Azure VM Disk Encryption Not Enabled
The OS and data disks are readable by anyone who obtains the underlying storage or a copied disk.
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Azure
Found, explained, handed over.
Where the estate departs from your policies, frameworks and tagging rules.
Detect
ZopNight checks this automatically across Azure, with read-only access to the account.
Explain
Every finding says exactly what to change: Use a customer-managed key for VM OS disk.
Fix
The finding opens with the fix already written out, step by step, so it is one ticket, not an investigation.
- Applies to
- Virtual Machines on Azure
- The fix, by hand
- Decide which encryption layer the workload needs. Server-side encryption (SSE) is on by default; Azure Disk Encryption (ADE, BitLocker/dm-crypt inside the guest) is configured per-VM via the AzureDiskEncryption extension.
- For SSE/CMK: Azure Portal → Disks → select disk → Encryption → switch to customer-managed keys backed by Key Vault.
- For ADE: VM → Disks → Additional settings → Encryption settings, or run
az vm encryption enable --resource-group ‹rg› --name ‹name› --disk-encryption-keyvault ‹kv›. - Optionally enable Encryption at host on the VM (VM → Disks → Additional settings) for in-host temp disk + cache encryption.
- Verify with
az vm encryption show -g ‹rg› -n ‹name›(ADE) or the disk Encryption tab (SSE).
These are the steps the finding carries in the product.
- Category
- Compliance. Configuration drift from best practice: public access, missing MFA, unencrypted storage, deprecated runtimes.
- Where it appears
- The Compliance tab of Recommendations, with every affected resource listed.
- Rule ID
RC-1300- Full reference
Related checks
See the compliance findings in your account.
Connect a read-only role and the first pass runs on your own estate. This check, and the rest of the catalogue, with it.
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- SOC 2Type II report, plus ISO 27001
Figures published on zop.dev.