Cognitive Services should disable local authentication

Applies to

• Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts

What CGPulse checks

A resource passes this rule when disableLocalAuth must equal true. Anything else is reported as a finding with the evaluated property value attached as evidence.

How to fix it

Disable local authentication and require Azure AD for scoped, auditable access. In Azure Portal: Cognitive Services > Identity > disable local authentication. See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/disable-local-auth

Careful: Disabling key-based auth breaks ALL apps using API keys. Ensure all clients use Azure AD (Managed Identity or token) before enabling

CLI

az cognitiveservices account update --ids "{id}" --custom-domain <name> --api-properties disableLocalAuth=true

Terraform

resource "azurerm_cognitive_account" "{name}" {
  name                  = "{name}"
  resource_group_name   = "{rg}"
  location              = var.location
  kind                  = "CognitiveServices"
  sku_name              = "S0"
  local_auth_enabled    = false
}

Compliance frameworks

• Cloud Security BaselineIM-1

Related Azure rules

• Action Group should be enabled
• Activity Log Alert should be enabled
• AKS cluster logs should be sent to Log Analytics
• AKS cluster must enable RBAC
• AKS cluster must enable RBAC
• AKS cluster should be a private cluster
• AKS cluster should disable local accounts
• AKS cluster should enable Azure RBAC for Kubernetes