network.
• Application Gateway: An Application Gateway acts as a load balancer for your application(s) and allows you to route requests based on the requested hostname or URL path. Learn more about Azure Application Gateway features
• Service endpoints: Some Azure resources are deployed into virtual networks by default. Other resources, such as the multi-tenant App Service, can gain access to the VNet using Service Endpoints. This means you can use Service Endpoints to only allow inbound traffic to your web app from a subnet within a VNet.
• Private Endpoints: Private Endpoints enable exposing the inbound traffic to a service on an address in a selected VNet.
• Azure Front Door: Front Door (AFD) provides many of the same features and benefits of an Application Gateway. It improves application performance by routing users to the nearest Point of Presence (POP).

Securing your web app

To secure the network access around your web app you will need to secure…

1. Inbound request traffic to your app
2. Inbound publishing traffic to your app
3. Outbound calls made from your app

To secure inbound request traffic to your app, use a WAF enabled Application Gateway with Service Endpoints. To secure inbound publishing traffic to your app, use a build agent with service endpoints on the publishing endpoint. Lastly, to secure outbound traffic from your web app, use VNet Integration and an Azure Firewall.

Securing inbound traffic

1. Select or create an Azure Virtual Network (VNet). To secure your inbound traffic to your app you will need to have a VNet. If you have one already, you do not need to create another. It should be in the same region as your web app. If you do not have a VNet, you can create one following these instructions Creating an Azure Virtual Network.
2. Create an Application Gateway as described here in Creating an Application Gateway.
3. Enable Service Endpoints to your web app.
4. Once you have the VNet, App Gateway, and Service Endpoints set up, you need to add a custom domain name for your app that should point to your Application Gateway. Your web app needs to be configured with the new domain name. To add a custom domain name to your web app, follow the guidance here.

The end result is that your web app will have all inbound traffic routed through your Application Gateway to your app. You can, and should, enable Web Application Firewall (WAF) support on your Application Gateway.

Alternate Configuration

There are two alternative services that are in preview that should be noted. One is using Private Endpoints rather than Service Endpoints and the other is using Azure Front Door instead of an Application Gateway.

If you use Private Endpoints instead of Service Endpoints, you would create your Private Endpoint in a subnet other than the GatewaySubnet. This Private Endpoint would be configured against your app. This is a great solution as it also hosts the HTTPS publishing endpoint for your app. When you add Private Endpoints to your app, the app is no longer accessible from the internet. Traffic to your app must only go through the private endpoints on your app.

If you use Azure Front Door (AFD) with your app, you would need to set an IP address access restriction to secure your app to only being accessible through AFD. There are some additional changes that will soon be available that will enable you to lock you app down to specific AFD profiles. If you use AFD, you can enable a mix of capabilities such as WAF protection just like with an Application Gateway.

Secure publishing inbound traffic

Publishing is the process by which you upload your web app content to your app service instance. Unless you are using FTP, all publishing actions are performed against the scm site for your app. For every app there exists the app url and there also exists the publishing url. The publishing url is <app name>.scm.azurewebsites.net. Secure publishing is not too different from secure app access. For secure publishing you need to publish from inside your VNet. To have a secure publishing story you need to follow one of the following patterns:

• Use Access Restrictions to secure traffic to the publishing endpoint for your app
• Use service endpoints to secure traffic from a jump box being used to publish
• Use a relay agent, such as the Azure Pipeline build agent deployed on a VM in your VNet and then use service endpoints to secure your scm site to the subnet that the build agent is in.

To use the Azure Pipeline relays agent:

1. Create a VM in your VNet.
2. Install and configure the Azure pipeline agent
3. Configure service endpoints for your app scm site against the subnet that your VM is in.

Secure outbound traffic from your web app

To secure outbound traffic from your web app you need to use the regional VNet Integration feature. This feature enables you to make calls into your VNet and have all outbound traffic subject to Network Security Groups (NSGs) and Route Tables (UDRs). With NSGs you can restrict outbound traffic to address blocks of your choosing. With UDRs you can route traffic as you see fit. If you route the outbound traffic to an Azure Firewall device, you can restrict your outbound internet traffic to only the FQDN’s you want it to reach.

To secure your outbound traffic from your web app, enable VNet Integration. By default, your app outbound traffic will only be affected by NSGs and UDRs if you are going to a private address (10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16). To ensure that all of your outbound traffic is affected by the NSGs and UDRs on your integration subnet, set the application setting WEBSITE_VNET_ROUTE_ALL to 1.

Summary

Congratulations! In this article you learned how to secure your inbound and outbound networking traffic. You are now able to assemble App Service and Networking features to create a secure internet facing web application.

Helpful Resources

• App Service networking features
• App Service access restrictions
• App Service VNet Integration
• App Service Private endpoints
• App Service Hybrid Connections

IT pros in education: Microsoft Endpoint Manager AMA: August 19th, 2020

by Scott Muniz | Aug 17, 2020 | Uncategorized

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Have questions about setting up Microsoft Endpoint Manager to manage all the devices—Windows, Android, iOS, and macOS—used in your education environments? Our engineering and product teams will be hosting a one-hour AMA event on Wednesday, August 19, 2020 to help you better understand how Microsoft Endpoint Manager can simplify the way you manage and update devices, provide advice on specific configuration and deployment options, and troubleshoot any issues you may be encountering.

ADD TO CALENDAR

To join, simply, visit the Microsoft Endpoint Manager AMA space this Wednesday, August 19^th at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time and click “Start a New Conversation” to post your question. This event is open to all Tech Community members and we’ll have a wide variety of experts standing by to provide answers—as well as members of the MVP community who can provide their real-world expertise.

What is an AMA?

An “Ask Microsoft Anything” (AMA) event is a live, online, text-based question-and-answer event similar to a “YamJam” on Yammer or an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit. This AMA is your chance to get answers to your questions about things like:

• Configuring new devices effectively and quickly.
• Repurposing existing shared devices for distribution to individual students.
• Managing devices when disconnected from school networks.
• Network considerations, such as VPN.
• Secure connections to on-premises resources

I’m in. How do I join?

• The Microsoft Endpoint Manager AMA space will open at 9:00 a.m. PT August 18^th and remain open until 9:00 a.m. PT August 19^th to ensure you have plenty of time to submit your questions.
• You can post questions anytime during the 24-hour window. To submit a question, simply click Start a new conversation—and do this for each new question.
• Our subject matter experts will be live from 8:00-9:00 a.m. PT on August 19^th.
• At the end of the AMA, the Microsoft Endpoint Manager AMA space will close and become a read-only resource. We will post a final recap with a list of all questions and answers from the event.

Don’t miss this chance to get answers to your questions. We hope you can join us!

[Upcoming AMA] Join us on August 27 for a “Let’s Talk Mental Health” AMA

by Scott Muniz | Aug 17, 2020 | Uncategorized

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Mental health matters, especially during these challenging times as we navigate an unprecedented global pandemic. If you have burning questions about mental health or wellness, join us on 8/27 (all day, Pacific Time) for meaningful discussions about the topic, and ways to cope on this journey. 

Let’s Talk Mental Health AMA – August 27, 2020

This month, we’re thrilled to have three community representatives – Chris Gill, Jess Dodson and Alex Yates – across various countries including the US, Australia and the UK share about their own mental health journey, and steps they’ve taken to cope with anxiety, uncertainty, fear and change. Remember that you are not alone in experiencing these emotions – as a community, we can rally together to support one another and exchanging tips on self-care and mental wellness. To learn more about our AMA respondents, click here. 

Important note:  The responses shared by our community panel are their own personal opinions, and do not represent the views of Microsoft and its affiliates. It should not be regarded as professional medical advice either. If you need professional help, please refer to the below resources for more information. 

US:

• United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA): https://www.samhsa.gov/esmi-treatment-locator
• MentalHealth.gov: https://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help
• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH): https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help/index.shtml
• National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI): https://www.nami.org/help AND https://www.nami.org/Support-Education/Publications-Reports/Guides/Navigating-a-Mental-Health-Crisis

UK: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/your-mental-health/getting-help

Australia: https://mhaustralia.org/need-help

New Zealand: https://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/services-and-support/health-care-services/mental-health-servi…

We look forward to seeing your questions on August 27! 

#HumansofIT

#MentalHealth