Microsoft publishes new report on holistic insider risk management

The risk landscape for organizations has changed significantly in the past few years. The amount of data captured, copied, and consumed is expected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes through 2025.1 Traditional ways of identifying and mitigating risks don’t always work. Historically, organization...

A multidimensional approach to journalism security

The security community is continuously changing, growing, and learning from each other to better position the world against cyberthreats. In the latest post of our Community Voices blog series, Microsoft Security Senior Product Marketing Manager Brooke Lynn Weenig talks with Runa Sandvik, Former...

Industrial systems: What it takes to secure and staff them

The security community is continuously changing, growing, and learning from each other to better position the world against cyberthreats. In the latest post of our Community Voices blog series, Microsoft Security Senior Product Marketing Manager Brooke Lynn Weenig talks with Patrick C. Miller,...

Discover 5 lessons Microsoft has learned about compliance management

Compliance management is a complex process—one that gets increasingly more complicated the larger an organization grows. Microsoft knows this firsthand, not only because of our experience providing Security and Compliance solutions to customers but also because of the global reach and...

Announcing 2022 Microsoft Security Excellence Awards winners

Spirits soared at the Microsoft Security Excellence Awards on June 5, 2022. And is it any wonder? The celebration marked the first time that Microsoft executives and Microsoft Intelligent Security Association MISA members had gathered in person in more than two years so it was a special night for...

Build a privacy-resilient workplace with Microsoft Priva

Today, we celebrate international Data Privacy Day. This day reminds us of the importance of respecting privacy, safeguarding data, and enabling trust. However, annual reminders are insufficient to drive material change, which can be seen in the effectiveness rates of one-off trainings. According...

NICKEL targeting government organizations across Latin America and Europe

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center MSTIC has observed NICKEL, a China-based threat actor, targeting governments, diplomatic entities, and non-governmental organizations NGOs across Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and North America. MSTIC has been tracking NICKEL since 2016...

How Microsoft is partnering with vendors to provide Zero Trust solutions

As workplaces around the world embrace hybrid work, Zero Trust provides the guiding strategy that keeps companies secure. However, no two organizations are alike. The Zero Trust journey will look unique for every organization that implements it. This means we must work together to create solution...

Defend against zero-day exploits with Microsoft Defender Application Guard

Zero-day security vulnerabilities—known to hackers, but unknown to software creators, security researchers, and the public—are like gold to attackers. With zero-days, or even zero-hours, developers have no time to patch the code, giving hackers enough access and time to explore and map internal...

A simpler, more integrated approach to data governance

It’s no secret that the volume of data created by organizations and people multiplies daily. And, in the digital—and hybrid work—world we live in, that data is spread across more tools, platforms, devices, and clouds than ever before, creating regulatory challenges and security risks. Organizatio...

Optimize security with Azure Firewall solution for Azure Sentinel

Security is a constant balance between proactive and reactive defenses. They are both equally important, and neither can be neglected. Effectively protecting your organization means constantly optimizing both prevention and detection. That’s why we’re excited to announce a seamless integration...

How a positive hybrid work culture can help you to mitigate insider risk

As Vasu Jakkal recently shared, we are operating in the most sophisticated threat landscape ever seen, and coupled with the next great disruption—hybrid work—security is more challenging than ever. Protecting from external threats is only one part of the challenge, though. You also must protect...

Automating threat actor tracking: Understanding attacker behavior for intelligence and contextual alerting

As seen in recent sophisticated cyberattacks, especially human-operated campaigns, it’s critical to not only detect an attack as early as possible but also to rapidly determine the scope of the compromise and predict how it will progress. How an attack proceeds depends on the attacker’s goals and...

Azure LoLBins: Protecting against the dual use of virtual machine extensions

Azure Defender for Resource Manager offers unique protection by automatically monitoring the resource management operations in your organization, whether theyre performed through the Azure portal, Azure REST APIs, Azure CLI, or other Azure programmatic clients. In this blog, we will look into the...

Cyberattacks targeting health care must stop

In recent months, we’ve detected cyberattacks from three nation-state actors targeting seven prominent companies directly involved in researching vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. The targets include leading pharmaceutical companies and vaccine researchers in Canada, France, India, South Kore...

Cyber resilience for the modern enterprise

Many organizations are undergoing a digital transformation that leverages a mix of cloud and on-premises assets to increase business efficiency and growth. While increased dependence on technology is necessary for this transformation, and to position the business for success, it does pose risks...

MSRT November 2016: Unwanted software has nowhere to hide in this month’s release

We came across a browser modifier that sports rootkit capabilities. Not only does the threat, detected as BrowserModifier:Win32/Soctuseer, cross the line that separates legitimate software from unwanted, it also takes staying under the radar to the next level. Rootkit capabilities, which make it...

Social engineering attacks lure Indian users to install Android banking trojans

Microsoft has observed ongoing activity from mobile banking trojan campaigns targeting users in India with social media messages designed to steal users’ information for financial fraud. Using social media platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, attackers are sending messages designed to lure users...

Automatic disruption of human-operated attacks through containment of compromised user accounts

Our experience and insights from real-world incidents tell us that the swift containment of compromised user accounts is key to disrupting hands-on-keyboard attacks, especially those that involve human-operated ransomware. In these attacks, lateral movement follows initial access as the next...

Microsoft AI Red Team building future of safer AI

An essential part of shipping software securely is red teaming. It broadly refers to the practice of emulating real-world adversaries and their tools, tactics, and procedures to identify risks, uncover blind spots, validate assumptions, and improve the overall security posture of systems. Microso...

Simplified endpoint management with Microsoft Intune Suite: Adopting a long-term approach with intelligence and automation

The last couple of years have been difficult, with many organizations operating in a response mode. From a global pandemic to an economic downturn to increasing security risks, teams are under more pressure than ever to deliver greater cyber security and do more with less. This responsive approac...

5 reasons to adopt a Zero Trust security strategy for your business

Adopting Zero Trust security for your enterprise is no longer a wish-list item—it’s a business imperative. The workplace today extends to almost anywhere, anytime, from any device. Siloed, patchwork security solutions leave gaps that threat actors continue to exploit. A comprehensive Zero Trust...

Do more with less with Microsoft Security—3 strategies to get you started

Relentless bad actors, evolving attack tactics, and numerous surfaces and endpoints that attackers may try to exploit. With the average cost of a data breach reaching an all-time high of USD4.35 million in 2022,1 protecting your people and data from adversaries is more important than ever. Plus,...

Discover Microsoft Security solutions for SLTT government grant readiness

As part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, the United States federal government announced a cybersecurity grant program for state, local, territorial, and tribal SLTT governments to fund allocation of USD1 billion over the next...

How IT and security teams can work together to improve endpoint security

For executives in the IT and security spaces, the current climate offers reasons to worry. As workers become accustomed to new flexibility in the workplace, hybrid and remote work options present more challenges. Users want to access corporate resources from their own devices without the...

Building a safer world together with our partners—introducing Microsoft Security Experts

More threats—not enough defenders The security landscape has become increasingly challenging and complex for our customers. Threats have grown at an alarming rate over the last year, and cybercrime is now expected to cost the world USD10.5 trillion annually by 2025, up from USD3 trillion a decade...

Microsoft Security delivers new multicloud capabilities

In times of great change, challenges and opportunities can be found in many directions. This is certainly true in IT and cybersecurity. Today, while navigating a pandemic, frequent supply chain shocks, and global talent shortages, organizations around the world are forced to confront sophisticate...

4 best practices to implement a comprehensive Zero Trust security approach

Today’s threat actors don’t see barriers, they see opportunities. As the old firewalls protecting the corporate network become obsolete amid the rush to adopt a hybrid workspace, implementing Zero Trust security has become an imperative across all sectors, both public and private. During this tim...

How cyberattacks are changing according to new Microsoft Digital Defense Report

In 2021, cybercrime has become more sophisticated, widespread, and relentless. Criminals have targeted critical infrastructure—healthcare,1 information technology,2 financial services,3 energy sectors4—with headline-grabbing attacks that crippled businesses and harmed consumers. But there are...

Microsoft surpasses $10 billion in security business revenue, more than 40 percent year-over-year growth

I joined Microsoft a little more than six months ago—amid a global pandemic and a new norm of remote work, as well as one of the most rapidly evolving threat landscapes in history. We’ve witnessed more sophisticated attacks, like the recent SolarWinds incident, as well as an increase in attack...

Threat actors misuse OAuth applications to automate financially driven attacks

Threat actors are misusing OAuth applications as an automation tool in financially motivated attacks. OAuth is an open standard for token-based authentication and authorization that enables applications to get access to data and resources based on permissions set by a user. Threat actors compromi...

Microsoft Security Copilot Early Access Program: Harnessing generative AI to empower security teams

The era of AI brings unprecedented opportunities for us, and at the same time we are also facing an unprecedented surge in cyberthreats, coupled with a global shortage of security experts. Security and safety is the defining challenge of our times and protecting organizations from cybercrime has...

New research, tooling, and partnerships for more secure AI and machine learning

Today we’re on the verge of a monumental shift in the technology landscape that will forever change the security community. AI and machine learning may embody the most consequential technology advances of our lifetime, bringing huge opportunities to build, discover, and create a better world. Bra...

Unraveling the techniques of Mac ransomware

Ransomware continues to be one of the most prevalent and impactful threats affecting organizations, with attackers constantly evolving their techniques and expanding their tradecraft to cast a wider net of potential targets. This is evident in the range of industries, systems, and platforms...

Do more with less—Discover the latest Microsoft Entra innovations

It has certainly been another intense year. From the ongoing pandemic to the Great Reshuffle to economic uncertainty, it’s truly felt like the only constant is change.1 In this economy, many organizations are looking for efficiencies. This is putting pressure on security teams, along with everyon...

How Microsoft Purview and Priva help simplify data protection

At Microsoft Security, we understand how challenging it is to protect your most important asset, your data, in today’s threat landscape. You’re faced with evolving challenges—from empowering employees for greater productivity to eliminating gaps in your infrastructure—all while trying to protect...

KuppingerCole rates Microsoft as outstanding in functionality for secure collaboration

We are excited to share that Microsoft has been rated "Outstanding in Functionality" in the KuppingerCole Market Compass for Secure Collaboration, May 2022. Microsoft was also the only company to be awarded the highest possible score of "Strong Positive" in all five categories: security,...

In hot pursuit of ‘cryware’: Defending hot wallets from attacks

The steep rise in cryptocurrency market capitalization, not surprisingly, mirrors a marked increase in threats and attacks that target or leverage cryptocurrencies. But Microsoft researchers are observing an even more interesting trend: the evolution of related malware and their techniques, and t...

Learn the latest cybersecurity techniques at the Microsoft Security Summit

In a world marked by change and uncertainty, innovation is more than a nice-to-have—it’s vital to any healthy organization. But fearless innovation becomes impossible when gaps in security can put those ideas at risk. Many organizations try to increase their defenses by piecing together a patchwo...

How CISOs are preparing to tackle 2022

Looking back over the last year, the security landscape has continued to experience significant change and escalation. Every day, we see the toll this is taking on organizations of all sizes as they navigate the enduring challenges of the pandemic, the expansion of the digital estate, and the...

Best practices for AI security risk management

Today, we are releasing an AI security risk assessment framework as a step to empower organizations to reliably audit, track, and improve the security of the AI systems. In addition, we are providing new updates to Counterfit, our open-source tool to simplify assessing the security posture of AI...

New research shows IoT and OT innovation is critical to business but comes with significant risks

The need for much improved IoT and operational technology OT cybersecurity became clearer this year with recent attacks on network devices,1 surveillance systems,2 an oil pipeline,3 and a water treatment facility,4 to name a few examples. To better understand the challenges customers are facing,...

Iranian targeting of IT sector on the rise

Iranian threat actors are increasing attacks against IT services companies as a way to access their customers’ networks. This activity is notable because targeting third parties has the potential to exploit more sensitive organizations by taking advantage of trust and access in a supply chain...

Microsoft teams up with law enforcement and other partners to disrupt Gamarue (Andromeda)

Today, with help from Microsoft security researchers, law enforcement agencies around the globe, in cooperation with Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit DCU, announced the disruption of Gamarue, a widely distributed malware that has been used in networks of infected computers collectively called the...

New Microsoft Incident Response team guide shares best practices for security teams and leaders

As enterprise networks grow in both size and complexity, securing them from motivated cyberthreat actors becomes more challenging. The incident response process can be a maze that security professionals must quickly learn to navigate—which is no easy task. Surprisingly, many organizations still...

Why endpoint management is key to securing an AI-powered future

The chief information security officer CISO agenda has a new set of priorities. Hybrid work and the resultant architecture updates, so prevalent at the beginning of the pandemic, are no longer top of mind. Instead, the thinking is focused on tackling ever more sophisticated threats and integratin...

XDR meets IAM: Comprehensive identity threat detection and response with Microsoft

Identity has become the corporate security perimeter. The average organization used 130 different cloud applications in 2022. That’s up 18 percent from 2021 alone.1 And as organizations continue to embrace digital transformation and enable remote work, they look to identity and access management...

Join us at Microsoft Secure to discover the latest security solutions

Microsoft Secure is our first flagship event designed just for security professionals. On March 28, 2023, we will bring together security professionals from around the world to explore security information and event management SIEM and extended detection and response XDR, threat intelligence, AI,...

Microsoft contributes S2C2F to OpenSSF to improve supply chain security

On August 4, 2022, Microsoft publicly shared a framework.pdf that it has been using to secure its own development practices since 2019, the Secure Supply Chain Consumption Framework S2C2F, previously the Open Source Software-Supply Chain Security OSS-SSC Framework. As a massive consumer of and...

Connect with Microsoft Security experts at the 2022 Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit

The transition to a remote and hybrid workforce happened fast during a time of uncertainty, and IT professionals rose to the challenge with ingenuity and dedication. But two years in, many IT teams are still responding with patchwork solutions to enforce identity and access management IAM across ...