Leverage cloud-powered security with Microsoft Defender for IoT

Traditionally, operational technology OT and IT have occupied separate sides of enterprise security. But with digital transformation and the advent of Industry 4.0, the old, siloed approach is showing its age.1 The rise of manufacturing execution systems has enabled more “smart factories” to...

Microsoft shifts to a comprehensive SaaS security solution

Software as a service SaaS apps are ubiquitous, hybrid work is the new normal, and protecting them and the important data they store is a big challenge for organizations. Today, 59 percent of security professionals find the SaaS sprawl challenging to manage1 and have identified cloud...

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...

Microsoft at RSA 2022: Envisioning the future of security

Like most of you, I was glad to see the 2022 RSA Conference return to its in-person roots after a two-year digital hiatus. This year’s event was a great success, drawing 26,000 attendees to three days of cutting-edge security sessions, tutorials, seminars, and special events at Moscone Center in...

A closer look at Qakbot’s latest building blocks (and how to knock them down)

Multiple Qakbot campaigns that are active at any given time prove that the decade-old malware continues to be many attackers’ tool of choice, a customizable chameleon that adapts to suit the needs of the multiple threat actor groups that utilize it. Since emerging in 2007 as a banking Trojan,...

Medius’ small IT team supports distributed workforce with Azure Active Directory

In today’s Voice of the Customer blog post, IT Manager Jacob Andersson and IT Systems Architect Fredrik Frööjd of Medius share how Azure Active Directory Azure AD has inspired employees to live by the cloud commitment the company encourages from customers and helped their small team support a...

Manage, govern, and get more value out of your data with Azure Purview

Data is the currency of today’s economy. Data is being created faster than ever in more locations than organizations can track. In fact, IDC has predicted that global data will grow to more than 175 zettabytes by 2025. To put that into context, that’s 175 trillion 1GB USB drives. At the same time...

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...

Uncovering cross-process injection with Windows Defender ATP

Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection Windows Defender ATP is a post-breach solution that alerts security operations SecOps personnel about hostile activity. As the nature of attacks evolve, Windows Defender ATP must advance so that it continues to help SecOps personnel uncover and address...

Stopping C2 communications in human-operated ransomware through network protection

Command-and-control C2 servers are an essential part of ransomware, commodity, and nation-state attacks. They are used to control infected devices and perform malicious activities like downloading and launching payloads, controlling botnets, or commanding post-exploitation penetration frameworks ...

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...

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...

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...

Stop Ransomware with Microsoft Security digital event presents threat intelligence in action

One of the biggest challenges in security today is visibility. And by visibility, I don’t just mean keeping an eye on ever-evolving cyberthreats, but also seeing your own security environment clearly—especially where you’re vulnerable. For defenders who are working hard to manage threats across...

The many lives of BlackCat ransomware

The BlackCat ransomware, also known as ALPHV, is a prevalent threat and a prime example of the growing ransomware-as-a-service RaaS gig economy. It’s noteworthy due to its unconventional programming language Rust, multiple target devices and possible entry points, and affiliation with prolific...

Easy authentication and authorization in Azure Active Directory with No-Code Datawiza

This blog post is part of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association guest blog series. Learn more about MISA. The acceleration of cloud journeys fueled by the pandemic and ever-increasing concerns about data security and information privacy have made access management one of the hottest topi...

The evolution of a Mac trojan: UpdateAgent’s progression

Our discovery and analysis of a sophisticated Mac trojan in October exposed a year-long evolution of a malware family—and depicts the rising complexity of threats across platforms. The trojan, tracked as UpdateAgent, started as a relatively basic information-stealer but was observed distributing...

How Open Systems uses Microsoft tools to improve security maturity

This blog post is part of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association guest blog series. Learn more about MISA. We’ve all seen it happen—an organization has all the top-notch security tools in place and still, they get breached. In today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape, complexity leads to...

Get career advice from 7 inspiring leaders in cybersecurity

Are you currently studying information security? Or are you considering transitioning to a career in cybersecurity? According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, cybersecurity jobs will grow 31 percent from 2019 to 2029—more than six times the national average job growth.1 Cybersecurity skills...

Windows 11 offers chip to cloud protection to meet the new security challenges of hybrid work

As the world has changed over the past 18-months, companies have been wrestling with ways to keep employees and data protected as they support new ways of hybrid working. We built Windows 11 to be the most secure Windows yet with built-in chip to cloud protection that ensures company assets stay...

A guide to combatting human-operated ransomware: Part 2

This blog is part two of a two-part series focused on how Microsoft DART helps customers with human-operated ransomware. For more guidance on human-operated ransomware and how to defend against these extortion-based attacks, refer to our human-operated ransomware docs page. In part one of this bl...

How Vodafone Global Security Director creates an inclusive and secure workplace

Moving to more flexible remote work policies has caused telecommunications giant Vodafone to rethink cybersecurity and the potential friction to users. Instead of relying on physical security controls in the office, the company has embraced a Zero Trust strategy that requires authenticating...

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...

Afternoon Cyber Tea: Privacy, the pandemic, and protecting our cyber future

Much of our everyday life has moved online with the pandemic continuing to play a role in how we work and communicate with others. This migration has meant that security and privacy continue to remain top-of-mind for both security professionals and those who may not have given these cyber issues ...

Meet unprecedented security challenges by leveraging MXDR services

We know customers of every size face ever-increasing security risks. In just the last 12 months the speed of attackers leveraging breaches is also increasing, as it only takes 72 minutes on average for an attacker to access private data from the time a user falls victim to a phishing email.1 Data...

IoT devices and Linux-based systems targeted by OpenSSH trojan campaign

Cryptojacking, the illicit use of computing resources to mine cryptocurrency, has become increasingly prevalent in recent years, with attackers building a cybercriminal economy around attack tools, infrastructure, and services to generate revenue from targeting a wide range of vulnerable systems,...

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...

Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting demonstrates industry-leading protection in the 2022 MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK® Evaluations for Managed Services

Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting, our newest managed threat hunting service, delivered industry-leading results during the inaugural MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK® Evaluations for Managed Services. We provided a seamless, comprehensive, and rapid response to the simulated attack using expert-led...

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...

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...

Migrating content from traditional SIEMs to Azure Sentinel

In part two of this three-part series, we covered the five types of side-by-side security information and event management SIEM configurations commonly used during a long-term migration to Microsoft Azure Sentinel. For part three, we’ll be looking at best practices for migrating your data and...

Sharing the first SimuLand dataset to expedite research and learn about adversary tradecraft

Last month, we introduced the SimuLand project to help security researchers around the world deploy lab environments to reproduce well-known attack scenarios, actively test detections, and learn more about the underlying behavior and implementation of adversary techniques. Since the release of th...

Microsoft announces recipients of academic grants for AI research on combating phishing

Every day in the ever-changing technology landscape, we see boundaries shift as new ideas challenge the old status quo. This constant shift is observed in the increasingly sophisticated and connected tools, products, and services people and organizations use on a daily basis, but also in the...

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...

Digital Defense integrates with Microsoft to detect attacks missed by traditional endpoint security

This blog post is part of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association MISA guest blog series. You can learn more about MISA here. Cybercriminals have ramped up their initial compromises through phishing and pharming attacks using a variety of tools and tactics that, while numerous, are simple...

How Strata Identity and Microsoft Entra ID solve identity challenges in mergers and acquisitions

This blog post is part of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association guest blog series. Learn more about MISA. Along with every merger and acquisition between two companies comes the need to combine and strengthen their IT infrastructure. In particular, there is an immediate and profound impa...

Cloud storage security: What’s new in the threat matrix

Today, we announce the release of a second version of the threat matrix for storage services, a structured tool that assists in identifying and analyzing potential security threats on data stored in cloud storage services. The matrix, first released in April 2021 as detailed in the blog post Thre...

How Microsoft can help you go passwordless this World Password Day

It’s that time of year again. World Password Day is May 4, 2023.1 There’s a reason it’s still going strong 10 years after being created by cybersecurity professionals. A recent study that analyzed more than 15 billion passwords found that the top 10 most popular passwords still include...

Forrester names Microsoft a Leader in 2023 Infrastructure-as-a-Service Platform Native Security report

As we continue to drive toward making the world safer and more productive for all, it is vital we empower our customers to secure every aspect of their organization. Each day we are seeing more advanced security threats as bad actors develop new tactics that aim to take advantage of businesses as...

Token tactics: How to prevent, detect, and respond to cloud token theft

As organizations increase their coverage of multifactor authentication MFA, threat actors have begun to move to more sophisticated techniques to allow them to compromise corporate resources without needing to satisfy MFA. Recently, the Microsoft Detection and Response Team DART has seen an increa...

One Microsoft manager’s entrepreneurial vision for multicloud identity and access

In July 2021, Microsoft acquired CloudKnox, a leader in cloud infrastructure entitlement management CIEM. Over the past two years, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know the founder and chief executive officer CEO, Balaji Parimi, who is now the Partner General Manager of Permissions Management ...

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...

Detect active network reconnaissance with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

The Microsoft Compromise Recovery Security Practice has observed how the security industry has evolved over the last few years as consumers, businesses, and industry professionals continue to adapt to the changing landscape. We have seen the emergence of new frameworks, such as the Cybersecurity...

Secure unmanaged devices with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint now

As we have entered into new hybrid work environments, businesses need to think about how they will proactively protect their organizations from the influx of new or “bring your own” BYO connected devices. This new normal has exposed the most challenging cybersecurity landscape we’ve ever...

Becoming resilient by understanding cybersecurity risks: Part 3—a security pro’s perspective

In part two of this blog series on aligning security with business objectives and risk, we explored the importance of thinking and acting holistically, using the example of human-operated ransomware, which threatens every organization in every industry. As we exited 2020, the Solorigate attack...

A “quick wins” approach to securing Azure Active Directory and Office 365 and improving your security posture

In the last post, we discussed Office 365 and how enabling certain features without understanding all the components can lead to a false sense of security. We demonstrated how implementing a break glass account, multi-factor authentication MFA, and the removal of legacy authentication can help...

Empowering employees to securely work from anywhere with an internet-first model and Zero Trust

Like many this year, our Microsoft workforce had to quickly transition to a work from the home model in response to COVID-19. While nobody could have predicted the world’s current state, it has provided a very real-world test of the investments we have made implementing a Zero Trust security mode...

How Microsoft tools and partners support GDPR compliance

This post is authored by Daniel Grabski,Executive Security Advisor, Microsoft Enterprise Cybersecurity Group. As an Executive Security Advisor for enterprises in Europe and the Middle East, I regularly engage with Chief Information Security Officers CISOs, Chief Information Officers CIOs and Data...

Announcing the Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection ISO 27001 audit assessment report

The security and privacy of customer data are our top priority. Our goals are simple: to operate our services with the security and privacy you expect from Microsoft, and to give you accurate assurances about our security and privacy practices. In line with our commitment to provide customers the...