Definition
Azure Bastion is a fully managed Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution that enhances the security of your virtual machines by providing secure RDP and SSH connectivity directly through the Azure portal over TLS. It acts as a jump box or gateway, eliminating the need to expose public IP addresses on your virtual machines. This significantly reduces your attack surface and improves your overall security posture. Azure Bastion works by establishing a secure tunnel from your browser to the Bastion host, which then connects to your virtual machine within the virtual network. On the job, it's crucial for secure remote access to cloud resources, especially in regulated environments. For example, a security administrator might use Azure Bastion to connect to a production web server without exposing its RDP port to the internet. Unlike a traditional VPN, which connects an entire network, Azure Bastion provides granular, per-session access to individual virtual machines. This concept is relevant for cloud security certifications like CCSP and AWS security domains.