Auditing Disabled for SQL Servers

Using Console

To remediate the “Auditing Disabled for SQL Servers” misconfiguration in Azure using the Azure console, follow these steps:

Log in to the Azure portal (https://portal.azure.com/) using your credentials.
Navigate to the Azure SQL Server that you want to remediate.
Click on the “Auditing” option from the left-hand side menu.
In the “Auditing” blade, click on “Enable Auditing”.
In the “Audit to” section, select the destination where you want to store the audit logs. You can choose to store the logs in a storage account or log analytics workspace.
In the “Audit logs retention (days)” section, specify the number of days for which you want to retain the audit logs.
In the “Event types to audit” section, select the events that you want to audit. You can choose to audit all events or select specific events.
In the “Storage account settings” or “Log Analytics workspace settings” section, specify the required details for the destination where you want to store the audit logs.
Click on “Save” to enable auditing for the SQL Server.
Verify that auditing is enabled by checking the “Auditing” blade. You should see a message that says “Auditing is enabled”.

That’s it! You have successfully remediated the “Auditing Disabled for SQL Servers” misconfiguration in Azure.

Using CLI

Here are the step-by-step instructions to remediate the issue of auditing disabled for SQL Servers on Azure using Azure CLI:

Open the Azure CLI on your local machine or Azure Cloud Shell.
Login to your Azure account using the following command:

az login

Once you are logged in, select the Azure subscription that contains the SQL Server you want to remediate:

az account set --subscription <subscription_id>

Next, check the current auditing status of the SQL Server using the following command:

az sql server audit-policy show --resource-group <resource_group_name> --server <server_name>

If auditing is disabled, you can enable it by running the following command:

az sql server audit-policy update --resource-group <resource_group_name> --server <server_name> --state Enabled --storage-account <storage_account_name> --storage-key <storage_account_key> --storage-endpoint <storage_account_endpoint>

Note: Replace <resource_group_name>, <server_name>, <storage_account_name>, <storage_account_key>, and <storage_account_endpoint> with the appropriate values for your environment.

After running the command, wait for a few minutes to allow the changes to propagate.
Finally, verify that auditing is now enabled for the SQL Server using the following command:

az sql server audit-policy show --resource-group <resource_group_name> --server <server_name>

That’s it! You have successfully remediated the misconfiguration of auditing disabled for SQL Servers on Azure using Azure CLI.

Using Python

To remediate the issue of auditing being disabled for SQL Servers in Azure using Python, you can use the Azure SDK for Python. Here are the step-by-step instructions:

Install the Azure SDK for Python using pip:

pip install azure-mgmt-sql

Import the necessary modules:

from azure.identity import DefaultAzureCredential
from azure.mgmt.sql import SqlManagementClient

Authenticate using the default Azure credentials:

credential = DefaultAzureCredential()
subscription_id = 'YOUR_SUBSCRIPTION_ID'
resource_group_name = 'YOUR_RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME'
server_name = 'YOUR_SQL_SERVER_NAME'

Create a SqlManagementClient object:

sql_client = SqlManagementClient(credential, subscription_id)

Enable auditing for the SQL Server:

from azure.mgmt.sql.models import ServerSecurityAlertPolicy, SecurityAlertPolicyState
security_alert_policy = ServerSecurityAlertPolicy(state=SecurityAlertPolicyState.enabled)
sql_client.server_security_alert_policies.create_or_update(resource_group_name, server_name, security_alert_policy_name='default', parameters=security_alert_policy)

Verify that auditing has been enabled by checking the current state of the security alert policy:

current_security_alert_policy = sql_client.server_security_alert_policies.get(resource_group_name, server_name, security_alert_policy_name='default')
print(current_security_alert_policy.state)

These steps will enable auditing for the specified SQL Server in Azure using Python.

Using Terraform

# SQL Server (resource type: azure-database-sql-server → azurerm_mssql_server)
resource "azurerm_mssql_server" "sql" {
  name                         = "SQL_SERVER_NAME"          # replace with your server name
  resource_group_name          = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
  location                     = azurerm_resource_group.rg.location
  version                      = "12.0"
  administrator_login          = "SQL_ADMIN_USERNAME"
  administrator_login_password = "SQL_ADMIN_PASSWORD"

  minimum_tls_version = "1.2"
}

# Storage account to hold audit logs
resource "azurerm_storage_account" "audit" {
  name                     = "AUDITSTORAGEACCOUNTNAME"     # globally unique, 3–24 lower-case letters and numbers
  resource_group_name      = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
  location                 = azurerm_resource_group.rg.location
  account_tier             = "Standard"
  account_replication_type = "LRS"
}

# Enable auditing for the SQL Server (this is what fixes the finding)
resource "azurerm_mssql_server_extended_auditing_policy" "sql_audit" {
  server_id = azurerm_mssql_server.sql.id

  # Use storage-based auditing
  storage_endpoint                        = azurerm_storage_account.audit.primary_blob_endpoint
  storage_account_access_key              = azurerm_storage_account.audit.primary_access_key
  storage_account_access_key_is_secondary = false

  retention_in_days = 90                   # adjust to your required retention threshold
}

# If you prefer Log Analytics-based auditing instead of storage, use this form:
# resource "azurerm_mssql_server_extended_auditing_policy" "sql_audit" {
#   server_id                  = azurerm_mssql_server.sql.id
#   log_analytics_workspace_id = azurerm_log_analytics_workspace.law.id
#   retention_in_days          = 90
# }

# NOTE: Turning auditing on this way does not force replacement of the SQL Server;
# it is applied in-place.

terraform plan should show creation of azurerm_mssql_server_extended_auditing_policy.sql_audit (and the storage account or Log Analytics workspace if new), with the state for that policy moving from absent to present and auditing enabled on the target SQL Server.

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