Microsoft Defender for Cloud (formerly Azure Security Center) provides unified CSPM and CWPP across Azure, AWS, and GCP. This review evaluates its capabilities.

CSPM Capabilities

Defender for Cloud’s Secure Score continuously assesses cloud configuration security, providing actionable security recommendations ranked by priority. Built-in 900+ security policies automatically detect over 65 common cloud configuration errors.

CWPP Capabilities

Provides unified workload protection for Azure VMs, containers, SQL, and S3. Integrated with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint threat detection engine, achieving industry-leading host-level threat detection rates.

Compliance Management

Built-in 30+ industry compliance frameworks (ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA, etc.), automatically generating compliance reports, greatly simplifying audit preparation.

Conclusion

For enterprises deeply using Microsoft 365 and Azure, Defender for Cloud is the highest cost-effectiveness choice.