Network Security Groups (NSGs) and Inspecting Traffic Between Azure Virtual Machines

In this tutorial, we observe various network traffic to and from Azure Virtual Machines with Wireshark as well as experiment with Network Security Groups.

Environments and Technologies Used

• Microsoft Azure (Virtual Machines/Compute)
• Remote Desktop
• Various Command-Line Tools
• Various Network Protocols (SSH, RDH, DNS, HTTP/S, ICMP)
• Wireshark (Protocol Analyzer)

Operating Systems Used

• Windows 10 (21H2)
• Ubuntu Server 20.04

High-Level Steps

• Step 1 Create File Shares
• Step 2 Set Permissions
• Step 3 Attempt to access file shares
• Step 4 Create Security Groups

Actions and Observations

Create File Share Folders

Created new folders named Read-Access, Write-Access, and No-Access.

Set Permissions

Click the Sharing tab.

Choose users to give access to the folder (Jane Doe) and set their permission level (Read only).

Attempt to access File Shares.

Clicked on No-Access folder to check permissions. Windows will not allow access to the folder. Permissions are working correctly here.

After clicking Read-Access folder and trying not create a folder (write) this notification popped up. Permissions set to only read and not write or create folders/documents. The permissions are working correctly.

Clicked on the Write-Access folder. Created a text file and named it test. The permissions are working correctly for this folder. This folder has read & write permissions.

Create a Security Group

Create a new organizational unit in the Active Directory Domain.

Name it _SECURITY_GROUPS.

Create a new group within _SECURITY_GROUPS.

Name the group ACCOUNTANTS, set the group type to security.