What Azure service helps secure your applications by managing identities and access?

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is the service designed specifically to manage identities and access within Microsoft Azure and related applications. It provides identity management capabilities, allowing organizations to manage user access to applications securely. With Azure AD, administrators can set up single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and conditional access policies that help secure applications based on the user's identity and their context, such as location or device state.

Azure AD serves both internal resources and external applications, enabling seamless integration with Microsoft services, third-party applications, and on-premises resources. This makes it a crucial component in safeguarding applications from unauthorized access and ensuring that only the right individuals can interact with sensitive resources.

In contrast, Azure Key Vault primarily focuses on securely storing and managing sensitive information, such as API keys, passwords, and certificates, rather than access management for users. Azure Information Protection helps protect sensitive information through labeling and encryption but does not manage user authentication or access control. Azure Security Center is focused on providing security management and threat protection for Azure environments but does not deal directly with identity management like Azure AD does.