Learn what an AI-driven future means for cybersecurity at Microsoft Secure

Maintaining security across today’s vast digital ecosystem is a team effort. AI and machine learning have helped to detect threats quickly and respond effectively. Yet we all know that the best defense still requires human wisdom and experience. From a frontline security operations admin to the...

Introducing kernel sanitizers on Microsoft platforms

As part of Microsoft’s commitment to continuously raise security baselines, we have been introducing innovations to the foundation of the chip-to-cloud security outlined in the Windows 11 Security Book. Strong foundational security enables us to build defenses from the ground up and develop...

Implementing Zero Trust access to business data on BYOD with Trustd MTD and Microsoft Entra

This blog post is part of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association guest blog series. Learn more about MISA. As more employees work remotely on a variety of devices and networks, businesses need a security model that supports this new operational efficiency. An expanding perimeter poses...

How one product manager builds community at Microsoft Security

I first met Joey Cruz not long after he joined the Microsoft Identity and Network Access IDNA team when he helped create demos for a keynote speech I was delivering. Joey has a way of making you feel that even if something goes sideways, it will all be okay because he will make sure it is. As...

Anatomy of a DDoS amplification attack

Amplification attacks are one of the most common distributed denial of service DDoS attack vectors. These attacks are typically categorized as flooding or volumetric attacks, where the attacker succeeds in generating more traffic than the target can process, resulting in exhausting its resources...

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,...

The federal Zero Trust strategy and Microsoft’s deployment guidance for all

You’d be forgiven for missing the White House announcement on federal Zero Trust strategy on January 26, 2022.1 After all, on that day alone a Supreme Court Justice announced his intention to retire, the Federal Reserve announced its plan to raise interest rates, and the State Department was busy...

The hunt for NOBELIUM, the most sophisticated nation-state attack in history

This is the second in a four-part blog 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”...

Catching the big fish: Analyzing a large-scale phishing-as-a-service operation

In researching phishing attacks, we came across a campaign that used a rather high volume of newly created and unique subdomains—over 300,000 in a single run. This investigation led us down a rabbit hole as we unearthed one of the operations that enabled the campaign: a large-scale...

New Microsoft Incident Response guides help security teams analyze suspicious activity

Today Microsoft Incident Response are proud to introduce two one-page guides to help security teams investigate suspicious activity in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Entra. These guides contain the artifacts that Microsoft Incident Response hunts for and uses daily to provide our customers with...

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...

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...

LinkedIn and Microsoft Entra introduce a new way to verify your workplace

In the digital world, when you meet professional contacts for the first time online, you need additional trust signals to increase your confidence that they are who they say they are. We’re thrilled to announce that millions of LinkedIn members will be able to verify their place of work with a...

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...

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,...

Secure your business like you secure your home: 5 steps to protect against cybercrime

Running a business requires a lot of determination and sometimes a leap of faith. Every day brings a new challenge, and many times it can feel like the stress and uncertainty are too much. That’s when you remind yourself why you took the leap—the satisfaction of realizing your own vision—and you...

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...

5 cybersecurity capabilities announced at Microsoft Ignite 2022 to help you secure more with less

Protecting your business against growing security threats is a huge priority. Companies of all sizes have increased their spending on cybersecurity solutions to protect their operations over the last year. User spending for the information security and risk management market will grow to USD169.2...

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...

New Windows 11 security features are designed for hybrid work

Attackers are constantly evolving, becoming increasingly sophisticated and destructive—the median time for an attacker to access your private data if you fall victim to a phishing email is 1 hour, 12 minutes.1 Microsoft tracks more than 35 ransomware families and more than 250 unique nation-state...

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...

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...

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...

Microsoft showcases the future of comprehensive security at RSA 2022

The last time the RSA Conference was held as an in-person event was in 2020. Needless to say, a lot has changed since then. RSA is once again going forward as an in-person and digital event in San Francisco, from June 6 to 9, 2022. After two years of remote interactions, we’re excited to exchange...

Center for Threat-Informed Defense, Microsoft, and industry partners streamline MITRE ATT&CK® matrix evaluation for defenders

The MITRE Center for Threat-Informed Defense, Microsoft, and other industry partners collaborated on a project that created a repeatable methodology for developing a top MITRE ATT&CK® techniques list. The method aims to facilitate navigation of the ATT&CK framework, which could help new defenders...

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...

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...

How a leading Microsoft engineer extends culture to service resiliency

It’s hard to underestimate the impact that people can have on us in our formative years. Huiwen Ru, who spent several years working in identity and access management and is now a Principal Software Engineering Manager on the Singularity team at Microsoft, is a living example of how important...

A Leader in multiple Zero Trust security categories: Industry analysts weigh in

The massive shift toward remote and hybrid work over the last two years has prompted many security professionals to reassess where siloed security may create vulnerabilities.1 For that reason, Zero Trust has become the gold standard for enterprise security. An effective Zero Trust approach requir...

Manage subject rights requests at scale with Microsoft Priva

Privacy is of increasing importance to our customers. In addition to the well-known European General Data Protection Regulation GDPR, privacy regulations are emerging in nearly every region with more than 70 percent of countries now having data protection and privacy legislation.1 As the number a...

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...

The passwordless future is here for your Microsoft account

Nobody likes passwords. They’re inconvenient. They’re a prime target for attacks. Yet for years they’ve been the most important layer of security for everything in our digital lives—from email to bank accounts, shopping carts to video games. We are expected to create complex and unique passwords,...

Compliance joins Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA)

Like many of you, I’m thrilled to have my 2020 calendar safely in the recycling pile. During that time though, you too might have noticed how, perhaps unknowingly, you were able to turn some of last year’s lemons into lemonade. Maybe you developed a deeper appreciation for everyday moments and th...

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...

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,...

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...

Microsoft announces the 2023 Microsoft Security Excellence Awards winners

In a world that’s constantly changing and challenging us, we believe that nothing can stop us when we work together. That’s the spirit of collaboration we celebrated on April 24, 2023, at the fourth annual Microsoft Security Excellence Awards. These awards recognize outstanding contributions from...

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...

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,...

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...

Microsoft Security reaches another milestone—Comprehensive, customer-centric solutions drive results

Yesterday, we shared some exciting news about the momentum we’re seeing in the security industry. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella announced that Microsoft Security has surpassed USD20 billion in revenue. I’m grateful to all our customers and partners who have been on this journey...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

Implementing a Zero Trust strategy after compromise recovery

What changes after compromise recovery? After a successful compromise recovery effort, you are back in control. Likely, you gave your team a round of applause and took a sigh of relief. Now what? Is everything going back to as it was in the past? Absolutely not! A compromise recovery engagement i...

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...

Discover the anatomy of an external cyberattack surface with new RiskIQ report

The internet is now part of the network. That might sound like hyperbole, but the massive shift to hybrid and remote work and a multicloud environment means security teams must now defend their entire online ecosystem. Recent ransomware attacks against internet-facing systems have served as a...

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...