Stream alerts to monitoring solutions

Microsoft Defender for Cloud has the ability to stream security alerts into various Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), Security Orchestration Automated Response (SOAR), and IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions. Security alerts are generated when threats are detected on your resources. Defender for Cloud prioritizes and lists the alerts on the Alerts page, along with additional information needed to quickly investigate the problem. Detailed steps are provided to assist you to remediate the detected threat. All alerts data is retained for 90 days.

There are built-in Azure tools that are available that ensure you can view your alert data in the following solutions:

• Microsoft Sentinel
• Splunk Enterprise and Splunk Cloud
• Power BI
• ServiceNow
• IBM's QRadar
• Palo Alto Networks
• ArcSight

Stream alerts to Defender XDR with the Defender XDR API

Defender for Cloud natively integrates with Microsoft Defender XDR allows you to use Defender XDR's incidents and alerts API to stream alerts and incidents into non-Microsoft solutions. Defender for Cloud customers can access one API for all Microsoft security products and can use this integration as an easier way to export alerts and incidents.

Learn how to integrate SIEM tools with Defender XDR.

Stream alerts to Microsoft Sentinel

Defender for Cloud natively integrates with Microsoft Sentinel Azure's cloud-native SIEM and SOAR solution.

Microsoft Sentinel's connectors for Defender for Cloud

Microsoft Sentinel includes built-in connectors for Microsoft Defender for Cloud at the subscription and tenant levels.

You can:

• Stream alerts to Microsoft Sentinel at the subscription level.
• Connect all subscriptions in your tenant to Microsoft Sentinel.

When you connect Defender for Cloud to Microsoft Sentinel, the status of Defender for Cloud alerts that get ingested into Microsoft Sentinel is synchronized between the two services. For example, when an alert is closed in Defender for Cloud, that alert is also shown as closed in Microsoft Sentinel. When you change the status of an alert in Defender for Cloud, the status of the alert in Microsoft Sentinel is also updated. However, the statuses of any Microsoft Sentinel incidents that contain the synchronized Microsoft Sentinel alert aren't updated.

You can enable the bi-directional alert synchronization feature to automatically sync the status of the original Defender for Cloud alerts with Microsoft Sentinel incidents that contain the copies of the Defender for Cloud alerts. For example, when a Microsoft Sentinel incident that contains a Defender for Cloud alert is closed, Defender for Cloud automatically closes the corresponding original alert.

Learn how to connect alerts from Microsoft Defender for Cloud.

Configure ingestion of all audit logs into Microsoft Sentinel

Another alternative for investigating Defender for Cloud alerts in Microsoft Sentinel is to stream your audit logs into Microsoft Sentinel:

• Connect Windows security events
• Collect data from Linux-based sources using Syslog
• Connect data from Azure Activity log

Stream alerts to QRadar and Splunk

To export security alerts to Splunk and QRadar, you need to use Event Hubs and a built-in connector. You can either use a PowerShell script or the Azure portal to set up the requirements for exporting security alerts for your subscription or tenant. Once the requirements are in place, you need to use the procedure specific to each SIEM to install the solution in the SIEM platform.

Prerequisites

Before you set up the Azure services for exporting alerts, make sure you have:

• Azure subscription (Create a free account)
• Azure resource group (Create a resource group)
• Owner role on the alerts scope (subscription, management group or tenant), or these specific permissions:
  • Write permissions for event hubs and the Event Hubs Policy
  • Create permissions for Microsoft Entra applications, if you aren't using an existing Microsoft Entra application
  • Assign permissions for policies, if you're using the Azure Policy 'DeployIfNotExist'

Set up the Azure services

You can set up your Azure environment to support continuous export using either:

PowerShell script (Recommended)

1. Download and run the PowerShell script.

2. Enter the required parameters.

3. Execute the script.

The script performs all of the steps for you. When the script finishes, use the output to install the solution in the SIEM platform.

Azure portal

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

2. Search for and select Event Hubs.

3. Create an Event Hubs namespace and event hub.

4. Define a policy for the event hub with Send permissions.

If you're streaming alerts to QRadar:

1. Create an event hub Listen policy.

2. Copy and save the connection string of the policy to use in QRadar.

3. Create a consumer group.

4. Copy and save the name to use in the SIEM platform.

5. Enable continuous export of security alerts to the defined event hub.

6. Create a storage account.

7. Copy and save the connection string to the account to use in QRadar.

For more detailed instructions, see Prepare Azure resources for exporting to Splunk and QRadar.

If you're streaming alerts to Splunk:

1. Create a Microsoft Entra application.

2. Save the Tenant, App ID, and App password.

3. Give permissions to the Microsoft Entra Application to read from the event hub you created before.

For more detailed instructions, see Prepare Azure resources for exporting to Splunk and QRadar.

Connect the event hub to your preferred solution using the built-in connectors

Each SIEM platform has a tool to enable it to receive alerts from Azure Event Hubs. Install the tool for your platform to start receiving alerts.

Stream alerts with continuous export

To stream alerts into ArcSight, SumoLogic, Syslog servers, LogRhythm, Logz.io Cloud Observability Platform, and other monitoring solutions, connect Defender for Cloud using continuous export and Azure Event Hubs.

To stream alerts with continuous export:

1. Enable continuous export:

   • At the subscription level.
   • At the Management Group level using Azure Policy.

2. Connect the event hub to your preferred solution using the built-in connectors:

   Tool	Hosted in Azure	Description
   SumoLogic	No	Instructions for setting up SumoLogic to consume data from an event hub are available at Collect Logs for the Azure Audit App from Event Hubs.
   ArcSight	No	The ArcSight Azure Event Hubs smart connector is available as part of the ArcSight smart connector collection.
   Syslog server	No	If you want to stream Azure Monitor data directly to a syslog server, you can use a solution based on an Azure function.
   LogRhythm	No	Instructions to set up LogRhythm to collect logs from an event hub are available here.
   Logz.io	Yes	For more information, see Getting started with monitoring and logging using Logz.io for Java apps running on Azure

3. (Optional) Stream the raw logs to the event hub and connect to your preferred solution. Learn more in Monitoring data available.

To view the event schemas of the exported data types, visit the Event Hubs event schemas.

Use the Microsoft Graph Security API to stream alerts to non-Microsoft applications

Defender for Cloud's built-in integration with Microsoft Graph Security API without the need of any further configuration requirements.

You can use this API to stream alerts from your entire tenant (and data from many Microsoft Security products) into non-Microsoft SIEMs and other popular platforms:

• Splunk Enterprise and Splunk Cloud - Use the Microsoft Graph Security API Add-On for Splunk
• Power BI - Connect to the Microsoft Graph Security API in Power BI Desktop.
• ServiceNow - Install and configure the Microsoft Graph Security API application from the ServiceNow Store.
• QRadar - Use IBM's Device Support Module for Microsoft Defender for Cloud via Microsoft Graph API.
• Palo Alto Networks, Anomali, Lookout, InSpark, and more - Use the Microsoft Graph Security API.

Next steps

This page explained how to ensure your Microsoft Defender for Cloud alert data is available in your SIEM, SOAR, or ITSM tool of choice. For related material, see:

• What is Microsoft Sentinel?
• Alert validation in Microsoft Defender for Cloud - Verify your alerts are correctly configured
• Continuously export Defender for Cloud data