Azure CloudSec Practitioner Series: 1 — Deploying an Azure PenTest VM

As the field of cloud security evolve, so too does the skills and expertise necessary to excel in this domain. Beyond understanding the principles of shared security responsibility and how to implement security controls, it is necessary to be current with emerging threats, technology updates, and industry trends. This is not an easy thing to do. Just last year (2022) alone, Microsoft announced 389 updates to the Azure platform— cloud update fatigue is real!

In equipping cloud security practitioners to be effective in performing their roles, cloud pentesting training is becoming very essential. Training practitioners on finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in cloud configuration and resources gives them a holistic understanding of the threat landscape, helps them to better understand the criticality of attack vectors and equips them with clear knowledge on designing and implementing more robust security measures.

Introducing the Azure PenTest VM Template

For those seeking hands-on experience in cloud pentesting, a dedicated VM is needed. I’m pleased to announce the release of my Azure pentest VM template: Azure PenTest VM. This template is tailored to simplify the provisioning of a VM explicitly intended for pentesting Azure environments.

The provisioned VM includes a range of tools (about 19 of them), that can be used to create and exploit vulnerable Azure resources and configurations in a user-managed playground account. This allows practitioners to gains hands-on-experience with exploiting vulnerabilities in a cloud context, all within a safe and controlled environment.

Figure 1 — Deploy an Azure PenTest VM

To get started:

1. Initiate the deployment via the linked GitHub repository.
2. Provide the necessary resource group for the VM deployment and input your preferred admin password (as shown in Figure 2).

Figure 2 — Supply the necessary parameters for deployment

Please note: Some of the integrated tools depend on Docker. As such, post-deployment, users will need to ensure Docker is running and accept the associated license agreement. Detailed steps for this process can be found at: Post-deployment Steps.

For any challenges or feedback during utilization, kindly log your concerns or issues at: Azure CloudSec Practitioner Issues.

Throughout the remainder of this series, I’ll guide you on utilizing the tools inside the VM to provision vulnerable environments in Azure and walk-throughs of attack scenarios for hands-on practice.

Also, if you need to dive deeper into Azure cloud security and expand your multi-cloud expertise, check out our upcoming courses!

Azure Cloud Pentesting for Ethical Hackers (2 Days)

• Dates: October 7 & 8, October 28 & 29 (GMT & PST)
• Learn More & Enroll: Azure Pentesting Course

Multi-Cloud Fundamentals — Azure, AWS, GCP (4 Days)

• Dates: November 11, 12, 18 & 19 (GMT & PST)
• Learn More & Enroll: Multi-Cloud Fundamentals Course

🎉 Special Offer: Secure a 50% course discount! Simply email courses@chariscloud.com, indicating which course you’d like to sign up for.