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...

An integrated incident response solution with Microsoft and PwC

Today Microsoft Incident Response is excited to announce a new collaboration with PwC to expand our joint incident response and recovery capability. In this global alliance, Microsoft begins the initial containment and investigation, bringing a deep understanding of a company’s infrastructure to...

New Microsoft security tools to protect families and businesses

Today marks an exciting milestone in Microsoft’s AI journey. This morning, at an event in New York City, we made several major announcements to empower people across work and life—you can read more about Microsoft Bing and Edge with Copilot, what’s new from Microsoft 365 Copilot and Bing Chat...

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,...

4 things to look for in a multicloud data protection solution

What does it mean to be a multicloud organization? As the name implies, the term describes a model of cloud computing where an organization uses multiple clouds—two or more public clouds, private clouds, or a combination of public, private, and edge clouds—to distribute applications and services...

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...

Test your team’s security readiness with the Gone Phishing Tournament

Why should you care about the behavioral risk of your employees? Eighty-two percent of breaches include and often start with user behavior.1 Not all are phishing, but a majority of them are just that. Phishing is, and has been for many years, the cheapest and most reliable way for an attacker of...

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...

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,...

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...

A worthy upgrade: Next-gen security on Windows 10 proves resilient against ransomware outbreaks in 2017

Adopting reliable attack methods and techniques borrowed from more evolved threat types, ransomware attained new levels of reach and damage in 2017. The following trends characterize the ransomware narrative in the past year: Three global outbreaks showed the force of ransomware in making...

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...

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 security features in Windows 11 protect users and empower IT

While attacks are getting more sophisticated, so are our defenses. With recent innovations like secured-core PCs that are 60 percent more resilient to malware than non-secured-core PCs,1 and the Microsoft Pluton Security Processor that adds more protection by isolating sensitive data like...

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...

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...

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...

The art and science behind Microsoft threat hunting: Part 2

We discussed Microsoft Detection and Response Team’s DART threat hunting principles in part 1 of The art and science behind Microsoft threat hunting blog series. In this follow-up post, we will talk about some general hunting strategies, frameworks, tools, and how Microsoft incident responders wo...

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,...

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,...

Using process creation properties to catch evasion techniques

We developed a robust detection method in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint that can catch known and unknown variations of a process execution class used by attackers to evade detection. This class of stealthy execution techniques breaks some assumptions made by security products and enables...

So you want to be a CISO: What you should know about data protection

Data is the lifeblood of any organization. Whether you’re a Chief Information Security Officer CISO or aspiring to become one, protecting sensitive business data will be your main priority. But the job isn’t getting any easier. In 2021, the number of data breaches climbed 68 percent to 1,862,...

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...

How a senior product manager is leading the passwordless movement at Microsoft

May 5, 2022, is World Password Day, a day we all use to create awareness around password security. At Microsoft, we choose to celebrate replacing passwords with better and more secure ways to sign in. I can’t think of a better person at Microsoft to represent this journey than Libby Brown, a seni...

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...

What you need to know about how cryptography impacts your security strategy

The security community is continuously changing, growing, and learning from each other to better position the world against cyber threats. In the latest post of our Voice of the Community blog series post, Microsoft Security Product Marketing Manager Natalia Godyla talks with Taurus SA Co-founder...

Protect against phishing with Attack Simulation Training in Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Sophisticated cyberattacks are on the rise, with email phishing as the most common attack vector. We’ve seen it all over the news with stories like Hafnium that targeted Exchange servers1 or the Nobelium attack against SolarWinds,2 which show just how easy it is for bad actors to distribute a...

The importance of identity and Microsoft Azure Active Directory resilience

I love hearing my colleagues explain how they came to the industry because so many of their stories are unusual. I’m surprised how often I hear that people got into computer science by some fortuitous accident. Although he loved computers from the time he was a kid, Oren Melzer never expected to...

NOBELIUM targeting delegated administrative privileges to facilitate broader attacks

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center MSTIC has detected nation-state activity associated with the threat actor tracked as NOBELIUM, attempting to gain access to downstream customers of multiple cloud service providers CSP, managed service providers MSP, and other IT services organizations...

How purple teams can embrace hacker culture to improve security

The security community is continuously changing, growing, and learning from each other to better position the world against cyber threats. In the latest Voice of the Community blog series post, Microsoft Product Marketing Manager Natalia Godyla talks with Matthew Hickey, co-founder, CEO, and writ...

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...

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...

Introducing new Microsoft Defender for Cloud innovations to strengthen cloud-native protections

Security teams face an expanding attack surface as organizations increasingly use cloud-native services to develop, deploy, and manage applications across their multicloud and hybrid environments. Their challenge is compounded by incomplete visibility, siloed processes, and a lack of prioritized...

Microsoft announces new solutions for threat intelligence and attack surface management

Uncover adversaries with new Microsoft Defender threat intelligence products The threat landscape is more sophisticated than ever and damages have soared—the Federal Bureau of Investigations 2021 IC3 report found that the cost of cybercrime now totals more than USD6.9 billion.1 To counter these...

How one Microsoft software engineer works to improve access management

There’s still a perception that the most successful computer scientists learn programming at a young age, study engineering at a top school, and then get a software development job right out of college. While that’s how many people enter the field, it’s not the only path. Microsoft Software...

A clearer lens on Zero Trust security strategy: Part 1

Todays world is flooded with definitions and perspectives on Zero Trust, so we are kicking off a blog series to bring clarity to what Zero Trust is and what it means. This first blog will draw on the past, present, and future to bring a clear vision while keeping our feet planted firmly on the...

Evolved phishing: Device registration trick adds to phishers’ toolbox for victims without MFA

We have recently uncovered a large-scale, multi-phase campaign that adds a novel technique to traditional phishing tactics by joining an attacker-operated device to an organization’s network to further propagate the campaign. We observed that the second stage of the campaign was successful agains...

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...

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...

Protect your business with Microsoft Security’s comprehensive protection

Securing an organization has never been simple. But over the past year, we’ve seen significant changes in the threat landscape that are having a major impact on organizations of every size in every sector. The frequency and sophistication of cyber events have increased significantly. We see...

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...

MSRT June 2017: Removing sneaky Xiazai

In the June release of the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool MSRT, we’re adding Xiazai, a widespread family of browser modifiers that we have blocked and removed from millions of computers since 2015. Xiazai is a software bundler that can sneak in additional changes. Xiazai does not insta...

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...

Secure hybrid and remote workplaces with a Zero Trust approach

Productivity and innovation have become critical goals in many hybrid and remote work environments. Ensuring preventative and strong security, in turn, must be at the heart of that. In this blog series, we’ll discuss two Zero Trust business scenarios: enabling a more productive hybrid or remote...

Microsoft Incident Response Retainer is generally available

The task of securing organizations is constantly changing and getting more complex. Many organizations don’t have the time, resources, or expertise to build an in-house incident response program. For customers that want help remediating an especially complex breach or avoiding one altogether,...

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,...

Cyber Signals: Risks to critical infrastructure on the rise

Today, the third edition of Cyber Signals was released spotlighting security trends and insights gathered from Microsoft’s 43 trillion daily security signals and 8,500 security experts. In this edition, we share new insights on wider risks that converging IT, Internet of Things IoT, and operation...

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...

Microsoft named a Leader in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Security Information and Event Management

Security operations teams are overwhelmed trying to protect their organizations against an onslaught of cyberattacks, including a 92 percent rise in ransomware attacks.1 Too often, existing security tools are siloed or not designed to meet the needs of today’s hybrid cloud environment. The result...