Microsoft Azure is eligible for Restricted & Sensitive data among our public cloud (IaaS) providers.        

Please note that Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for Sensitive and Restricted Data is the preferred provider for Restricted & Sensitive data workloads on campus. GCP provides many of the same services as Azure and has additional campus support and tooling specific to restricted data. Should you choose to proceed with Azure as your platform of choice, you will be taking on additional responsibilities for providing appropriate security to your account.

The account owner still maintains the responsibility to achieve & maintain the appropriate security controls per campus policy.   The cloud team can advise and consult on best practices.

• When requesting an account, the account owner should indicate that they are using Sensitive or Restricted data, to be provided an account with additional security in place (a "high-risk" account).

• The campus Azure IaaS Platform has been assessed by the Cybersecurity Risk Management Framework, to inform roles and responsibilities in the Shared Responsibility Model.   

• This assessment focused on the platform level and the controls and security posture shared among all high-risk accounts, as well as evaluation of UW contracts with Azure

• A Cybersecurity Cloud Assessment for Restricted Data is necessary to ensure the security of the data, as well as the customers' planned application and architecture within their individual account.    This assessment may require some additional time and investment since AWS is not the preferred provider for restricted and sensitive data. The public cloud team can advise and consult on your planned service use and architecture.

• University of Wisconsin has a Business Associates Agreement (BAA) that governs & protects the vendor's limits regarding access and use of your data (if you use a UW account). This agreement is required when using HIPAA data.

• Microsoft provides physical security of the data center (often referred to as "security OF the cloud") in the Shared Responsibility Model

• Use of UW Single Sign on provides Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) & meets authentication best practices.

• The account owner currently will need to implement their own logging and incident response process to ensure compliance.

• Use of services that are considered HIPAA eligible by Microsoft (see Appendix A) is also highly recommended, and knowledge of the best practices documented by Microsoft will help with this process.   Microsoft Azure also has service by service security best practices.    

• For SMPH users, PlatformX offers researchers a secure, compliant environment in which to operate. Please note that Research Account requests from SMPH will result in the Platform X/ICTR team being notified.