Skip to content

Section 4: Incident Response

Test the complete observability system

← Dashboards & Alerts

You've built the monitoring system. Now put it under pressure. This section simulates a realistic multi-vector attack so you can watch your dashboard light up, trace the attack across services, and verify your alerts fire.

4.1 Simulate Multi-Vector Attack

Attack Simulation

Run the attack simulation:

./scripts/section4/4.1-simulate-attack.sh

The script sends attacks in phases: reconnaissance, SQL injection, path traversal, shell injection, and prompt injection. It outputs correlation IDs you can use to trace each attack.

Now open your dashboard. Go to the Azure Portal → your resource group → the Workbook you deployed in Section 3. Refresh and watch:

  • MCP Request Volume spikes as attack traffic arrives
  • Attacks by Injection Type breaks down exactly what was thrown at your server
  • Recent Security Events shows each blocked request with its correlation ID

This is everything you built — APIM logging, structured detection, and dashboards — working together in real time.

Alerts take longer

The "High Attack Volume" alert evaluates on a 5-minute window. Give it 5–10 minutes, then check your email (if you configured a notification in Section 3).

Trace an attack across services:

Copy a correlation ID from the script output and run this in Log Analytics:

let id = "PASTE-CORRELATION-ID";
union
    (ApiManagementGatewayLogs | where CorrelationId == id
     | project TimeGenerated, Source="APIM", CorrelationId,
              Details=strcat("HTTP ", ResponseCode, " from ", CallerIpAddress)),
    (AppTraces | where Properties has id
     | extend CustomDims = parse_json(replace_string(replace_string(
         tostring(Properties.custom_dimensions), "'", "\""), "None", "null"))
     | where tostring(CustomDims.correlation_id) == id
     | project TimeGenerated, Source="Function", CorrelationId=id,
              Details=strcat(tostring(CustomDims.event_type), ": ", tostring(CustomDims.injection_type)))
| order by TimeGenerated asc

This reconstructs the full story of a single request across APIM and the security function. See the KQL Query Reference for more investigation queries.

Cleanup

When you're done with the workshop:

# Remove all Azure resources
azd down --force --purge

# Clean up Entra ID app registrations (ignore errors if already deleted)
az ad app delete --id $(azd env get-value MCP_APP_CLIENT_ID)
az ad app delete --id $(azd env get-value APIM_CLIENT_APP_ID)

Congratulations!

You've completed Camp 4 and reached Observation Peak! Here's how far you've come:

Before After
APIM routed traffic silently Every request logged with caller IP, timing, correlation
No AI-based attack detection Layer 1 (Prompt Shields) blocks prompt injection at the edge
Function logged basic warnings Structured events with custom dimensions and correlation IDs
No way to see attack patterns Real-time dashboard showing all attack categories
Manual log checking Automated alerts notify you of threats

The hidden → visible → actionable pattern applies beyond monitoring: whenever you deploy something new, ask yourself, "If this breaks at 3 AM, how will I know?"

Your MCP servers are now authenticated, protected, validated, and observable. One more climb to go!

← Dashboards & Alerts | The Summit →