Automation Account should disable local authentication

Applies to

• Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts

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: Automation Account > Settings > disable local authentication. See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/automation-security-overview

Careful: Disabling local auth breaks runbooks and webhooks using Run As accounts or keys. Migrate to managed identity first

CLI

az automation account update --ids "{id}" --set properties.disableLocalAuth=true

Terraform

resource "azurerm_automation_account" "{name}" {
  name                          = "{name}"
  resource_group_name           = "{rg}"
  location                      = var.location
  sku_name                      = "Basic"
  local_authentication_enabled  = false
}

Compliance frameworks

• Cloud Security: Azure Foundations

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