Customize the set of standards in your regulatory compliance dashboard

Microsoft Defender for Cloud continually compares the configuration of your resources with requirements in industry standards, regulations, and benchmarks. The regulatory compliance dashboard provides insights into your compliance posture based on how you're meeting specific compliance requirements.

Tip

Learn more about Defender for Cloud's regulatory compliance dashboard in the frequently asked questions.

How are regulatory compliance standards represented in Defender for Cloud?

Industry standards, regulatory standards, and benchmarks are represented in Defender for Cloud's regulatory compliance dashboard. Each standard is an initiative defined in Azure Policy.

To see compliance data mapped as assessments in your dashboard, add a compliance standard to your management group or subscription from within the Security policy page. To learn more about Azure Policy and initiatives, see Working with security policies.

When you've assigned a standard or benchmark to your selected scope, the standard appears in your regulatory compliance dashboard with all associated compliance data mapped as assessments. You can also download summary reports for any of the standards that have been assigned.

Microsoft tracks the regulatory standards themselves and automatically improves its coverage in some of the packages over time. When Microsoft releases new content for the initiative, it appears automatically in your dashboard as new policies mapped to controls in the standard.

What regulatory compliance standards are available in Defender for Cloud?

By default, every Azure subscription has the Microsoft cloud security benchmark assigned. This is the Microsoft-authored, cloud specific guidelines for security and compliance best practices based on common compliance frameworks. Learn more about Microsoft cloud security benchmark.

Available regulatory standards:

• PCI-DSS v3.2.1 (deprecated)
• PCI DSS v4
• SOC TSP
• SOC 2 Type 2
• ISO 27001:2013
• Azure CIS 1.1.0
• Azure CIS 1.3.0
• Azure CIS 1.4.0
• NIST SP 800-53 R4
• NIST SP 800-53 R5
• NIST SP 800 171 R2
• CMMC Level 3
• FedRAMP H
• FedRAMP M
• HIPAA/HITRUST
• SWIFT CSP CSCF v2020
• UK OFFICIAL and UK NHS
• Canada Federal PBMM
• New Zealand ISM Restricted
• New Zealand ISM Restricted v3.5
• Australian Government ISM Protected
• RMIT Malaysia

AWS: When users onboard, every AWS account has the AWS Foundational Security Best Practices assigned and can be viewed under Recommendations. This is the AWS-specific guideline for security and compliance best practices based on common compliance frameworks.

Users that have one Defender bundle enabled can enable other standards.

Available AWS regulatory standards:

• CIS 1.2.0
• CIS 1.5.0
• PCI DSS 3.2.1
• AWS Foundational Security Best Practices

To add regulatory compliance standards on AWS accounts:

1. Navigate to Environment settings.

2. Select the relevant account.

3. Select Standards.

4. Select Add and choose Standard.

5. Choose a standard from the drop-down menu.

6. Select Save.

   

GCP: When users onboard, every GCP project has the "GCP Default" standard assigned.

Users that have one Defender bundle enabled can enable other standards.

Available GCP regulatory standards:

• CIS 1.1.0, 1.2.0
• PCI DSS 3.2.1
• NIST 800 53
• ISO 27001

Tip

Standards are added to the dashboard as they become available. The preceding list might not contain recently added standards.

Add a regulatory standard to your dashboard

The following steps explain how to add a package to monitor your compliance with one of the supported regulatory standards.

Prerequisites

To add standards to your dashboard:

• The subscription must have Defender for Cloud's enhanced security features enabled
• The user must have owner or policy contributor permissions

Add a standard to your Azure resources

1. From Defender for Cloud's menu, select Regulatory compliance to open the regulatory compliance dashboard. Here you can see the compliance standards currently assigned to the currently selected subscriptions.

2. From the top of the page, select Manage compliance policies.

3. Select the subscription or management group for which you want to manage the regulatory compliance posture.

   Tip

   We recommend selecting the highest scope for which the standard is applicable so that compliance data is aggregated and tracked for all nested resources.

4. Select Security policy.

5. Expand the Industry & regulatory standards section and select Add more standards.

6. From the Add regulatory compliance standards page, you can search for any of the available standards:

7. Select Add and enter all the necessary details for the specific initiative such as scope, parameters, and remediation.

8. From Defender for Cloud's menu, select Regulatory compliance again to go back to the regulatory compliance dashboard.

   Your new standard appears in your list of Industry & regulatory standards.

   Note

   It may take a few hours for a newly added standard to appear in the compliance dashboard.

   

Add a standard to your AWS resources

To add regulatory compliance standards on AWS accounts:

1. Navigate to Environment settings.

2. Select the relevant account.

3. Select Standards.

4. Select Add and choose Standard.

5. Choose a standard from the drop-down menu.

6. Select Save.

   

Remove a standard from your dashboard

You can continue to customize the regulatory compliance dashboard, to focus only on the standards that are applicable to you, by removing any of the supplied regulatory standards that aren't relevant to your organization.

To remove a standard:

1. From Defender for Cloud's menu, select Security policy.

2. Select the relevant subscription from which you want to remove a standard.

   Note

   You can remove a standard from a subscription, but not from a management group.

   The security policy page opens. For the selected subscription, it shows the default policy, the industry and regulatory standards, and any custom initiatives you've created.

   

3. For the standard you want to remove, select Disable. A confirmation window appears.

   

4. Select Yes.

Next steps

In this article, you learned how to add compliance standards to monitor your compliance with regulatory and industry standards.

For related material, see the following pages:

• Microsoft cloud security benchmark
• Defender for Cloud regulatory compliance dashboard - Learn how to track and export your regulatory compliance data with Defender for Cloud and external tools
• Working with security policies