Qualys, Inc.has announced native integration between Qualys Cloud Agent technology and Microsoft Azure Security Center. Qualys will provide continuous Vulnerability Assessment services for Microsoft Azure virtual assets from within Azure Security Center’s unified security management and monitoring service. This integration allows Qualys customers to easily and automatically scan their Microsoft Azure environments, and incorporate those findings into their overall single view of security and compliance posture. Enterprises leveraging cloud platforms face increased real-time security and compliance challenges, starting with knowing which assets to protect, and when. These organisations often must identify vulnerable systems across public or private clouds and on-premise data centres, then act quickly to secure those environments. Qualys customers using this Microsoft Azure integration will be able to leverage Qualys Cloud Platform to gain a continuous, real-time view of vulnerable systems and associated vulnerabilities across Azure and all other environments.
“By natively integrating Qualys Cloud Agents with Microsoft Azure, we allow customers to easily extend their security and compliance policies into the Azure platform” said Philippe Courtot, chairman and CEO of Qualys.
"Azure Security Center helps organisations reduce the complexity of gaining visibility into security state, detecting threats, and tracking open security issues,” said Michal Braverman-Blunmenstyk, general manager of Azure Cybersecurity, Microsoft Corp. “By integrating with vulnerability assessment solutions from leading providers like Qualys, Security Centre can provide a unified security view across a customer’s Azure workloads.”
Azure Security Center automatically detects Azure virtual machines (VMs), and streamlines bulk Qualys Cloud Agent deployment to them with just a few steps. Once deployed, agents start reporting continuous vulnerability data to the Qualys Cloud Platform, which in turn, provides vulnerability and health monitoring data back to Azure Security Center. This allows customers to quickly identify vulnerable VMs from the Azure Security Center dashboard, then see deeper correlation, forensics and reporting details by switching directly to the Qualys management console for a continuous central view of IT security state across all global assets. Customers can use this data to assess the reported vulnerable systems, including on-premise servers, cloud virtual machines or laptops, and prioritise remediation using Qualys-provided analysis, and tracking accordingly with their operations team.
Flexible Cross-Enterprise Deployment
The addition of Qualys Cloud Agent technology in Azure Security Center delivers further flexibility for organisations looking to consolidate cross-enterprise visibility and control of IT assets. Qualys enables customers to leverage agents along with its appliance scanner technology for continuous vulnerability assessment in the public or private cloud and on-premise. These integrated agents, along with the Qualys Virtual Scanner Appliance and recently released extensions for Azure, enable customers with on-premise and public cloud assets to now choose the best deployment methods for their network.
