Diagnostic logging is enabled in Azure Firewall

Overview

Azure Firewall processes all inbound and outbound network traffic for protected workloads, making it a critical control point for network security monitoring. When diagnostic logging is not enabled, security operations teams lose visibility into traffic patterns, denied connection attempts, threat intelligence matches, and IDPS signature detections. A threat actor who gains initial access to an environment can move laterally through the network without detection because no firewall logs are being captured or analyzed. The absence of logging prevents correlation of network events with other security telemetry, eliminating the ability to construct attack timelines during incident investigations. Furthermore, compliance frameworks such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and SOC 2 require organizations to maintain audit logs of network security events, and the lack of firewall diagnostic logging creates audit failures. Azure Firewall provides multiple log categories including application rule logs, network rule logs, NAT rule logs, threat intelligence logs, IDPS signature logs, and DNS proxy logs, all of which must be routed to a destination such as Log Analytics, Storage Account, or Event Hub to enable security monitoring and forensic analysis.

Remediation

Create a Log Analytics workspace for storing Azure Firewall logs

• Create a Log Analytics workspace

Configure diagnostic settings for Azure Firewall to enable log collection

• Create diagnostic settings in Azure Monitor

Enable structured logs (resource-specific mode) for improved query performance and cost optimization

• Azure Firewall structured logs

Use Azure Firewall Workbook for visualizing and analyzing firewall logs

• Azure Firewall Workbook

Monitor Azure Firewall metrics and logs for security operations

• Monitor Azure Firewall

Run it

The check runs as part of the whole assessment, with the ZeroTrustAssessment module installed:

Install-Module ZeroTrustAssessment -Scope CurrentUser
Connect-Maester
Invoke-Maester -Pack ZTA -SkipBuiltIn

Leave out -SkipBuiltIn to run Maester’s own checks in the same run.

About this check

Severity	High
Effort to fix	Low
Impact on users	Low
Pillar	Network
Category	Azure Network Security
Product	Azure
Feature	Network security
Area	Logging and detection
ATT&CK	T1021 Remote Services, T1071 Application Layer Protocol
Licence	Azure_Firewall_Standard, Azure_Firewall_Premium
Tenant	Workforce

Product, feature, area and ATT&CK are Maester’s: the assessment does not record them, so Maester keeps them in the pack’s taxonomy.json.

A Microsoft check, part of the Zero Trust Assessment pack. Text from ZeroTrustAssessment 3.1.0, © Microsoft, MIT licence.