5 ways to prevent Azure fraud

Azure fraud is on the rise. I first got concerned when an old-time employee from Microsoft posted a selfie video urging people to take steps to prevent it. He mentioned some European accounts being compromised and crypto farms being created overnight, incurring a massive cost to customers. Since most accounts are obtained due to the customer's negligence in keeping accounts safe, Microsoft will, in those cases, not revert charges.

Thankfully, fraud prevention can be simple. Follow these best practices to begin securing your Azure tenant today:

MFA

Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on all accounts tied to your tenant (either through security default or conditional access based on your Azure AD Plan).

Admin accounts

Review & ensure admin accounts tied to your Azure tenants are legitimate. Reduce the amount of account exposure by adopting Privileged Identity Management (PIM).

Activity Logs

Regularly monitor and manage Azure Activity Logs

Cost Anomaly Alerts

Set Cost Anomaly Alerts and receive email notifications

Budgets

Create Budgets to proactively manage and monitor your Azure spending and configure Budget email alerts to be notified when certain budget thresholds are exceeded.