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...

Turning the page on Solorigate and opening the next chapter for the security community

The recent SolarWinds attack is a moment of reckoning. Today, as we close our own internal investigation of the incident, we continue to see an urgent opportunity for defenders everywhere to unify and protect the world in a more concerted way. We also see an opportunity for every company to adopt...

Detonating a bad rabbit: Windows Defender Antivirus and layered machine learning defenses

Windows Defender Antivirus uses a layered approach to protection: tiers of advanced automation and machine learning models evaluate files in order to reach a verdict on suspected malware. While Windows Defender AV detects a vast majority of new malware files at first sight, we always strive to...

Breaking down a notably sophisticated tech support scam M.O.

Note: Our Tech support scams FAQ page has the latest info on this type of threat, including scammer tactics, fake error messages, and the latest scammer hotlines. You can also read our latest blog, New tech support scam launches communication or phone call app. The cornerstone of tech support sca...

Beware of Hicurdismos: It’s a fake Microsoft Security Essentials installer that can lead to a support call scam

Note: Our Tech support scams FAQ page has the latest info on this type of threat, including scammer tactics, fake error messages, and the latest scammer hotlines. Wouldn’t it be a shame if, in trying to secure your PC, you inadvertently install malware and run the risk of being scammed? We recent...

Microsoft named a Leader in 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Access Management for the 7th year​​

Protecting identity from compromise is top of mind for security professionals as identity attacks continue to intensify. Earlier this year we reported that we had observed a nearly three-fold increase in password attacks per second in the last two years, from 579 in 2021 to 4,000 in 2023.1 Identi...

Raspberry Robin worm part of larger ecosystem facilitating pre-ransomware activity

Microsoft has discovered recent activity indicating that the Raspberry Robin worm is part of a complex and interconnected malware ecosystem, with links to other malware families and alternate infection methods beyond its original USB drive spread. These infections lead to follow-on...

Malicious IIS extensions quietly open persistent backdoors into servers

Attackers are increasingly leveraging Internet Information Services IIS extensions as covert backdoors into servers, which hide deep in target environments and provide a durable persistence mechanism for attackers. While prior research has been published on specific incidents and variants, little...

Detecting malicious key extractions by compromised identities for Azure Cosmos DB

Azure Cosmos DB is a fully managed NoSQL cloud database service for modern app development. It offers a variety of advanced built-in features, such as automatic worldwide data replication, lightning-fast response types, and a variety of APIs. In this blog post, we describe security practices for...

Securing your IoT with Edge Secured-core devices

A recent study conducted by Microsoft in partnership with Ponemon Institute included a survey of companies that have adopted IoT solutions and 65 percent of them mentioned that security is a top priority when implementing IoT. Attacks targeting IoT devices put businesses at risk. Impacted devices...

Threat and Vulnerability Management now supports all major platforms

We are swiftly adapting to the lasting reality of a hybrid workforce, with the number of remote workers in the US expected to nearly double over the next five years, compared to pre-pandemic times. As a result, security teams are being challenged to rethink how to secure a growing and increasingl...

Meet critical infrastructure security compliance requirements with Microsoft 365

Critical infrastructure operators face a hostile cyber threat environment and a complex compliance landscape. Every operator of an industrial control system also operates an IT network to service its productivity needs. A supervisory control and data acquisition SCADA system operator of a power...

Identity at Microsoft Ignite: Strengthening Zero Trust defenses in the era of hybrid work

We’re now a year into our new reality, and two trends stand out. First, people need even more flexibility as we work, learn, and collaborate in a world without perimeters. And second, bad actors are getting even more sophisticated. They’re adding new attack vectors and combining them in new...

Afternoon Cyber Tea: Evaluating individual and organizational cyber risk in a pandemic

Cybersecurity professionals find themselves in high demand as organizations worldwide continue to grapple with how to secure millions of remote workers. James Turner is an industry analyst at CISO Lens and served as an adjudicator from 2017 to 2019 for the Australian government’s cyber war games:...

Simplify compliance and manage risk with Microsoft Compliance Manager

The cost of non-compliance is more than twice that of compliance costs. Non-compliance with the ever-increasing and changing regulatory requirements can have a significant impact on your organizations brand, reputation, and revenue. According to a study by the Ponemon Institute and Globalscape,...

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...

How to connect with Microsoft Security at Black Hat USA 2023

Now in its twenty-sixth year, Black Hat USA takes place August 5 to 10, 2023, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada, bringing together security professionals for the latest in information security research, development, and trends. Microsoft Security is pleased to have a presence at Black Hat, wit...

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...

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 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...

Insights from Microsoft Security Copilot early adopters

To understand why customers are adopting generative AI solutions like Microsoft Security Copilot, we have to go back to the cyberthreat landscape—which continues to get more challenging. Organizations are facing a surge in cyberattacks while also dealing with a global shortage of security talent...

New Microsoft Security innovations expand multicloud visibility and enhance multiplatform protection

With more than 90 percent of organizations adopting a multicloud strategy1 and cloud-based cyberattacks growing 48 percent year over year,2 securing multicloud and hybrid environments is more important than ever. To successfully protect multicloud infrastructure—where customers are utilizing two ...

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,...

Simplify privacy protection with Microsoft Priva Subject Rights Requests

The General Data Protection Regulation GDPR came into effect in 2018 and set a new standard for the level of control individuals in the European Union had on the personal data they shared online. Since then, the number of privacy regulations around the world has flourished and impacted the privac...

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...

How user experience is shaping verifiable credentials and identity

Since 2017, Microsoft has been working with the identity community on two groundbreaking technologies designed from the ground up to make digital privacy convenient and practical: decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials. We believe verifiable credentials will revolutionize the way we...

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...

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...

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...

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...

From classroom to cyberfront: Unlocking the potential of the next generation of cyber defenders

In a world where the digital frontier is expanding and cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated with speed and scale, the guardians of our virtual realms have never been in greater demand.1 It’s important to leverage this year’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month to celebrate the people who keep u...

Microsoft shifts to a new threat actor naming taxonomy

April 19, 2023 update – We have published a JSON file mapping old threat actor names with their new names in the updated taxonomy, summarized here: https://aka.ms/threatactors. We also added hunting queries that Microsoft customers can use while transitioning to the new taxonomy. See the Resource...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Microsoft continues to innovate to help secure small businesses

Small and medium-sized businesses are at the heart of our economy and are dedicated to driving value for their customers, whether that means trying new recipes, exploring new inventory, expanding services, arranging the shop so it’s easier to navigate, or keeping the shelves stocked with the...

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...

Rewards plus: Fake mobile banking rewards apps lure users to install info-stealing RAT on Android devices

Our analysis of a recent version of a previously reported info-stealing Android malware, delivered through an ongoing SMS campaign, demonstrates the continuous evolution of mobile threats. Masquerading as a banking rewards app, this new version has additional remote access trojan RAT capabilities...

Hardware-based threat defense against increasingly complex cryptojackers

Even with the dip in the value of cryptocurrencies in the past few months, cryptojackers – trojanized coin miners that attackers distribute to use compromised devices’ computing power for their objectives – continue to be widespread. In the past several months, Microsoft Defender Antivirus detect...

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...