M06-Unit 4 Configure DDoS Protection on a virtual network using the Azure portal

Exercise scenario

Being responsible for Contoso’s Network Security team, you are going to run a mock DDoS attack on the virtual network. The following steps walk you through creating a virtual network, configuring DDoS Protection, and creating an attack which you can observe and monitor with the help of telemetry and metrics.

Diagram of DDoS architecture.

In this exercise, you will:

Task 1: Create a resource group
Task 2: Create a DDoS Protection plan
Task 3: Enable DDoS Protection on a new virtual network
Task 4: Configure DDoS telemetry
Task 5: Configure DDoS diagnostic logs
Task 6: Configure DDoS alerts
Task 7: Test with simulation partners

Note: An interactive lab simulation is available that allows you to click through this lab at your own pace. You may find slight differences between the interactive simulation and the hosted lab, but the core concepts and ideas being demonstrated are the same.

Estimated time: 40 minutes

Task 1: Create a resource group

Log in to your Azure account.
On the Azure portal home page, select Resource groups.
Select Create.
On the Basics tab, in Resource group, enter MyResourceGroup.
On Region, select East US.
Select Review + create.
Select Create.

Task 2: Create a DDoS Protection plan

On the Azure portal home page, in the search box enter DDoS and select DDoS protection plan when it appears.
Select + Create.
On the Basics tab, in the Resource group list, select the resource group you just created.
On the Instance name box, enter MyDdoSProtectionPlan, then select Review + create.
Select Create.

Task 3: Enable DDoS Protection on a new virtual network

Here you will enable DDoS on a new virtual network rather than on an existing one, so first you need to create the new virtual network, then enable DDoS protection on it using the plan you created previously.

On the Azure portal home page, select Create a resource, then in the search box, enter Virtual Network, then select Virtual Network when it appears.
On the Virtual Network page, select Create.
On the Basics tab, select the resource group you created previously.
On the Name box, enter MyVirtualNetwork, then select the Security tab.
On the Security tab, next to DDoS Network Protection, select Enable.
On the DDoS protection plan drop-down list, select MyDdosProtectionPlan.
Select Review + create.
Select Create.

Task 4: Configure DDoS telemetry

You create a Public IP address, and then set up telemetry in the next steps.

On the Azure portal home page, select Create a resource, then in the search box, enter public ip, then select Public IP address when it appears.
On the Public IP address page, select Create.
On the Create public IP address page, under SKU, select Standard.
On the Name box, enter MyPublicIPAddress.
Under IP address assignment, select Static.
On DNS name label, enter mypublicdnsxx (where xx is your initials to make this unique).
Select Create.
To set up telemetry, navigate to the Azure home page, select All resources.
On the list of your resources, select MyDdosProtectionPlan.
Under Monitoring, select Metrics.
Select the Scope box, then select the checkbox next to MyPublicIPAddress.
Select Apply.
On the Metrics box, select Inbound packets dropped DDoS.
On the Aggregation box, select Max.

Task 5: Configure DDoS diagnostic logs

On the Azure home page, select All resources.
On the list of your resources, select MyPublicIPAddress.
Under Monitoring, select Diagnostic settings.
Select Add diagnostic setting.
On the Diagnostic setting page, in the Diagnostic setting name box, enter MyDiagnosticSetting.
Under Category details, select all 3 log checkboxes and the AllMetrics checkbox.
Under Destination details, select the Send to Log Analytics workspace checkbox. Here, you could select a pre-existing Log Analytics workspace, but as you haven’t set up a destination for the diagnostic logs yet, you will just enter the settings, but then discard them in the next step in this exercise.
Normally you would now select Save to save your diagnostic settings. Note that this option is still grayed out as we cannot complete the setting configuration yet.
Select Discard, then select Yes.

Task 6: Configure DDoS alerts

In this step you will create a virtual machine, assign a public IP address to it, and then configure DDoS alerts.

Create the VM

On the Azure portal home page, select Create a resource, then in the search box, enter virtual machine, then select Virtual machine when it appears.
On the Virtual machine page, select Create.

On the Basics tab, create a new VM using the information in the table below.

Setting	Value
Subscription	Select your subscription
Resource group	MyResourceGroup
Virtual machine name	MyVirtualMachine
Region	Your region
Availability options	No infrastructure redundancy required
Image	Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS - Gen 2 (Select Configure VM Generation link if needed)
Size	Select See all sizes, then choose B1ls in the list and choose Select (Standard_B1ls - 1 vcpu, 0.5 GiB memory
Authentication type	SSH public key
Username	azureuser
SSH public key source	Generate new key pair
Key pair name	myvirtualmachine-ssh-key
Public inbound ports	Select None

Select Review + create.
Select Create.
On the Generate new key pair dialog box, select Download private key and create resource.
Save the private key.
When deployment is complete, select Go to resource.

Assign the Public IP address

On the Overview page of the new virtual machine, under Settings, select Networking.
Next to Network Interface, select myvirtualmachine-nic. The name of the nic may differ.
Under Settings, select IP configurations.
Select ipconfig1.
On the Public IP address list, select MyPublicIPAddress.
Select Save.

Configure DDoS alerts

On the Azure home page, select All resources.
On the list of your resources, select MyPublicIPAddress.
Under Monitoring, select Alerts.
Select Create alert rule.
On the Create alert rule page, under Scope, select Edit resource.
Select Under DDoS attack or not for the signal name.
Under Alert logic find the Operator setting and select Greater than or equal to.
On Threshold value, enter 1 (means under attack).
Navigate to the details tab and select Alert rule name, enter MyDdosAlert.
Select Create alert rule.

Task 7: Test with simulation partners

Review Azure DDoS simulation testing policy
Configure a DDoS test attack using an approved testing partner. If using BreakingPoint Cloud to test use the settings in the screenshot below (you may need to select the 100k pps test size with the trial account), but specifying the IP address of your own MyPublicIPAddress resource in the Target IP Address box (e.g., 51.140.137.219)
On the Azure portal home page, select All resources.
In the resources list, select your MyPublicIPAddress resource, then under Monitoring, select Metrics.
In the Metric box, select Under DDoS attack or not from the list.
Now you can see the DDoS attack as it happened. Note it may take the full 10 minutes before you see the results.

Clean up resources

Note: Remember to remove any newly created Azure resources that you no longer use. Removing unused resources ensures you will not see unexpected charges.

On the Azure portal, open the PowerShell session within the Cloud Shell pane.
Delete all resource groups you created throughout the labs of this module by running the following command:
```
Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name 'MyResourceGroup' -Force -AsJob
```

Note: The command executes asynchronously (as determined by the -AsJob parameter), so while you will be able to run another PowerShell command immediately afterwards within the same PowerShell session, it will take a few minutes before the resource groups are actually removed.

Extend your learning with Copilot

Copilot can assist you in learning how to use the Azure scripting tools. Copilot can also assist in areas not covered in the lab or where you need more information. Open an Edge browser and choose Copilot (top right) or navigate to copilot.microsoft.com. Take a few minutes to try these prompts.

What are DDoS attacks? How are DDoS attacks categorized and are there mitigation strategies?
Provide a table summarizing the two different Azure DDoS Protection tiers.
What Azure resources can be protected by DDoS Protection?

Learn more with self-paced training

Introduction to Azure DDoS Protection. In this module, you evaluate Azure DDoS Protection, its features, and architecture options.
Design and implement network security. In this module, you learn about and deploy Azure DDoS Protection.

Key takeaways

Congratulations on completing the lab. Here are the main takeaways for this lab.

A DDoS attack is a malicious attempt to overwhelm an application’s resources, making the application unavailable to legitimate users.
Azure DDoS Protection defends against DDoS attacks. It’s automatically tuned to help protect your specific Azure resources in a virtual network.
Azure DDoS Proectection features include: always on traffic monitoring, adaptive real time tuning, and telemetry and alerting.
Azure DDoS Protection supports two tier types, DDoS IP Protection and DDoS Network Protection.