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Due to GDPR, we are seeking a way to help identify malicious activity or data breaches from our production SQL Server.

It seems if we were using Azure, this is a flick of a switch.

What is available for on-premise servers?

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Azure Security Center already monitors the security posture of non-Azure computers by on boarding VMs and computers running on-premises by simply installing the Microsoft Monitoring Agent on these machines.

Currently this offering includes OS Advanced Threat Detection using behavioral analytics and machine learning to identify attacks and zero-day exploits on the Windows Operation System layer. As part of our road-map we plan to add SQL Advanced Threat Detection, which will detect anomalous database activities indicating unusual and potentially harmful attempts to breach or exploit SQL severs.


Azure Security Center's advanced data security in public preview for SQL machines protects SQL servers hosted in Azure,in on-premises machines or in other cloud environments, and even on-premises machines. This extends the protections for your Azure-native SQL Servers to fully support hybrid environments.

This preview feature includes functionality for identifying and mitigating potential database vulnerabilities and detecting anomalous activities that could indicate threats to your SQL Server.


Azure Defender for SQL is now generally available for use with SQL Server on premises, in multicloud deployments on Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and in virtual machines on Azure. Azure Defender for SQL constantly monitors your SQL Server for known vulnerabilities and threats. Microsoft recommends that customers protect their production instances of SQL with Azure Defender for SQL as part of their overall security strategy.

https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/12/02/protect-your-sql-server-on-premises-in-azure-and-in-multi-cloud/

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For "on-premise" SQL Servers you can use Vulnerability assessment for SQL Server

This can help you to identify weak places where breaches might happen

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/security/sql-vulnerability-assessment?view=sql-server-ver15

SQL vulnerability assessment is an easy to use tool that can help you discover, track, and remediate potential database vulnerabilities. Use it to proactively improve your database security.

The vulnerability assessment tool is available in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) for SQL Server 2012 or later.

in SSMS -> Right click database -> Tasks -> Vulnerability Assessment -> Scan for Vulnerabilities...

For example it can tell you which sensitive data columns should be classified according to GDPR, and lot of other info

To identify malicious activity, there is a set of tools and features like database mail, alerts, triggers, auditing, extended events etc.

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No the threat detection options that you see in Azure are not available on-premises. The only way to use those is to use Azure.

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