How to better protect your growing business in an AI-powered world

AI is rapidly reshaping how work gets done in companies and organizations. In celebrating National Small Business Month, we want to acknowledge the unique challenges that growing business leaders face as AI creates both opportunity and risk. They face constant tradeoffs between moving fast,...

CISA Requests Public Comment for Draft National Cyber Incident Response Plan Update

Today, CISA—through the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative and in coordination with the Office of the National Cyber Director ONCD—released the National Cyber Incident Response Plan Update Public Comment Draft. The draft requests public comment on the National Cyber Incident Response Plan...

CISA Releases Fact Sheet on Effort to Revise the National Cyber Incident Response Plan (NCIRP)

Today, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA released a fact sheet on the effort to revise the National Cyber Incident Response Plan NCIRP. Through the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative JCDC, CISA will work to ensure that the updated NCIRP addresses significant changes in poli...

CISOs Tout SaaS Cybersecurity Confidence, But 79% Admit to SaaS Incidents, New Report Finds

A new State of SaaS Security Posture Management Report from SaaS cybersecurity provider AppOmni indicates that Cybersecurity, IT, and business leaders alike recognize SaaS cybersecurity as an increasingly important part of the cyber threat landscape. And at first glance, respondents appear...

Cadet Blizzard emerges as a novel and distinct Russian threat actor

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues into its second year and Microsoft continues to collaborate with global partners in response, the exposure of destructive cyber capabilities and information operations provide greater clarity into the tools and techniques used by Russian state-sponsored...

Researcher Spotlight: Jacob Finn creates his own public-private partnership at Talos

After working in government for several years, this Talos threat hunter is diving into the dark web Growing up, Jacob Finn says he wanted to be a detective or maybe a veterinarian, but theres still plenty of time for that. Today with Talos, hes a detective. And while hes still hunting for bad...

Old Hacks Die Hard: Ransomware, Social Engineering Top Verizon DBIR Threats – Again

Ransomware and social engineering continue to dominate challenges facing cybersecurity professionals, according to Verizon’s 15th annual Data Breach Investigations Report DBIR. In general, the results of DBIR merely confirm well-established trends, such as the growing threats of ransomware – up 1...

The Chaos Ransomware Can Be Ravaging

The Qualys Research Team has observed a new version of Chaos ransomware in development. This blog reviews the malware’s updated functionality as well as its ongoing evolution. A ransomware builder called Chaos is still actively under development. The fourth version has recently been observed bein...

Navigating The Threat Landscape 2021 – From Ransomware to Botnets

Though we are recovering from the worst pandemic, cyber threats have shown no sign of downshifting, and cybercriminals are still not short of malicious and advanced ways to achieve their goals. The Global Threat Landscape Report indicates a drastic rise in sophisticated cyberattacks targeting...

‘Privateer’ Threat Actors Emerge from Cybercrime Swamp

A new type of cybercriminal is emerging in a cyber-threat landscape that’s historically been dominated by either state-sponsored threat actors or financially-motivated criminals that are hunted and prosecuted by law enforcement. Dubbed “privateers” by researchers at Cisco Talos Intelligence, thes...

The dynamic duo: How to build a red and blue team to strengthen your cybersecurity, Part 1

The security community is continuously changing, growing, and learning from each other to better position the world against cyber threats. In the first post of our new Voice of the Community blog series, Microsoft Product Marketing Manager Natalia Godyla talks with Jake Williams, Founder of...

The value of cybersecurity integration for MSPs

For modern Managed Service Providers MSPs, gone are the days of disparate workflows, and that’s really for the best. Imagine trying to run a successful MSP business today—finding potential customers, procuring new clients, developing purchase orders, managing endpoints, and sending invoices—all...

Imperva mitigates largest DDoS attacks of 2020… so far…

The word “unprecedented” has never been used so much as it has during 2020. And in the latest of many unprecedented events, July saw the two largest recorded DDoS attacks of the year so far. As revealed in our July 2020 Cyber Threat Index Report, published today, Imperva Research Labs recorded tw...

The Everyday Cyber Threat Landscape: Trends from 2019 to 2020

The past 12 months have been another bumper year for cybercrime affecting everyday users of digital technology. Trend Micro blocked more than 26.8 billion of these threats in the first half of 2019 alone. The bad news is that there are many more out there waiting to steal your personal data for...

Zero Trust and the Case for Application Microsegmentation

Data breaches have become incessant. Recently, a very popular airline sevices company revealed a suspected breach involving customer credit card information. Even more recently, a hospital in Indiana reported that a virus had infected some of its systems that caused the hospital to be placed on...

One Year After WannaCry: A Fundamentally Changed Threat Landscape

It’s been one year this week since the ransomware known as WannaCry infected more than 200,000 machines in 150 countries, causing billions of dollars in damages and grinding global business to a halt. The speed and scale of the attack – helped along by leaked National Security Agency hacking tool...

Filling the gaps in international law is essential to making cyberspace a safer place

A month ago, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Microsoft organized an expert workshop to discuss gaps in international law as it applies to cyberspace. We were fortunate enough to bring together twenty leading stakeholders, including international legal experts, United Nations...

Apple Counters FBI's Backdoor Demand as Unconstitutional

Apple has matched the Department of Justice’s recent vitriol, by this week calling the FBI’s request for code to help it unlock Syed Farook’s iPhone unconstitutional. Furthermore, Apple in a court filing this week again challenged the validity of the government’s use of the All Writs Act of 1789 ...