Deliver productive and seamless user experiences with Azure Active Directory

Several months into the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are still working remotely, and our organizations are still adjusting. Top of mind for every IT leader in this current landscape is meeting users’ needs for seamless access to resources while safeguarding the business from cyber threats. The...

Making Microsoft Edge the most secure browser with Windows Defender Application Guard

Innovation in the attack space is constant as adversaries increase in both determination and sophistication. In response to increased investments in defense, attackers are adapting and improving tactics at breakneck speed. The good news is that defenders are also innovating and disrupting long...

Analysis of Storm-0558 techniques for unauthorized email access

Executive summary On July 11, 2023, Microsoft published two blogs detailing a malicious campaign by a threat actor tracked as Storm-0558 that targeted customer email that weve detected and mitigated: Microsoft Security Response Center and Microsoft on the Issues. As we continue our investigation...

ZINC weaponizing open-source software

In recent months, Microsoft has detected a wide range of social engineering campaigns using weaponized legitimate open-source software by an actor we track as ZINC. Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center MSTIC observed activity targeting employees in organizations across multiple industries includi...

DEV-0537 criminal actor targeting organizations for data exfiltration and destruction

March 24, 2022 update - As Microsoft continues to track DEV-0537’s activities, tactics, and tools, were sharing new detection, hunting, and mitigation information to give you additional insights on remaining vigilant against these attacks. In recent weeks, Microsoft Security teams have been...

Protect your business from password sprays with Microsoft DART recommendations

Over the past year, the Microsoft Detection and Response Team DART, along with Microsoft’s threat intelligence teams, have observed an uptick in the use of password sprays as an attack vector. This threat is a moving target with techniques and tools always changing, and Microsoft continues to fin...

Automating security assessments using Cloud Katana

Today, we are open sourcing Cloud Katana, a cloud-native serverless application built on the top of Azure Functions to assess security controls in the cloud and hybrid cloud environments. We are currently covering only use cases in Azure, but we are working on extending it to other cloud provider...

Forrester names Microsoft a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Security Gateways, Q2 2021

I am thrilled to share that Forrester Research has named Microsoft Cloud App Security as a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Cloud Security Gateways, Q2 2021. Additionally, Microsoft received the highest score in the strategy category. People have increasingly used cloud apps to stay productive and...

Protecting multi-cloud environments with Azure Security Center

We’ve heard from many of you that multi-cloud adoption is becoming a standard operating model for your organization and that it’s challenging to have the right security controls and posture across your environment. Historically, security teams have not had effective tools to secure multi-cloud...

Building a Zero Trust business plan

These past six months have been a remarkable time of transformation for many IT organizations. With the forced shift to remote work, IT professionals have had to act quickly to ensure people continue working productively from home—in some cases bringing entire organizations online over a weekend...

MSRT October 2016 release: Adding more unwanted software detections

Unwanted software often piggy-backs on program downloads, delivered by software bundlers. These bundles, which you might have downloaded, can include software that you do not want, and some that are harmful. The bundled or “extra” software can perform actions on your device that run the gambit fr...

New TTPs observed in Mint Sandstorm campaign targeting high-profile individuals at universities and research orgs

Since November 2023, Microsoft has observed a distinct subset of Mint Sandstorm PHOSPHORUS targeting high-profile individuals working on Middle Eastern affairs at universities and research organizations in Belgium, France, Gaza, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In this campaign,...

Healthy security habits to fight credential breaches: Cyberattack Series

Fifty percent of Microsoft cybersecurity recovery engagements relate to ransomware,1 and 61 percent of all breaches involve credentials.2 In this second report in our ongoing Cyberattack Series, we look at the steps taken to discover, understand, and respond to a push-bombing request that targete...

Android apps with millions of downloads exposed to high-severity vulnerabilities

Microsoft uncovered high-severity vulnerabilities in a mobile framework owned by mce Systems and used by multiple large mobile service providers in pre-installed Android System apps that potentially exposed users to remote albeit complex or local attacks. The vulnerabilities, which affected apps...

7 ways to harden your environment against compromise

Here at the global Microsoft Compromise Recovery Security Practice CRSP, we work with customers who have experienced disruptive security incidents to restore trust in identity systems and remove adversary control. During 2020, the team responded to many incidents involving ransomware and the...

How far have we come? The evolution of securing identities

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 Troy Hunt, founder of Have I Been Pwned,...

Protect your business from email phishing with multi-factor authentication

Cybersecurity has been in the news far more often in the past 12 months than in previous years, as cybercriminals escalated their activity during the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine. The seismic shift of hundreds of millions of people connecting and working from home every day presented cybercrimina...

New Security Signals study shows firmware attacks on the rise; here’s how Microsoft is working to help eliminate this entire class of threats

Cybersecurity threats are always evolving, and today we’re seeing a new wave of advanced attacks targeting areas of computing that don’t have the protection of the cloud. New data shows that firmware attacks are on the rise, and businesses aren’t paying close enough attention to securing this...

Securing and governing data in a new hybrid work reality

The past year has led to an evolution in not only how we think about work, but more importantly, where work gets done. Arguably, gone are the days that your organization’s data is limited to the protected confines of your corporate network as your people continue to work remotely, return in some...

Using Zero Trust principles to protect against sophisticated attacks like Solorigate

The Solorigate supply chain attack has captured the focus of the world over the last month. This attack was simultaneously sophisticated and ordinary. The actor demonstrated sophistication in the breadth of tactics used to penetrate, expand across, and persist in affected infrastructure, but many...

How IT leaders are securing identities with Zero Trust

The past twelve months have been a remarkable time of digital transformation as organizations, and especially digital security teams, adapt to working remotely and shifting business operations. IT leaders everywhere turned to Zero Trust approaches to alleviate the challenges of enabling and...

Modernize secure access for your on-premises resources with Zero Trust

Change came quickly in 2020. More likely than not, a big chunk of your workforce has been forced into remote access. And with remote work came an explosion of bring-your-own-device BYOD scenarios, requiring your organization to extend the bounds of your network to include the entire internet and...

System Management Mode deep dive: How SMM isolation hardens the platform

Ensuring that the platform firmware is healthy and trustworthy is fundamental to guaranteeing that powerful platform security features like Hypervisor-protected code integrity HVCI and Windows Defender Credential Guard are functioning as expected. Windows 10 achieves this by leveraging a...

Stopping ransomware where it counts: Protecting your data with Controlled folder access

Windows Defender Exploit Guard is a new set of host intrusion prevention capabilities included with Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. One of its features, Controlled folder access, stops ransomware in its tracks by preventing unauthorized access to your important files. Encryption should protect...

Reverse engineering DUBNIUM –Stage 2 payload analysis

Recently, we blogged about the basic functionality and features of the DUBNIUM advanced persistent threat APT activity group Stage 1 binary and Adobe Flash exploit used during the December 2015 incident Part 1, Part 2. In this blog, we will go through the overall infection chain structure and the...

Troldesh ransomware influenced by (the) Da Vinci code

We at the MMPC are constantly tracking new and emerging ransomware threats so we can be one step ahead of active campaigns and help protect our users. As part of these efforts, we recently came across a new variant of the Win32/Troldesh ransomware family. Ransomware, like most malware, is...

Microsoft is named a Leader in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms

The state of cybersecurity continues to challenge defenders around the world. With hybrid work here to stay and emerging trends like Ransomware as a Service, organizations need a partner that empowers them with not only modern endpoint security but an integrated solution that helps security...

Microsoft Security innovations from 2022 to help you create a safer world today

The start of a new year is always a great time for reflection—to be grateful for all we have and the progress security teams have made as well as look ahead to how we can reshape the security landscape. I use this time to think about goals for the future, and to reflect on the highlights,...

Beneath the surface: Uncovering the shift in web skimming

Microsoft security researchers recently observed that web skimming campaigns now employ various obfuscation techniques to deliver and hide skimming scripts. It’s a shift from earlier tactics where attackers conspicuously injected malicious scripts into e-commerce platforms and content management...

Microsoft shares 4 challenges of protecting sensitive data and how to overcome them

Breaches of sensitive data are extremely costly for organizations when you tally data loss, stock price impact, and mandated fines from violations of General Data Protection Regulation GDPR, California Consumer Privacy Act CCPA, or other regulations. They also can diminish the trust of those who...

Widespread credential phishing campaign abuses open redirector links

Microsoft has been actively tracking a widespread credential phishing campaign using open redirector links. Attackers combine these links with social engineering baits that impersonate well-known productivity tools and services to lure users into clicking. Doing so leads to a series of...

5 identity priorities for 2021—strengthening security for the hybrid work era and beyond

When I outlined the five identity priorities for 2020, the world was a very different place. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed how organizations run their businesses. It’s also changed the way we work, learn, and collaborate. What hasn’t changed is the critical role identity...

Advice for incident responders on recovery from systemic identity compromises

As Microsoft alongside our industry partners and the security community continues to investigate the extent of the Solorigate attack, our goal is to provide the latest threat intelligence including IOCs and guidance across our products and solutions to help the community fight back against, harde...

Microsoft is named a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms

It’s no secret that ransomware is top of mind for many chief information security officers CISOs as the number of attacks has increased exponentially. As seen in the latest Microsoft Digital Defense Report, our “telemetry indicates that organizations faced an increased rate of ransomware attacks...

Patching Perforce perforations: Critical RCE vulnerability discovered in Perforce Helix Core Server

Microsoft discovered, responsibly disclosed, and helped remediate four vulnerabilities that could be remotely exploited by unauthenticated attackers in Perforce Helix Core Server “Helix Core Server”, a source code management platform largely used in the videogame industry and by multiple...

2023 identity security trends and solutions from Microsoft

Welcome to 2023! I wanted to kick this year off by having a quick look at the trends in identity security, what you can do about it, and what Microsoft is doing to help you. One of the things we talk about on the team is “shiny object syndrome”—there are a ton of innovative and scary attacks and...

Cyber Signals: Defend against the new ransomware landscape

Today, Microsoft is excited to publish our second edition of Cyber Signals, spotlighting security trends and insights gathered from Microsoft’s 43 trillion security signals and 8,500 security experts. In this edition, we pull back the curtain on the evolving cybercrime economy and the rise of...

‘Ice phishing’ on the blockchain

The technologies that connect us are continually advancing, and while this brings tremendous new capabilities to users, it also opens new attack surfaces for adversaries and abusers. Social engineering represents a class of threats that has extended to virtually every technology that enables huma...

CRSP: The emergency team fighting cyber attacks beside customers

What is CRSP? Microsoft Global Compromise Recovery Security Practice. Who is CRSP? We are a worldwide team of cybersecurity experts operating in most countries, across all organizations public and private, with deep expertise to secure an environment post-security breach and to help you prevent a...

What we like about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

This blog post is part of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association guest blog series. Learn more about MISA. It’s no secret that the security industry generally likes Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. After a few months of using and integrating it with our platform here at Expel, we feel the...

Move away from passwords, deploy Windows Hello. Today!

Something we understood from the very beginning with Windows Hello for Business is our customers would approach Windows 10 in a series of phases. The first phase is to simply deploy the platform itself. From there, additional phases would follow to take advantage of optional Windows 10 technologi...

5 ways to secure identity and access for 2024

The security landscape is changing fast. In 2023, we saw a record-high 30 billion attempted password attacks per month, a 35% increase in demand for cybersecurity experts, and a 23% annual rise in cases processed by the Microsoft Security Response Center and Security Operations Center teams.1 Thi...

Microsoft shares threat intelligence at CYBERWARCON 2023

At the CYBERWARCON 2023 conference, Microsoft and LinkedIn analysts are presenting several sessions detailing analysis across multiple sets of threat actors and related activity. This blog is intended to summarize the content of the research covered in these presentations and demonstrates Microso...

Forrester names Microsoft a Leader in the 2023 Zero Trust Platform Providers Wave™ report

Microsoft is proud to be recognized as a Leader in the Forrester Wave™: Zero Trust Platform Providers, Q3 2023 report. At Microsoft, we understand modernizing security is a complex task in this era of ever-evolving cyberthreats and complex digital environments. Serious threats have necessitated a...

Microsoft Entra expands into Security Service Edge and Azure AD becomes Microsoft Entra ID

A year ago when we announced the Microsoft Entra product family, we asked what the world could achieve if we had trust in every digital experience and interaction.1 This question inspired us to offer a vision for securing the millions and millions of connections that happen every second between...

DevOps threat matrix

The use of DevOps practices, which enable organizations to deliver software more quickly and efficiently, has been on the rise. This agile approach minimizes the time-to-market of new features and bug fixes. More and more companies are implementing DevOps services, each with its own infrastructur...

The Microsoft Intune Suite fuels cyber safety and IT efficiency

Today marks a significant shift in endpoint management and security. Were launching the Microsoft Intune Suite, which unifies mission-critical advanced endpoint management and security solutions into one simple bundle. The new Intune Suite can simplify our customers’ endpoint management experienc...

Mitigate risk by integrating threat modeling and DevOps processes

Agile and DevOps are without any doubt two of the biggest security trends of recent years. The rapid rise of the cloud has only fueled the need for flexibility and dynamicity. Therefore, it’s natural for developers and organizations to seek methodologies and tools for addressing new requirements...

The door is open for anyone to become a cyber defender

Throughout Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Microsoft has highlighted the importance of cybersecurity and provided resources to help people and organizations stay safe. It’s great to have this month as a reminder, and even better if that awareness becomes a year-round endeavor. Education is really...

Defenders beware: A case for post-ransomware investigations

Ransomware is one of the most pervasive threats that Microsoft Detection and Response Team DART responds to today. The groups behind these attacks continue to add sophistication to their tactics, techniques, and procedures TTPs as most network security postures increase. In this blog, we detail a...