Windows Azure Security Notes (PDF) is a collection of our notes and learnings from exploring the cloud security space and working through Windows Azure security scenarios.   Note that this is not a guide and it’s not a Microsoft patterns & practices deliverable.  It’s simply a way to package up, hand-off, and share what we learned during the exploration stage of our pattern

Cloud security has been a hot topic with the introduction of the Microsoft offering of the Windows Azure platform.  One of the quickest ways to get your head around security is to cut to the chase and look at the threats, attacks, vulnerabilities and countermeasures.  This post is a look at threats and countermeasures from a technical perspective.

As part of our Azure Security Guidance project, we tested setting up SSL during our exploration.  To do so, we created a self-signed certificate and deployed it to Azure.  This is a snapshot of the rough steps we used:

This is a comprehensive roundup of our patterns & practices security guidance for the Microsoft platform.   I put it together based on customers looking for our security guidance, but having a hard time finding it.  While you might come across a guide here or a How To there, it can be difficult to see the full map, including the breadth and depth of our security guidance.   This is a simple map. organized by “guidance type” (i.e. Guides, App Scenarios, Checklists, Guidelines, How Tos, … etc.)

This is a draft of our REST with ACS application scenario for your feedback.  It’s a whiteboard sketch of how to secure a REST service on Azure.

As part of our patterns & practices Azure Security Guidance project, we’re putting together a series of Application Scenarios and Solutions.  Our goal is to show the most common application scenarios on the Microsoft Azure platform.  This is your chance to give us feedback on whether we have the right scenarios, and whether you agree with the baseline solution.

As part of our patterns & practices Azure Security Guidance project, we’re putting together a series of Application Scenarios and Solutions.  Our goal is to show the most common application scenarios on the Microsoft Azure platform.  This is your chance to give us feedback on whether we have the right scenarios, and whether you agree with the baseline solution.