Tidy up - Unused Project and Nuget package reference using Visual Studio 2019

If you are a Developer/Architect using Visual Studio as IDE for your development activities, this blog post will be of your interest. During the Ignite 2021 conference, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2019 v16.9 and v16.10 Preview 1. As part of version 16.10 Preview 1, one of the cool features they introduced is to "Remove Unused References..." for any Projects and Nuget packages that are not in use. At the time of writing this blog post, we have Visual Studio Version 16.10.0 (official release) which includes this new feature.  As part of development, we generally get carried away and introduce new Nuget package references to your project and add new references to your Projects. By the end of development, you will not be 100% sure which are not being referenced and unused which means you will leave those unused project references in your application. Now you might be wondering what's the big deal in it since it doesn't harm. The advantage of removing unused project r...
Post a Comment

AZURE SQL - DATA DISCOVERY & CLASSIFICATION

Azure SQL Overview

Azure SQL Database is a fully managed Platform as a Service (PaaS) Database Engine that handles most of the database management functions such as upgrading, patching, backups, and monitoring without user involvement. As with any database platform, security remains a top concern to address this issue or concerns Microsoft have offering called Advanced Data Security with Azure SQL service.

Pre-requisites

  • Enable Advanced Data Security (ADS) at the database level by navigating to Settings > Advanced Data Security for your SQL database and click Enable.
  • Alternatively, ADS can also be configured and managed at the server level by navigating to Settings > Advanced Data Security for your server and switching the ‘Advanced Data Security’ setting from ‘Off’ to ‘On’.
  • AdventureWorksLT database will be used.
  • Enable the Auditing settings to have complete investigation experience. Go to the Auditing blade and toggle Auditing switch from OFF to ON. Choose Audit log destination to BlobStorage, LogAnalytics, Eventhub any combinations based on your preference.

Data Discovery and Classification

It is important for your organisation to know which data is stored and what kind of data it is. It can be Financial data, Personal data, Health, Sensitive (Passwords) or any other type. With GDPR imposed there is a high need for the business to be GDPR compliant, its especially important to mark personal data and have a documentation ready, which data is stored and why. This can be a challenging and annoying task if you have to do this for an existing database with a few hundred tables. Fortunately, there ways to make life easier by enabling ADS, SQL Server will try to automatically detect Columns and Tables that need to be classified, also it provides capability for labeling and classifying based on your organisation standards. 

Azure SQL Server Recommendation

Applying Recommendation 


As shown above you have option to add your own classification which is not suggested by Azure by using Add Classification option which is highlighted above. Azure ADS is smart enough once you have classified a column under a particular category that column is greyed out and not available for subsequent classification which means avoids duplication.

Once these changes are saved, we can see the updated report in the Overview pane of Data Discovery & Classification feature. This gives the summary of the no. of classified columns and also the no. of tables that contain sensitive data. Also, option for download as a report which can be shared with your project team members.

Adding custom classifications manually

Apart from the recommendation made by this tool,you can add your own custom classification using below option
Similarly you have option to remove the classifications.

Note: Classifications can be added to database using multiple options like Azure portal as shown above, Using Rest API , Using PowerShell Cmdlet , Using T-SQL

Auditing

As part of Auditing enabled at database level below LogAnalytics query helps us to trace who requested when data from database as part of which we have 'data_sensitivity_information_s' which displays as part of the query was their any sensitive data was queried.

AzureDiagnostics
| where Category == 'SQLSecurityAuditEvents'
| where ResourceId == '/SUBSCRIPTIONS/XXXX(Subscription Id)/RESOURCEGROUPS/BLOG/PROVIDERS/MICROSOFT.SQL/SERVERS/BLOGSERVER/DATABASES/BLOGDATABASE'
| project event_time_t, statement_s, succeeded_s, affected_rows_d, server_principal_name_s, client_ip_s, application_name_s, additional_information_s, data_sensitivity_information_s
| order by event_time_t desc
| take 100

References

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tidy up - Unused Project and Nuget package reference using Visual Studio 2019

Image
If you are a Developer/Architect using Visual Studio as IDE for your development activities, this blog post will be of your interest. During the Ignite 2021 conference, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2019 v16.9 and v16.10 Preview 1. As part of version 16.10 Preview 1, one of the cool features they introduced is to "Remove Unused References..." for any Projects and Nuget packages that are not in use. At the time of writing this blog post, we have Visual Studio Version 16.10.0 (official release) which includes this new feature.  As part of development, we generally get carried away and introduce new Nuget package references to your project and add new references to your Projects. By the end of development, you will not be 100% sure which are not being referenced and unused which means you will leave those unused project references in your application. Now you might be wondering what's the big deal in it since it doesn't harm. The advantage of removing unused project r...
Read more

Swagger UI for Azure Function v2 & v3 APIs

Image
In this blog post, we will see how to setup Swagger UI for Azure Function APIs in v2 and v3. Now you might be wondering why Swagger? Swagger is a language-agnostic specification for describing REST APIs, it also referred to as OpenAPI. Swagger UI offers a web-based UI that provides information about your REST APIs service. Prerequisites HTTP trigger Azure function provisioned or created in C# Azure DI enabled on Azure Function, for more details refer here  with relevant package version installed based on Azure Function version. Integrating Swagger UI into our Applications 1. Install the appropriate package based on the Azure Function version which you are dealing with from the below table. Unfortunately, it's not a single package for both versions due to Azure function v3 because v3 makes use of ASP.NET Core 3.1 which introduces a new serializer System.Text.Json (STJ) out-of-the-box.  Azure Function Version  Nuget package  v2         ...
Read more

Authenticate Azure Functions - API Keys

Image
In this blog post, we will see one of the ways to secure your Azure Functions using API keys. Security plays a key role as part of SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) doesn't matter whether it's exposed to the client/public or even if it's internal. There are multiple ways to secure your Azure Functions like API Keys, Certificate,  API Mgmt, App Service Authentication, etc. If you are new to the Cloud and Azure Functions but want to make a start with minimal effort and less setup of Infrastructure, then API Keys is the ideal choice. Azure Functions allows you to secure HTTP-triggered functions by API access key in the request. As part of creating new Azure Functions, we can select the Authorization Level enum value. If we set the Authorisation level to  Anonymous,  no security applied which means no authentication applied for the endpoint. Authorization Level - Function By setting the Authorisation level to Function each Azure Functions require a specific API key to Au...
Read more