Control: 4.1.4 Ensure that Azure Active Directory Admin is Configured for SQL Servers

Description

Use Azure Active Directory Authentication for authentication with SQL Database to manage credentials in a single place.

Azure Active Directory authentication is a mechanism to connect to Microsoft Azure SQL Database and SQL Data Warehouse by using identities in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). With Azure AD authentication, identities of database users and other Microsoft services can be managed in one central location. Central ID management provides a single place to manage database users and simplifies permission management.

It provides an alternative to SQL Server authentication.
Helps stop the proliferation of user identities across database servers.
Allows password rotation in a single place.
Customers can manage database permissions using external (AAD) groups.
It can eliminate storing passwords by enabling integrated Windows authentication and other forms of authentication supported by Azure Active Directory.
Azure AD authentication uses contained database users to authenticate identities at the database level.
Azure AD supports token-based authentication for applications connecting to SQL Database.
Azure AD authentication supports ADFS (domain federation) or native user/password authentication for a local Azure Active Directory without domain synchronization.
Azure AD supports connections from SQL Server Management Studio that use Active Directory Universal Authentication, which includes Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). MFA includes strong authentication with a range of easy verification options - phone call, text message, smart cards with pin, or mobile app notification.

Remediation

From Azure Console

Go to SQL servers
For each SQL server, click on Active Directory admin
Click on Set admin
Select an admin
Click Save

Using PowerShell

For each Server, set AD Admin

Set-AzSqlServerActiveDirectoryAdministrator -ResourceGroupName <resource
group name> -ServerName <server name> -DisplayName "<Display name of AD
account to set as DB administrator>"

From Azure CLI

az ad user show --id

For each Server, set AD Admin

az sql server ad-admin create --resource-group <resource group name> --server
<server name> --display-name <display name> --object-id <object id of user>

Default Value

Azure Active Directory Authentication for SQL Database/Server is not enabled by default.

Usage

Run the control in your terminal:

powerpipe control run azure_compliance.control.cis_v150_4_1_4

Snapshot and share results via Turbot Pipes:

powerpipe login
powerpipe control run azure_compliance.control.cis_v150_4_1_4 --share

SQL

This control uses a named query:

select
  s.id as resource,
  case
    when server_azure_ad_administrator is null then 'alarm'
    else 'ok'
  end as status,
  case
    when server_azure_ad_administrator is null then name || ' Azure AD authentication not configured.'
    else name || ' Azure AD authentication configured.'
  end as reason
  
  , s.resource_group as resource_group
  , sub.display_name as subscription
from
  azure_sql_server s,
  azure_subscription sub
where
  sub.subscription_id = s.subscription_id;