Implement security for servers and virtual machines - Part 3

In **Part 3** of our Servers and Virtual Machines security series, we will focus on two important challenges every Cloud Security Engineer must address: **How do you securely provide administrative access to virtual machines without leaving management ports permanently exposed?** And: **How do you ensure that operating system security configurations remain compliant across hundreds or thousands of servers?** This session will explore how **Microsoft Defender for Cloud Just-in-Time VM Access, Azure Policy, and Azure Machine Configuration** can help organizations reduce their attack surface and continuously enforce secure server configurations. **About the Session** Virtual machines remain a critical part of enterprise cloud infrastructure, but they also present significant security risks when administrative services are exposed or operating system configurations drift away from organizational standards. Leaving management ports such as **RDP and SSH** permanently accessible increases the potential attack surface, while inconsistent server configurations can introduce vulnerabilities, compliance gaps, and operational risk. During this session, participants will learn how Microsoft Azure helps organizations address these challenges through: * Just-in-Time access to virtual machines * Time-bound administrative connectivity * Centralized access policies * Access auditing * Azure Policy enforcement * Operating system security baselines * Azure Machine Configuration * Continuous auditing and remediation The objective is to move from manually securing individual servers toward a **policy-driven, scalable, and continuously enforced server security model**. **What You Will Learn** By the end of the session, participants should understand how to: * Explain the security risks associated with permanently exposed RDP and SSH ports * Understand how JIT VM access reduces the attack surface * Enable Just-in-Time access for Azure virtual machines * Configure per-port acc