Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Cloud and workloadsMicrosoft Defender for SQL Servers on Machines overview
In brief
The page’s publication date and custom authoring metadata were updated, and the “Next step” section was renamed “Next steps” with an explicit anchor.
What Defender admins need to know
No administrator action is required; the change affects documentation organization and metadata only.
Summaries are generated from the documentation change itself.
Documentation change
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- Vulnerability assessment: Defender for Cloud uses vulnerability assessment to discover, track, and assist you in the remediation of potential database vulnerabilities. Assessment scans provide an overview of your SQL machines' security state and provide details of any security findings.
- Threat protection: Defender for Cloud generates alerts when it detects suspicious database activities, potentially harmful attempts to access or exploit SQL machines, SQL injection attacks, anomalous database access, and unusual query patterns. Review SQL alerts.
Next stepsteps
[!div class="nextstepaction"] Enable Defender for SQL Servers on Machines
@@ -2,7 +2,8 @@ title: Microsoft Defender for SQL Servers on Machines overview description: Protect infrastructure as a service (IaaS) SQL servers across Azure, multicloud, and on-premises environments with vulnerability assessment and threat protection. ms.topic: how-to-ms.date: 05/27/2026+ms.date: 07/03/2026+ms.custom: msecd-doc-authoring-1013 #customer intent: As a user, I want an overview of Defender for SQL Servers on Machines so I can understand capabilities and onboarding options. ai-usage: ai-assisted ---@@ -24,7 +25,8 @@ Defender for SQL Servers on Machines identifies and mitigates potential database - **Vulnerability assessment**: Defender for Cloud uses vulnerability assessment to discover, track, and assist you in the remediation of potential database vulnerabilities. Assessment scans provide an overview of your SQL machines' security state and provide details of any security findings. - **Threat protection**: Defender for Cloud generates alerts when it detects suspicious database activities, potentially harmful attempts to access or exploit SQL machines, SQL injection attacks, anomalous database access, and unusual query patterns. [Review SQL alerts](alerts-sql-database-and-azure-synapse-analytics.md). -## Next step+<a name="next-step"></a>+## Next steps > [!div class="nextstepaction"] > [Enable Defender for SQL Servers on Machines](defender-for-sql-usage.md)