CISA Finalizes SCuBA Cloud Security Reference Architecture — December 13, 2023
The Secure Cloud Business Applications project released finalized zero trust architecture guidance for Microsoft 365 tenants.
Executive briefing: On CISA announced the final Secure Cloud Business Applications (SCuBA) Technical Reference Architecture. The guidance delivers prescriptive configuration baselines and logging requirements to secure Microsoft 365 environments across federal and critical infrastructure tenants.
Key updates
- Zero trust alignment. The final release maps controls to the Federal Zero Trust Strategy pillars, covering identity, devices, networks, applications, and data.
- Baseline configurations. SCuBA provides security configuration profiles for Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and Azure Active Directory to mitigate common attack paths.
- Enhanced logging. CISA specifies priority telemetry sources and retention recommendations to support threat hunting and incident response.
Why organizations should care
- Federal compliance. Civilian agencies can leverage SCuBA to meet Office of Management and Budget M-22-09 zero trust milestones and Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) expectations.
- Repeatable hardening. Enterprises gain reusable baselines to reduce misconfigurations exploited in recent cloud-focused intrusions.
- Audit evidence. Documented baselines help demonstrate due diligence for regulators evaluating Microsoft 365 tenant safeguards.
Next steps
- Compare existing tenant settings against SCuBA baselines and prioritize remediation of high-risk deviations.
- Implement recommended logging, including unified audit logs, Azure AD sign-in logs, and Defender telemetry, with retention supporting at least 12 months of investigations.
- Integrate SCuBA controls into continuous monitoring dashboards and configuration management tooling.