Continuously monitors and improves cloud security by identifying and remediating risks. Ensures compliance with industry standards through automated assessments.
Protects cloud workloads from evolving threats by offering comprehensive security across various environments. Ensures real-time threat detection and mitigation.
Enhances security posture by managing threats and maintaining compliance with industry regulations. Automates security monitoring and provides actionable insights for remediation.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is Microsoft's cloud security platform, combining Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and Cloud Workload Protection (CWPP) across Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, and hybrid environments. It continuously assesses cloud configurations against industry benchmarks, identifies vulnerabilities in workloads, detects active threats in real time, and provides prioritised remediation guidance from a single unified platform.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is about configuration - identifying misconfigurations, excessive permissions, and compliance gaps across your cloud environment. Cloud Workload Protection (CWPP) is about runtime - detecting active threats against your virtual machines, containers, serverless functions, and databases. CSPM tells you what's set up wrong; CWPP tells you what's being attacked right now. Defender for Cloud covers both natively, which is why it competes with dedicated CSPM tools like Wiz and CWPP tools like Prisma Cloud in the same conversation.
Yes, and consolidating multi-cloud security onto Defender for Cloud is one of the highest-impact engagements we deliver for organisations running Azure alongside AWS or Google Cloud. Rather than paying for three separate cloud-native tools or licensing a standalone multi-cloud platform like Wiz or Prisma Cloud, Defender for Cloud provides full CSPM and CWPP coverage across all three from a single unified dashboard. Our team plans connector rollout, tunes Secure Score recommendations per cloud, and integrates the whole stack with Sentinel - so multi-cloud security stops being three separate programs.
They're the same product - Azure Security Center was rebranded to Microsoft Defender for Cloud in November 2021, at the same time Microsoft extended the platform to cover AWS and Google Cloud. If you see legacy documentation or older third-party guides referring to Azure Security Center, they're describing the same capabilities that now sit under the Defender for Cloud name.
Our team also frequently supports clients who inherited Security Center deployments configured under the old model - migrating those to the modern Defender for Cloud feature set often unlocks capabilities the original deployment never turned on.
Deployment covers connector configuration across Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud environments, tuning Secure Score recommendations, enabling workload protection for the resource types you actually run (VMs, containers, storage, databases, App Service), integrating with Sentinel for centralised detection and response, and mapping compliance policies to your applicable frameworks. Engagements are delivered by senior cloud security consultants with hands-on multi-cloud experience - not Azure-only specialists translating AWS and GCP by analogy.
Defender for Cloud includes built-in regulatory compliance dashboards for ISO27001, PCI DSS, SOC 2, NIST SP 800-53, the ACSC Essential Eight, and the Australian Privacy Act - providing continuous compliance monitoring, evidence collection, and gap reporting. For APRA CPS 234-regulated entities, SOCI Act critical infrastructure operators, and organisations pursuing IRAP assessment, Defender for Cloud produces the evidence audit teams need without running a separate compliance program.
