Securing sensitive business data and critical operations is undoubtedly of utmost importance for businesses as well as service providers.
Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations stands as a prime target for attackers as it holds critical business functions like finance, procurement, operations, and supply chain management, housing sensitive data such as payments, orders, and supplier information. So, Microsoft recently introduced a new Microsoft Sentinel Solution for Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations – its premium solution dedicated to monitoring and safeguarding your highly sensitive and business-critical ERP systems powered by Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations.
In this blog post, we will explore how this comprehensive security solution, integrated with Microsoft Azure, helps monitor, detect threats, and respond to incidents in Dynamics 365 F&O.
The need for securing your Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations is a robust ERP solution that offers a wide range of financial and operational capabilities. It serves as the backbone for critical business processes such as finance, procurement, operations, and supply chain management.
Streamlined Operations: Combines financial and operational capabilities, enabling businesses to streamline workflows and automate tasks.
Valuable Insights: Provides actionable insights into operational performance, enabling businesses to make informed decisions and drive growth.
Critical Business Processes: Handles sensitive data such as payments, orders, and account receivables, making it an attractive target for cybercriminals.
Given its pivotal role and the sensitivity of the data it handles, securing Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations becomes essential. Breaches in these systems can lead to dire consequences, including customer data exposure, disruption of vital processes, revenue loss, and significant damage to reputation. This is where solutions like Microsoft Sentinel come into play.
Addressing Security Risks with Microsoft Sentinel Solution
Often, these business applications are administered by non-security experts within the organization. They are accessed by a wide range of users, both internal and external, and are integrated with various internal and external systems. With this launch, Microsoft is keen on addressing the issue of lack of effective controls to monitor, detect, and respond to data exfiltration, process disruptions, and other malicious activities in these systems.
Leveraging the power of Microsoft Azure, this solution offers the following essential features to protect your Dynamics 365 F&O environment:
Enhanced visibility: Monitoring user logins, sign-ins, and CRUD activities
Visibility into user activities and system actions is crucial for effective security. With Microsoft Sentinel Solution, you can achieve enhanced visibility into your Dynamics 365 F&O environment. It enables continuous monitoring of user logins, sign-ins, and activities related to Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD) operations. It goes beyond user actions and also tracks configuration changes and activities performed by external applications and APIs.
By having a comprehensive view of these activities, you can easily spot any anomalies or potential security risks that may emerge, allowing you to proactively respond and mitigate potential threats.
Threat detection: Identify suspicious and illegitimate activities
For maintaining the integrity of your Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O system, it’s crucial to detect and identify potential threats. With the Microsoft Sentinel Solution, you gain access to built-in analytics rules tailored for Dynamics 365 F&O. These rules utilize advanced algorithms and machine learning to spot suspicious activities such as unauthorized logins, changes to user permissions, data exfiltration attempts, and violations of segregation of duties (SOD) policies.
By proactively monitoring and analyzing these activities, the solution helps you stay proactive and respond to them in a timely manner.
Incident investigation and response: Swift actions to mitigate security incidents
Timely and efficient response is crucial in the event of a security incident. With the Microsoft Sentinel Solution, you can effectively investigate and respond to such incidents.
If a security breach or suspicious activity is detected, the solution provides actionable insights and facilitates immediate response actions. This can include limiting user access, notifying relevant business administrators or security teams, and even rolling back unauthorized changes.
By enabling swift incident response, the solution helps mitigate the impact of security incidents and minimizes potential damage to your Dynamics 365 F&O environment.
Together, these elements of Microsoft Sentinel provide comprehensive security, ensuring the integrity of your critical business processes and safeguarding sensitive data in your Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O environment.
Getting Started with Microsoft Sentinel: A Step-by-Step Guide
Here are the steps to follow to get started with the Microsoft Sentinel solution for Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations.
Step 1: Verify prerequisites
You must have Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance version 10.0.33 or above to enable this solution. Then, ensure that you have enabled the Microsoft Sentinel solution, have a defined workspace, and administrative access to Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations. You should also be able to create an Azure Function App and Data Collection Rules/Endpoints with the required permissions.
Step 2: Collect the environment URL
Next, retrieve the URL of your Finance and Operations environment you want to monitor with Microsoft Sentinel, ensuring it meets the required version.
Step 3: Deploy the solution and enable the data connector
Once done, access the Microsoft Sentinel service, search for “Dynamics 365 F&O,” install the solution, and configure the data connector.
Step 4: Deploy the data connector
Navigate to your Sentinel workspace, select Data connectors, search for “Dynamics 365 F&O,” and open the connector page. Complete the necessary configuration steps.
Step 5: Configure the data connector
To configure the data connector, deploy the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Template by following the installation wizard and providing the environment URL collected in Step 2.
Next, enable data collection by creating a role and user for data collection in Finance and Operations, registering the managed identity in Azure Active Directory, and enabling auditing on relevant data tables.
Step 6: Verify log ingestion
Lastly, confirm that logs are successfully ingested into Microsoft Sentinel by running activities on any of the tables enabled for monitoring and then querying the FinanceOperationsActivity_CL table.
Conclusion
Securing your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations environment is vital to protect your critical business processes and sensitive data. With the Microsoft Sentinel Solution, you can proactively monitor, detect threats, and respond to incidents effectively. However, to fully capitalize on the incredible benefits, it is crucial to implement the solution correctly, tailored to your specific requirements, objectives, and environment.
Schedule a personalized demo with our team of experts to begin your journey towards a more secure and resilient future with Microsoft Sentinel!
