Review Microsoft Defender for Cloud Security Recommendations

Client Background

Cascade Energy Partners, a utilities holding company, runs ~340 Azure resources across two subscriptions (production and dev) including IaaS VMs, Azure SQL, Key Vaults, and storage accounts serving SCADA historians. They adopted Microsoft Defender for Cloud on the Standard plan last year but have never triaged the recommendation backlog. The OT security manager wants an independent review prioritizing remediation before an upcoming NERC CIP audit.

Business Environment

The Azure footprint is managed by a six-person cloud platform team; Defender for Cloud shows ~180 active recommendations across CSPM, CWPP, and posture items, with a Defender for Servers coverage gap on several legacy VMs. Environments split between a prod subscription (regulated, CIP-applicable) and a dev subscription (lightly governed). The OT security manager needs a defensible, prioritized roadmap for a NERC CIP audit in three months.

Security Incident

No incident; the engagement is a proactive posture review. The trigger was an internal audit finding noting '82% of Defender for Cloud high-severity recommendations unremediated,' which is a likely NERC CIP non-conformance if left unaddressed.

Scope

Microsoft Defender for Cloud recommendations review across both Azure subscriptions, covering CSPM posture, Defender workload protections (Servers, SQL, Storage, Key Vault, Containers), and regulatory mapping to NERC CIP. Excludes multi-cloud (AWS/GCP) posture and any on-prem OT systems outside Azure.

Objectives

• Full objectives coming soon

Required Deliverables