Tutorial / Cram Notes
Multi-workspace management in Azure Sentinel allows analysts to aggregate data from various Azure workspaces, other clouds, and on-premises solutions into a central pane for security analysis. This capacity is critical for organizations that operate across multiple geographical locations, maintain separate workspaces for different departments, or must adhere to data residency requirements.
Analysts can use multi-workspace queries to run searches across several workspaces from within the Azure Sentinel portal. This facilitates a comprehensive view of an organization’s security posture.
Setting Up Cross-Workspace Queries
To set up cross-workspace queries in Azure Sentinel, analysts must have the appropriate permissions across all the workspaces they intend to query. Here are the steps involved:
- Navigate to Azure Sentinel.
- Select the desired workspace.
- Use the Azure Sentinel Analytics blade to create or modify a query.
- Expand the scope of your query to include other workspaces by utilizing the ‘union’ keyword and specifying the workspace ID.
Sample Query:
union workspace(“WorkspaceID1”).SecurityEvent, workspace(“WorkspaceID2”).SecurityEvent
| where TimeGenerated > ago(1d)
| where AccountType == ‘User’
| summarize Count = count() by Account
| sort by Count desc
This query gathers security events from two workspaces for the past 24 hours and summarizes the data by user accounts, sorting the outcome based on the count of events.
Incident Analysis Across Multiple Workspaces
When an incident occurs, it is pivotal to perform a holistic investigation. The following steps are often taken:
- Identify the Incident: Use Azure Sentinel Incidents blade to get an overview of all incidents across workspaces.
- Investigate the Scope: Determine which workspaces are affected by the incident.
- Use Bookmarking: This feature helps in capturing the important points of an investigation. Bookmarks can be used to keep track of evidence across workspaces.
- Leverage Playbooks: These automated responses can be configured to respond to incidents. With Azure Logic Apps, playbooks can be set up to provide responses across multiple workspaces.
- Perform Threat Hunting: With the proactive threat hunting capabilities of Azure Sentinel, analysts can hunt for potential threats across all data using custom queries.
Incident Comparison Across Workspaces
When comparing incidents across various workspaces, creating a comparative analysis can be instrumental in determining patterns and anomalies.
| Feature | Workspace A | Workspace B | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Incidents | 50 | 30 | Comparison of incident frequency |
| Incident Severity | High | Medium | – |
| Affected Resources | VMs, Databases | Storage Accounts | Type of resources impacted |
| Alert Types | Malware, DDoS | Phishing, Ransomware | Predominant alert categories |
| Response Time | 2 hours | 30 minutes | Response efficiency |
| Geographic Location | North America | Europe | Physical location of the workspace |
Challenges and Considerations
Multi-workspace incident investigation faces complexity. Analysts must take into account the differences in data types, formats, and volume. Moreover, different workspaces may have different compliance and privacy requirements dictating how data is handled.
To address these challenges, it is important to have a centralized governance model, ensure team members are adequately trained, and have a standard operating procedure for responding to multi-workspace incidents.
In summary, investigating incidents across multiple workspaces demands an organized approach, leveraging Azure Sentinel’s multi-workspace capabilities, and ensuring compliance with incident response protocols. By mastering cross-workspace investigations, security analysts become empowered to better protect their organization’s assets across the entire digital estate.
Practice Test with Explanation
True or False: When investigating multi-workspace incidents, you can use Azure Sentinel to correlate alerts from different workspaces.
- True
Correct Answer: True
Explanation: Azure Sentinel can be used to correlate alerts across different workspaces by using cross-workspace queries, enabling comprehensive investigations spanning multiple workspaces.
Which of the following is used in Azure to manage and investigate security events across multiple workspaces?
- A) Azure Security Center
- B) Azure Monitor
- C) Azure Sentinel
- D) Microsoft Defender for Identity
Correct Answer: C) Azure Sentinel
Explanation: Azure Sentinel is used for managing and investigating security events across multiple workspaces, as it allows for the collection, detection, investigation, and response to security events within a single solution.
True or False: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can be integrated with Azure Sentinel to enhance multi-workspace incident investigations.
- True
Correct Answer: True
Explanation: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can be integrated with Azure Sentinel, providing additional telemetry data that can be leveraged when investigating incidents across multiple workspaces.
Which of the following should NOT be a step in investigating a multi-workspace security incident?
- A) Isolate the incident to a single workspace
- B) Collect relevant data from all affected workspaces
- C) Use Azure Lighthouse to manage resources across workspaces
- D) Correlate related alerts and incidents
Correct Answer: A) Isolate the incident to a single workspace
Explanation: When investigating a multi-workspace security incident, it is important to consider all affected workspaces rather than isolating the incident to a single workspace, in order to gain a full understanding of the scope and impacts.
True or False: When investigating a multi-workspace incident, you should avoid sharing information between workspaces to maintain strict data isolation.
- False
Correct Answer: False
Explanation: Sharing information between workspaces is often necessary when investigating multi-workspace incidents to ensure that all relevant data is considered in the investigation process.
True or False: In Azure Sentinel, Notebooks can be used to investigate incidents using machine learning and advanced analytics techniques.
- True
Correct Answer: True
Explanation: Azure Sentinel Notebooks enable analysts to investigate incidents using machine learning, advanced analytics, and visualization techniques within an interactive coding and data manipulation environment.
Which Azure service helps in managing, viewing, and querying data across multiple workspaces?
- A) Azure Log Analytics
- B) Azure Security Center
- C) Azure Monitor
- D) Azure Lighthouse
Correct Answer: D) Azure Lighthouse
Explanation: Azure Lighthouse enables service providers and enterprise IT teams to manage, view, and query data across multiple Azure workspaces centrally.
True or False: Azure Sentinel Incidents can contain alerts from multiple data sources, but not from multiple workspaces.
- False
Correct Answer: False
Explanation: Azure Sentinel Incidents can contain alerts from multiple data sources as well as from multiple workspaces, as long as cross-workspace queries are configured to correlate data.
When investigating multi-workspace incidents, which of the following benefits does a common schema provide?
- A) Faster investigations due to reduced data volume
- B) Easier correlation of events across workspaces
- C) Elimination of the need for data retention policies
- D) Decreasing the complexity of Azure configurations
Correct Answer: B) Easier correlation of events across workspaces
Explanation: A common schema standardizes the data format and makes it easier to correlate events across workspaces, thus facilitating more effective and efficient investigations.
Which of the following is essential for effective multi-workspace incident investigation?
- A) Limiting access to security logs
- B) Using different tools for each workspace
- C) Centralizing visibility and control
- D) Ignoring low-severity alerts
Correct Answer: C) Centralizing visibility and control
Explanation: Centralizing visibility and control is essential for effective multi-workspace incident investigation, as it gives the security operations team a unified view of the threat landscape and simplifies managing security across different environments.
Interview Questions
What is multi-workspace view in Microsoft Sentinel?
Multi-workspace view is a feature that allows users to investigate incidents across multiple Azure Sentinel workspaces from a single pane of glass.
How do you access multi-workspace view in Microsoft Sentinel?
Multi-workspace view can be accessed by selecting the “Multi-Workspace” option in the top navigation menu in Microsoft Sentinel.
What are the benefits of using multi-workspace view?
Multi-workspace view makes it easier to investigate incidents that span multiple workspaces by providing a single location to view and analyze data from all relevant workspaces.
Can you use multi-workspace view to investigate incidents that occurred before you enabled the feature?
No, multi-workspace view only provides data for incidents that occur after the feature has been enabled.
How can you customize the multi-workspace view in Microsoft Sentinel?
The multi-workspace view can be customized by filtering incidents by workspace, severity, status, and other criteria.
Can you modify incident details and take action on incidents from the multi-workspace view?
Yes, you can modify incident details and take action on incidents from the multi-workspace view just like you can in the regular incident view.
Can you share the multi-workspace view with other users or teams?
Yes, you can share the multi-workspace view with other users or teams by creating a custom bookmark that includes the multi-workspace view URL.
How does multi-workspace view handle duplicate data from multiple workspaces?
Multi-workspace view removes duplicate data from multiple workspaces to prevent the same incident from appearing multiple times.
Can you create custom queries in multi-workspace view?
Yes, you can create custom queries in multi-workspace view to filter and analyze incident data.
Are there any additional costs associated with using multi-workspace view?
No, multi-workspace view is a free feature included with Azure Sentinel.
Great article on investigating multi-workspace incidents. It’s really helpful for my SC-200 exam preparations.
I found the discussion on Sentinel’s capabilities quite interesting. Do we need to configure anything specific for multi-workspace investigations?
Can someone explain how to use the ‘union’ operator in a multi-workspace scenario?
Good read! Was confused about how to aggregate data, but this clears it up.
A bit basic. More advanced scenarios would be appreciated.
Thanks for the detailed explanation!
Are there any limitations regarding the number of workspaces that can be queried simultaneously?
Does anyone know how to handle data retention policies in a multi-workspace environment?