Is it crazy to use Azure for Intranet Site containing sensitive data

Question

is it absolute insanity to start hosting new intranet web apps in Azure using an on-premise sql instance and ADFS 2.0 (via Azure Connect)? My concern is that instead of the site being behind a firewall, being hosted in Azure has the side effect of anyone who discovers the URL can hack away at it.

Thoughts???

thanks

Answer 1

There's good news on the ADFS 2.0 front.

Authentication with ADFS 2.0 requires the client's browser to be able to communicate with the application server and the ADFS 2.0 server. There's no direct connection between Azure and ADFS 2.0.

If you make sure that your ADFS 2.0 server is only accessible from your corporate network or via VPN, you've already closed one of the major attack vectors; no brute force or dictionary attack is going to help a bad guy in if they can't connect to your authentication service.

As well as all-important security, take into consideration the bandwidth costs for your hybrid cloud solution. You'll be paying for every byte to and from your SQL Server.