Monitor Compliance Findings
Implementation Effort: Medium
Setting up and maintaining compliance monitoring involves configuring standards, reviewing dashboards, and possibly integrating with reporting tools like Azure Monitor workbooks.
User Impact: Low
Compliance monitoring is handled by security and compliance teams; end users are not directly affected or required to take action.
Overview
Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a Regulatory Compliance Dashboard that continuously assesses your cloud environment against industry and regulatory standards such as ISO 27001, NIST, and Azure-specific benchmarks. These standards are broken down into compliance controls, which group related security recommendations. Defender for Cloud automatically evaluates your resources against these controls and displays their compliance status as compliant, non-compliant, or unavailable (if automatic assessment isn't possible).
The dashboard allows security teams to:
- View compliance status by standard and control
- Drill down into failed assessments for remediation guidance
- Track compliance trends over time using Azure Monitor workbooks
- Export audit-ready reports for internal or external review
If compliance findings are not monitored, organizations risk failing audits, missing regulatory obligations, and exposing themselves to security vulnerabilities. This capability supports the "Verify Explicitly" principle of Zero Trust by ensuring that compliance is continuously validated based on real-time data and assessments.