cis-azure-storage-5-2-6

name	cis-azure-storage-5.2.6
description	Ensure 'Cross Region Restore' is set to 'Enabled' on Recovery Services vaults
category	cis-azure-storage
version	1.0.0
author	cyberstrike-official
tags	["cis","azure","storage","recovery-services","backup","cross-region-restore","disaster-recovery","geo-redundancy","resilience"]
cis_id	5.2.6
cis_benchmark	CIS Microsoft Azure Storage Services Benchmark v1.0.0
tech_stack	["azure"]
cwe_ids	[]
chains_with	[]
prerequisites	[]
severity_boost	{}

5.2.6 Ensure 'Cross Region Restore' is set to 'Enabled' on Recovery Services vaults (Automated)

Description

Cross region restore enables data restoration in a secondary Azure paired region, even when the primary region is fully operational. This allows organizations to conduct drills and validate regional resiliency, thereby ensuring preparedness for potential outages.

Rationale

Enabling cross region restore facilitates proactive resilience testing and disaster recovery planning by allowing data restoration drills in a secondary region without needing a primary region outage. This capability helps organizations validate recovery processes, identify gaps in regional failover, and ensures critical data can be accessed and restored during real disruptions.

Impact

Enabling cross region restore on a Recovery Services vault incurs additional costs, and once it is enabled, it cannot be disabled.

• Cross region restore can only be enabled on Recovery Services vaults using the GRS replication type.
• Cross region restore is available for Azure Virtual Machines, SQL/SAP HANA databases running inside Azure VMs, and Recovery Services Agent (Preview) in the vault. There is no support for classic VMs.
• Cross region restore is currently an irreversible storage property.
• When cross region restore is enabled, Azure upgrades backup storage from GRS to read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS). Pricing is updated accordingly.

Audit Procedure

Audit from Azure Portal

1. Go to Recovery Services vaults.
2. Click the name of a Recovery Services vault.
3. Under Settings, click Properties.
4. Under Backup Configuration, click Update.
5. Next to Cross Region Restore, ensure the radio button next to Enabled is selected.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 for each Recovery Services vault.

Audit from Azure CLI

Run the following command to list Recovery Services vaults:

az backup vault list

For each Recovery Services vault, run the following command:

az backup vault show --resource-group <resource-group> --name <recovery-services-vault>

Ensure that under properties > redundancySettings, crossRegionRestore is set to Enabled.

Audit from PowerShell

Run the following command to list Recovery Services vaults: