Defender for Cloud Apps REST API

This article describes how to interact with Defender for Cloud Apps over HTTPS.

The Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps API provides programmatic access to Defender for Cloud Apps through REST API endpoints. Applications can use the API to perform read and update operations on Defender for Cloud Apps data and objects. For example, the Defender for Cloud Apps API supports the following common operations for a user object:

  • Upload log files for Cloud Discovery
  • Generate block scripts
  • List activities and alerts
  • Dismiss or resolve alerts

API URL structure

To use the Defender for Cloud Apps API, you must first obtain the API URL from your tenant. The API URL uses the following format: https://<portal_url>/api/<endpoint>.

To obtain the Defender for Cloud Apps API URL for your tenant, do the following steps:

  1. In the Microsoft Defender Portal, select Settings. Then choose Cloud Apps. Under System, select About.

  2. In the Defender for Cloud Apps about screen, you can see the API url.

    View your data center.

Once you have the API url, add the /api suffix to it to obtain your API URL. For example, if your portal's URL is https://mytenant.us2.contoso.com, then your API URL is https://mytenant.us2.portal.cloudappsecurity.com/api.

API tokens

Defender for Cloud Apps requires an API token in the header of all API requests to the server, such as the following:

Authorization: Token <your_token_key>

Where <your_token_key> is your personal API token.

For more information about API tokens, see Managing API tokens.

API tokens - example

curl -XGET -H "Authorization:Token <your_token_key>" "https://<tenant_id>.<tenant_region>.portal.cloudappsecurity.com/api/example-endpoint"

What actions are supported?

The following table describes the actions supported:

Resource HTTP verbs URI routes
Activities GET or POST /api/v1/activities/
Alerts GET or POST /api/v1/alerts/
Data Enrichment GET, POST, or DELETE /api/subnet/
Entities GET or POST /api/v1/entities/
Files GET or POST /api/v1/files/

Where Resource represents a group of related entities.

What field types are supported?

The following table describes the supported field types:

Field Description
string A textual string
boolean A boolean value representing true/false
integer 32-bit signed integer
timestamp Milliseconds since epoch

Timestamps

Mentions of timestamps in the Defender for Cloud Apps API refer to the Unix timestamp in milliseconds. This timestamp is determined by the number of milliseconds since 1970-01-01 0:00:00. You can use the get-date PowerShell cmdlet to convert dates to timestamps.

Limits

You can choose to limit your requests by providing a limit parameter in the request.

The following methods are supported for providing the limit parameter:

  • URL-encoded (with Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded header)
  • Form data
  • JSON body (with Content-Type: multipart/form-data and an appropriate boundary header)

Note

  • If no limit is provided, a default of 100 will be set.
  • Responses for all requests made with the API token are limited to a maximum of 100 items.
  • The throttle limit for all API requests is 30 requests per minute per tenant.

Filters

When you have a large number of results, you'll find it useful to fine-tune requests using filters. This section describes the structure of, and operators that can be used with, filters.

Structure

Some of our API endpoints support filters when performing queries. In their relevant sections, you will find a reference listing all available filterable fields and supported operators for that resource.

Most filters support multiple values to provide you with powerful queries. When combining filters and operators we use AND as the logical operator between the filters.

Filters - example

curl -XGET -H "Authorization:Token <your_token_key>" "https://<tenant_id>.<tenant_region>.portal.cloudappsecurity.com/api/example-endpoint" -d '{
  "filters": {
    "some.field": {
      "eq": ["value1", "value2"],
      "isset": true
    },
    "some.field2": {
      "gte": 5
    }
  },
  "skip": 5,
  "limit": 10
}'

Operators

Note

Not all operators are compatible with all filters.

The following table describes the supported operators:

Operator Response type Description
contains list of strings Returns all relevant records containing one of the provided strings
deq list of values Returns all records who contain one value that does not equal one the provided values
descendantof list of values Returns all relevant records matching values or descendants of them
doesnotstartwith list of strings Returns all relevant records not starting with each of the provided strings
endswith list of strings Returns all relevant records ending with one of the provided strings
eq list of values Returns all relevant records containing one of the provided values
gt single value Returns all records whose value is greater than the provided value
gte single value Returns all records whose value is greater than or equal to the provided value
gte_ndays number Returns all records with date later than N days ago
isnotset boolean When set to "true", returns all relevant records that don't have a value in the specified field
isset boolean When set to "true", returns all relevant records that have a value in the specified field
lt single value Returns all records whose value is less than the provided value
lte single value Returns all records whose value is less than or equal to the provided value
lte_ndays number Returns all records with date earlier than N days ago
ncontains list of strings Returns all relevant records not containing one of the provided strings
ndescendantof list of values Returns all relevant records not matching values or descendants of them
neq list of values Returns all relevant records not containing all the provided values
range list of objects containing "start" and "end" fields Returns all records within one of the provided ranges
startswith list of strings Returns all relevant records starting with one of the provided strings
startswithsingle string Returns all relevant records starting with the provided string
text string Performs a full-text search of all records

Next steps

If you run into any problems, we're here to help. To get assistance or support for your product issue, please open a support ticket.