The azure-proxy-agent enhances the security of the Azure Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) and Azure
Wireserver endpoints (e.g., 169.254.169.254 and 168.63.129.16) on Azure IaaS virtual machines. It
introduces strong authentication and authorization measures to mitigate common attacks such as confused
deputy (e.g., SSRF) and sandbox escapes targeting metadata services.
The agent intercepts HTTP requests to these endpoints using eBPF, enabling verification of in-guest
process identities. By shifting from a default-open to a default-closed access model, the guest proxy
agent ensures that only authorized processes (as defined by a trusted delegate established at
provisioning) can access sensitive metadata. All requests must include an HMAC-based signature generated
with a long-lived secret negotiated during setup, reinforcing a secure, point-to-point trust
relationship.