Security is a very important topic nowadays. Many reports, books and so on are written on this subject. In this chapter, I covered several options in Linux to increase the security level. All of them come on top of the basic security already provided by Azure through network security groups. They are relatively easy to implement and it already makes a big difference!
Central identity management is not only a way to provide users access to the virtual machine, but it's also a part of the reducing the security risks. Azure Directory Services provides, via LDAP and Kerberos, an identity management solution for all operating systems and applications that have support for these protocols.
Chapter 8, Exploring Continuous Configuration Automation, will cover automation and orchestration. Please note that all the security measures covered in this chapter can be easily orchestrated...