Secure PaaS Application

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Leverage full network security and integration, with internet traffic blocked, firewalls protecting your deployment and supporting hybrid applications that integrate securely with other services in your network.

Technical Requirements of the solution presented

Green field or .net application migration with a SQL Server back end the following Security features:

No public endpoints available for Web Application or SQL Database.
Secrets like database connection strings not available in code or application configuration.
Web Application Firewall in front of Web Application to protect against the top 10 OWASP threats
Outbound traffic from the Web App to SQL Database and other in-network resources (including on-premise) routed to a firewall for inspection.

Architecture

This architecture leverages the following Azure Security features:

Feature	Purpose	Reference
Key Vault	Store secrets like SQL connection string securely.	https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/key-vault/general/basic-concepts
Managed Identity	App Service identity to securely access Key Vault secrets.	https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/overview-managed-identity
Private Endpount for Key Vault	Connect to Key Vault from Private IP	https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/key-vault/general/private-link-service?tabs=portal
Private Endpoint for Web App	Eliminate exposure from the public internet.	https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/networking/private-endpoint
VNet Integration	Enables apps to access resources in or through a VNet	https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/web-sites-integrate-with-vnet
Private Endpoint for SQL DB	Connect to SQL DB through a private IP	https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/database/private-endpoint-overview
SQL DB Firewall rules	Eliminate exposure from the public internet	https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/database/firewall-configure
Route Table	Direct application traffic destined to the SQl DB to Azure Firewall	https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/manage-route-table
App Gateway	Web Application Firewall	https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/example-scenario/gateway/firewall-application-gateway
Azure Firewall	App outbound traffic control and inspection	https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/firewall/overview

Solution Overview

This solution deploys a fully automated secure baseline Azure ARM Template + Powershell to provision a PaaS environment fully configured for high security.

Azure Resources deployed:

Hub and Spoke VNets with VNet peering.
App Gateway with WAF and Azure Firewall in the Hub VNet.
Azure Key Vault with Private Endpoint and SQL CnString as Secret.
Premium App Service Plan with Regional VNet Integration and Private IP for outbound traffic.
App Service with Manage Identity and Private Endpoint.
SQL Database with Private Endpoint.
Private DNS Zones for all Private Endpoints.
Optional Route Table to send traffic from the application destined to SQL to the Azure Firewall.
A sample application (Athlete Roster) deployed as a package leveraging the MSDEPLOY extension.
A sample SQL DB schema with data that supports the sample application. Using a bacpac file.
Configurations to block internet traffic to App Service and SQL Database.

Deployment Steps

Clone or dowload the solution to your local machine

git clone https://github.com/azuregomez/SecureApp.git somefolder

Configure azuredeploy.parameters.json Provide a resource group prefix. This prefix will be used to create default names for Azure Resources.

Provide additional parameters that may override defaults. Like application package and SQL Database bacpac.
Provide optinal parameters for _artifactsLocation and _artifactsLocationSasToken. By default, these paramataers point to linked templates in this github repository. If you host the files in a different repositpry you will have to provide these parameters.
Provide you Azure AD Object ID. This is required so you are authorized to manage the the Key Vault that is created. You can obtain this with Powershell cmdlets:

Get-AzADUser or Get-AzADServicePrincipal.

Run azudereploy.ps1 -Location "East US" // or the chosen deployment location
Run enablefirewallroute.ps1 (only if you want to send traffic from the app with destination SQL DB to the Azure Firewall)

Release Notes

Pre requisites: Azure Subscription with Contributor role, Powershell 5.1, Azure Cmdlets
App Gateway is deployed with a Public IP. This means the App Service is accessible from the internet through App Gateway.
The template as well as the powershell script follow an easy convention where all resources have the same prefix. The prefix is specified in the template parameters and all other parameters have a default derived from resourceprefix. The powershell script assumes this convention is followed.
For the Kudu console, or Kudu REST API (deployment with Azure DevOps self-hosted agents for example), you must create two records in your Azure DNS private zone or your custom DNS server.
To secure and inspect the traffic to Private Endpoints there are 2 caveats:
- NSGs at the Private Endpoint subnets are in Public Preview.
- Creating Private Link Endpoints injects /32 routes into your Azure subnets. Therefore you want to create User-Defined Routes for your endpoint using specific /32 prefixes too (otherwise, the most specific prefix will win). This is exactly what enablefirewallroute.ps1 does. https://blog.cloudtrooper.net/2020/05/23/filtering-traffic-to-private-endpoints-with-azure-firewall/
This architecture virtually injects an App Service into a VNet by allowing inbound traffic exclusively from App Gateway and using a delegated subnet for Outbound access to SQL Azure DB, Storage and potentially to on-prem locations. For true VNet injection you must use an App Service Environment.

What if I want the application to be ONLY available from my corporate Network?

App Gateway needs to be deployed with an internal IP. If App Gateway is not desired and internal access is appropriate without a WAF, this can be accomplished through the private endpoint but if traffic comes from on-premise there has to be DNS forwarding or on-prem pinpoint DNS to resolve the private endpoint of the web application.
For Hybrid connectivity: VPN or VNet Gateway (ExpressRoute).