Small MSSQL audit retention period

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Metadata

Id: 9c301481-e6ec-44f7-8a49-8ec63e2969ea

Cloud Provider: Azure

Platform: Terraform

Severity: Low

Category: Observability

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Description

Auditing logs for Azure MSSQL Servers should be retained for more than 90 days to support monitoring and forensic investigations. When the retention_in_days attribute in the extended_auditing_policy block is set to a value less than 91, as shown below, important event logs may be deleted too soon, increasing the risk of missing or incomplete audit trails in the event of a breach or regulatory review.

extended_auditing_policy {
  ...
  retention_in_days = 6
}

A secure configuration sets retention_in_days to 91 or higher. For example:

extended_auditing_policy {
  ...
  retention_in_days = 91
}

Compliant Code Examples

resource "azurerm_mssql_database" "negative1" {
  name                = "myexamplesqldatabase"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  location            = "West US"
  server_name         = azurerm_sql_server.example.name

  extended_auditing_policy {
    storage_endpoint                        = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_blob_endpoint
    storage_account_access_key              = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_access_key
    storage_account_access_key_is_secondary = true
    retention_in_days                       = 91
  }

  tags = {
    environment = "production"
  }
}

resource "azurerm_mssql_database" "negative2" {
  name                = "myexamplesqldatabase"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  location            = "West US"
  server_name         = azurerm_sql_server.example.name

  extended_auditing_policy {
    storage_endpoint                        = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_blob_endpoint
    storage_account_access_key              = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_access_key
    storage_account_access_key_is_secondary = true
    retention_in_days                       = 214
  }

  tags = {
    environment = "production"
  }
}

resource "azurerm_mssql_database" "negative3" {
  name                = "myexamplesqldatabase"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  location            = "West US"
  server_name         = azurerm_sql_server.example.name

  extended_auditing_policy {
    storage_endpoint                        = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_blob_endpoint
    storage_account_access_key              = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_access_key
    storage_account_access_key_is_secondary = true
    retention_in_days                       = 30000
  }

  tags = {
    environment = "production"
  }
}

resource "azurerm_mssql_database" "negative4" {
  name                = "myexamplesqldatabase"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  location            = "West US"
  server_name         = azurerm_sql_server.example.name

  extended_auditing_policy {
    storage_endpoint                        = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_blob_endpoint
    storage_account_access_key              = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_access_key
    storage_account_access_key_is_secondary = true
    retention_in_days                       = 900
  }

  tags = {
    environment = "production"
  }
}

resource "azurerm_mssql_server" "negative5" {
    name                         = "mssqlserver"
    resource_group_name          = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
    location                     = azurerm_resource_group.example.location
    version                      = "12.0"
    administrator_login          = "mradministrator"
    administrator_login_password = "thisIsDog11"

    extended_auditing_policy {
      storage_endpoint            = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_blob_endpoint
      storage_account_access_key  = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_access_key
      storage_account_access_key_is_secondary = true
      retention_in_days                       = 95
    }
}

Non-Compliant Code Examples

resource "azurerm_mssql_database" "positive1" {
  name                = "myexamplesqldatabase"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  location            = "West US"
  server_name         = azurerm_mssql_server.example.name

  extended_auditing_policy {
    storage_endpoint                        = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_blob_endpoint
    storage_account_access_key              = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_access_key
    storage_account_access_key_is_secondary = true
    retention_in_days                       = 6
  }

  tags = {
    environment = "production"
  }
}

resource "azurerm_mssql_database" "positive2" {
  name                = "myexamplesqldatabase"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  location            = "West US"
  server_name         = azurerm_mssql_server.example.name

  extended_auditing_policy {
    storage_endpoint                        = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_blob_endpoint
    storage_account_access_key              = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_access_key
    storage_account_access_key_is_secondary = true
    retention_in_days                       = 90
  }

  tags = {
    environment = "production"
  }
}

resource "azurerm_mssql_database" "positive3" {
  name                = "myexamplesqldatabase"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  location            = "West US"
  server_name         = azurerm_mssql_server.example.name

  extended_auditing_policy {
    storage_endpoint                        = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_blob_endpoint
    storage_account_access_key              = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_access_key
    storage_account_access_key_is_secondary = true
    retention_in_days                       = 0
  }

  tags = {
    environment = "production"
  }
}

resource "azurerm_mssql_server" "positive4" {
    name                         = "mssqlserver"
    resource_group_name          = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
    location                     = azurerm_resource_group.example.location
    version                      = "12.0"
    administrator_login          = "mradministrator"
    administrator_login_password = "thisIsDog11"

    extended_auditing_policy {
      storage_endpoint            = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_blob_endpoint
      storage_account_access_key  = azurerm_storage_account.example.primary_access_key
      storage_account_access_key_is_secondary = true
      retention_in_days                       = 20
    }
}