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...

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...

The critical role of Zero Trust in securing our world

We are operating in the most complex cybersecurity landscape that we’ve ever seen. While our current ability to detect and respond to attacks has matured incredibly quickly in recent years, bad actors haven’t been standing still. Large-scale attacks like those pursued by Nobelium1 and Hafnium,...

A breakthrough year for passwordless technology

As 2020 draws to a close, most of us are looking forward to putting this year in the rearview mirror. Since we depend even more on getting online for everything in our lives, we’re more than ready to be done with passwords. Passwords are a hassle to use, and they present security risks for users...

Ensuring customers are protected from Solorigate

Microsoft is monitoring a dynamic threat environment surrounding the discovery of a sophisticated attack that included compromised binaries from a legitimate software. These binaries, which are related to the SolarWinds Orion Platform, could be used by attackers to remotely access devices. We hav...

IoT security: how Microsoft protects Azure Datacenters

Azure Sphere first entered the IoT Security market in 2018 with a clear mission—to empower every organization on the planet to connect and create secure and trustworthy IoT devices. Security is the foundation for durable innovation and business resilience. Every industry investing in IoT must...

Octo Tempest crosses boundaries to facilitate extortion, encryption, and destruction

Microsoft has been tracking activity related to the financially motivated threat actor Octo Tempest, whose evolving campaigns represent a growing concern for organizations across multiple industries. Octo Tempest leverages broad social engineering campaigns to compromise organizations across the...

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...

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...

Detecting and preventing privilege escalation attacks leveraging Kerberos relaying (KrbRelayUp)

On April 24, 2022, a privilege escalation hacking tool, KrbRelayUp, was publicly disclosed on GitHub by security researcher Mor Davidovich. KrbRelayUp is a wrapper that can streamline the use of some features in Rubeus, KrbRelay, SCMUACBypass, PowerMad/SharpMad, Whisker, and ADCSPwn tools in...

Microsoft launches Defender for Business to help protect small and medium businesses

Happy National Small Business Week1 in the United States! Small and medium businesses SMBs are the bedrock of our economy, representing 90 percent of businesses and more than 50 percent of employment worldwide.2 As we celebrate their innovation and contributions this week, it’s important to...

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...

Strategies, tools, and frameworks for building an effective threat intelligence team

How to think about building a threat intelligence program 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...

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 to apply a Zero Trust approach to your IoT solutions

For many, 2020 was a year of survival as they rapidly transformed their businesses in response to a new normal. From enabling new remote and hybrid work models to implementing new technology to help optimize operations, the last year has seen a significant uptick in the proliferation and role of...

Why threat protection is critical to your Zero Trust security strategy

The corporate network perimeter has been completely redefined. Many IT leaders are adopting a Zero Trust security model where identities play a critical role in helping act as the foundation of their modern cybersecurity strategy. As a result, cybercriminals have shifted their focus and identitie...

Double-click me not: Malicious proxy settings in OLE Embedded Script

Attackers have been using social engineering to avoid the increasing costs of exploitation due to the significant hardening and exploit mitigations investments in Windows. Tricking a user into running a malicious file or malware can be cheaper for an attacker than building an exploit which works ...

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...

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint now stops human-operated attacks on its own

Defenders need every edge they can get in the fight against ransomware. Today, were pleased to announce that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint customers will now be able automatically to disrupt human-operated attacks like ransomware early in the kill chain without needing to deploy any other...

Microsoft Entra delivers 240 percent ROI, according to new Forrester study

Every day we easily move between apps and devices while identity professionals work hard behind the scenes to improve technologies that make this digital experience more secure. With nearly 50 percent of data breaches caused by stolen credentials, its important for identity professionals to arm...

Microsoft Secure: Explore innovations transforming the future of security

Building a more secure future requires an end-to-end approach. There is no question that technology plays an essential role, but security will always be human-centered. That’s what Microsoft Secure is all about. It’s about sharing knowledge, best practices, and technology innovations that empower...

Mitigate threats with the new threat matrix for Kubernetes

Today, we are glad to release the third version of the threat matrix for Kubernetes, an evolving knowledge base for security threats that target Kubernetes clusters. The matrix, first released by Microsoft in 2020, was the first attempt to systematically cover the attack landscape of Kubernetes...

DEV-0139 launches targeted attacks against the cryptocurrency industry

Over the past several years, the cryptocurrency market has considerably expanded, gaining the interest of investors and threat actors. Cryptocurrency itself has been used by cybercriminals for their operations, notably for ransom payment in ransomware attacks, but we have also observed threat...

5 ways to connect with Microsoft Security at Identiverse 2022

Identiverse is where the industry gathers to discuss all things identity. The 2022 conference will take place June 21 to 24 in Denver, Colorado, and I’m absolutely thrilled that Microsoft will be there. At Identiverse, we’ll share how we help customers secure access in a hybrid, multicloud, and...

Using Python to unearth a goldmine of threat intelligence from leaked chat logs

Dealing with a great amount of data can be time consuming, thus using Python can be very powerful to help analysts sort information and extract the most relevant data for their investigation. The open-source tools library, MSTICPy, for example, is a Python tool dedicated to threat intelligence. I...

Learn about 4 approaches to comprehensive security that help leaders be fearless

The last 18 months have put unprecedented pressure on organizations to speed up their digital transformation as remote and hybrid work continue to become the new normal. Yet even with all the change and uncertainty, having the right security support system in place means your organization can sti...

MVP Health Care secures member portal access with Microsoft Azure Active Directory B2C

Hello! I’m Sue Bohn, Microsoft Vice President of Program Management for Identity and Network Access. In today’s Voice of the Customer blog post, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Security Officer David Swits of MVP Health Care shares how Microsoft Azure Active Directory B2C helped th...

Franken-phish: TodayZoo built from other phishing kits

A phishing kit built using pieces of code copied from other kits, some available for sale through publicly accessible scam sellers or are reused and repackaged by other kit resellers, provides rich insight into the state of the economy that drives phishing and email threats today. We uncovered th...

Practical tips on how to use application security testing and testing standards

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 Daniel Cuthbert, Global Head of Security...

How Microsoft Security empowers partners to build customer trust

As I reflect on my first year at Microsoft, it was both challenging and exceptional: from my remote onboarding in the middle of a pandemic to dramatic changes in the cyber landscape, to Microsoft’s critical role as a frontline responder in some of the most sophisticated cyberattacks in history an...

Securing Azure datacenters with continuous IoT/OT monitoring

Figure 1: Industrial cooling system for datacenters. As more intelligent devices and machinery become connected to the internet, Operational Technology OT and the Internet of Things IoT have become part of your enterprise network infrastructure—and a growing security risk. With every new factory...

6 strategies to reduce cybersecurity alert fatigue in your SOC

Today, organizations are faced with the increasingly difficult task of trying to protect their expanding digital estate from sophisticated cybersecurity threats. Migration to the cloud and a mobile workforce has dissolved the network boundary and projected the digital estate beyond its traditiona...

Terranova Security Gone Phishing Tournament reveals continued weak spot in cybersecurity

The Terranova Security annual Gone Phishing Tournament wrapped up in October 2020, spanning 98 countries and industries including healthcare, consumer goods, transport, energy, IT, finance, education, manufacturing, and more. Using templates created from actual phishing attacks created by Microso...

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...

Windows Defender ATP thwarts Operation WilySupply software supply chain cyberattack

Several weeks ago, the Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection Windows Defender ATP research team noticed security alerts that demonstrated an intriguing attack pattern. These early alerts uncovered a well-planned, finely orchestrated cyberattack that targeted several high-profile technology...

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...

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...

KillNet and affiliate hacktivist groups targeting healthcare with DDoS attacks

In the last year, geopolitical tension has led to an uptick of reported cybercrime events fueled by hacktivist groups. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA published an advisory to warn organizations about these attacks and teamed with the FBI on a distributed...

Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting proactively hunts threats

Today, we announced the general availability of Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting to support organizations and their cybersecurity employees with proactive threat hunting. Defender Experts for Hunting was created for customers who have a robust security operations center but want Microsoft t...

HTML smuggling surges: Highly evasive loader technique increasingly used in banking malware, targeted attacks

HTML smuggling, a highly evasive malware delivery technique that leverages legitimate HTML5 and JavaScript features, is increasingly used in email campaigns that deploy banking malware, remote access Trojans RATs, and other payloads related to targeted attacks. Notably, this technique was observe...

4 ways Microsoft is delivering security for all in a Zero Trust world

If there’s one thing the dawning of 2021 has shown, it’s that security isn’t getting any easier. Recent high-profile breach activity has underscored the growing sophistication of today’s threat actors and the complexity of managing business risk in an increasingly connected world. It’s a struggle...

New cloud-native breadth threat protection capabilities in Azure Defender

As the world adapts to working remotely, the threat landscape is constantly evolving, and security teams struggle to protect workloads with multiple solutions that are often not well integrated nor comprehensive enough. This results in serious threats avoiding detection, as well as security teams...

Expanded Microsoft Security Experts offerings provide comprehensive protection

Since we first introduced Microsoft Security Experts in May 2022, we’ve worked hard to expand our new security services category. In the past 16 months, we’ve launched new services, expanded our capabilities, and introduced new ways to buy. Our customers face an unprecedented number of security...

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...

DEV-0569 finds new ways to deliver Royal ransomware, various payloads

Recent activity from the threat actor that Microsoft tracks as DEV-0569, known to distribute various payloads, has led to the deployment of the Royal ransomware, which first emerged in September 2022 and is being distributed by multiple threat actors. Observed DEV-0569 attacks show a pattern of...

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...

Detecting and preventing LSASS credential dumping attacks

Obtaining user operating system OS credentials from a targeted device is among threat actors’ primary goals when launching attacks because these credentials serve as a gateway to various objectives they can achieve in their target organization’s environment, such as lateral movement. One techniqu...

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...

The final report on NOBELIUM’s unprecedented nation-state attack

This is the final post in a four-part series on the NOBELIUM nation-state cyberattack. In December 2020, Microsoft began sharing details with the world about what became known as the most sophisticated nation-state cyberattack in history. Microsoft’s four-part video series “Decoding NOBELIUM” pul...