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...
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AZURE SQL - Advanced Threat Protection

In my last blog post, we looked at the Data Discovery & Classification, Vulnerability Assessment features within the Advanced Data Security (ADS) offering for Azure SQL. In this blog post, we will have a look into Advanced threat protection.

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’.

Advanced Threat Protection

Advanced Threat Protection enables administrators to detect and respond to potential threats as they occur by providing security alerts on anomalous activities like SQL Injection,anomalous database access,potential vulnerabilities,suspicious database activities and query pattern.Administrator will be able to configure alerts using Azure portal on detection of such activities.This feature is available in all Azure SQL Database deployment options, including Managed Instance, Single and pooled instance.

Enable Advanced Threat Protection

In order to enable Advanced Threat Protection, ADS must be enabled as mentioned in pre-requisites.Once enabled, provide additional information to configure the specific Advanced Threat Protection Settings which are configured at Database server level under ADS as shown below.

Advance Threat Protection Types

Advanced Threat Protection types which includes the ability to choose
  • All
  • SQL Injection
  • SQL Injection Vulnerability
  • Data exfiltration
  • Unsafe Action
  • Anomalous Client Login
Alerts triggered based on the following features
  • Vulnerability to SQL injection -This alert is triggered when an application generates a faulty SQL statement in the database.
  • Potential SQL injection
  • Access from unusual location
  • Access from unusual Azure data center
  • Access from unfamiliar principal
  • Access from a potentially harmful application
  • Brute force SQL credentials
You can also configure Advanced Threat Protection by leveraging Azure PowerShell cmdlets.

Alerts are visible through the Azure portal as a notification in the overview section of your database, as well as at the Advanced Data Security section.

References

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-threat-detection
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-managed-instance-threat-detection

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