Why the Pipeline Cybersecurity Initiative is a critical step

It’s well known by now that pipeline attacks and attacks on utilities of all kinds have been an unfortunately well-trodden path by cyber-adversaries in numerous countries for a few years now. These types of attacks are not theoretical, and the damage done to date—as well as the potential damage—i...

The evolution of Microsoft Threat Protection, February update

February is an exciting month of enhancements for Microsoft Threat Protection. For those who have followed our monthly updates November, December, and January, you’re aware that Microsoft Threat Protection helps provide users optimal security from the moment they sign in, use email, work on...

Overview of Petya, a rapid cyberattack

In the first blog post of this 3-part series, we introduced what rapid cyberattacks are and illustrated how they are different in terms of execution and outcome. Next, we will go into some more details on the Petya aka NotPetya attack. How Petya worked The Petya attack chain is well understood,...

​​​​​​What’s new in Microsoft Security: August 2026

As organizations incorporate AI agents into more processes across business and operations, security teams can benefit from greater visibility and new purpose-built tools that help manage, secure, and govern AI. This month’s updates provide new capabilities to help organizations gain insights into...

Defending SaaS-based applications against ShinyHunters OAuth abuse

In this article 1. Attack chain overview 2. Improving visibility into Salesforce OAuth abuse 3. Mitigation and protection guidance 4. Learn more In a series of campaigns observed between mid-2025 and mid-2026, Microsoft identified threat actor activity with overlapping tradecraft commonly...

Active attack: Dirty Frag Linux vulnerability expands post-compromise risk

In this article 1. Why Dirty Frag matters 2. Technical overview 3. Exploitation scenarios 4. Mitigation guidance 5. Post-mitigation integrity verification 6. References A newly disclosed Linux local privilege escalation vulnerability known as “Dirty Frag” enables escalation from an unprivileged...

Breaking the code: Multi-stage ‘code of conduct’ phishing campaign leads to AiTM token compromise

In this article 1. Multi-step social engineering campaign leading to credential theft 2. Mitigation and protection guidance 3. Microsoft Defender detections 4. Hunting queries 5. Indicators of compromise Phishing campaigns continue to improve sophistication and refinement in blending social...

Guidance for detecting, investigating, and defending against the Trivy supply chain compromise

In this article 1. Analyzing the Trivy supply chain compromise 2. Detection and investigation 3. Mitigation and protection guidance 4. Advanced hunting queries 5. References 6. Learn more On March 19, 2026, Trivy, Aqua Security’s widely used open-source vulnerability scanner, was reported to have...

New Microsoft Purview innovations for Fabric to safely accelerate your AI transformation

As organizations adopt AI, security and governance remain core primitives for safe AI transformation and acceleration. After all, data leaders are aware of the notion that: Your AI is only as good as your data. Organizations are skeptical about AI transformation due to concerns of sensitive data...

Unify now or pay later: New research exposes the operational cost of a fragmented SOC

Security operations are entering a pivotal moment: the operating model that grew around network logs and phishing emails is now buckling under tool sprawl, manual triage, and threat actors that outpace defender capacity. New research from Microsoft and Omdia shows just how heavy the burden can...

Infostealers without borders: macOS, Python stealers, and platform abuse

Infostealer threats are rapidly expanding beyond traditional Windows-focused campaigns, increasingly targeting macOS environments, leveraging cross-platform languages such as Python, and abusing trusted platforms and utilities to silently deliver credential-stealing malware at scale. Since late...

Microsoft is named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms

Since 2022, the number of human-operated ransomware-linked encounters by organizations surged by 2.75x. Yet, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has outpaced this rise, reducing the number of successful attacks by 3x, proving its power to turn the tide against evolving cyberthreats.1 Defender for...

Meet the Deputy CISOs who help shape Microsoft’s approach to cybersecurity: Part 2

Microsoft launched its Cybersecurity Governance Council in 2024, and with it, named a group of deputy chief information security officers that ensure comprehensive oversight of the company’s cybersecurity risk, defense, and compliance. These leaders work in tandem with product and engineering...

Faster, more personalized service begins at the frontline with Microsoft Intune

In healthcare, patient trust often begins at the frontline with people who deliver care, respond to questions, and manage crucial in-the-moment decisions. Increasingly, those experiences are shaped by the tools frontline workers use. When devices are secure, responsive, and tailored to clinical...

Social engineering attacks lure Indian users to install Android banking trojans

Microsoft has observed ongoing activity from mobile banking trojan campaigns targeting users in India with social media messages designed to steal users’ information for financial fraud. Using social media platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, attackers are sending messages designed to lure users...

Microsoft Purview data security mitigations for BazaCall and other human-operated data exfiltration attacks

I recently worked with an enterprise customer who experienced a data exfiltration attack using the characteristics of the BazaCall campaign. BazaCall can be both a ransomware and data exfiltration attack that are used together to increase pressure on and damage to the victim. Microsoft Purview ha...

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...

Do more with less—Discover the latest Microsoft Entra innovations

It has certainly been another intense year. From the ongoing pandemic to the Great Reshuffle to economic uncertainty, it’s truly felt like the only constant is change.1 In this economy, many organizations are looking for efficiencies. This is putting pressure on security teams, along with everyon...

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...

Microsoft publishes new report on holistic insider risk management

The risk landscape for organizations has changed significantly in the past few years. The amount of data captured, copied, and consumed is expected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes through 2025.1 Traditional ways of identifying and mitigating risks don’t always work. Historically, organization...

Disrupting SEABORGIUM’s ongoing phishing operations

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center MSTIC has observed and taken actions to disrupt campaigns launched by SEABORGIUM, an actor Microsoft has tracked since 2017. SEABORGIUM is a threat actor that originates from Russia, with objectives and victimology that align closely with Russian state...

How one Microsoft product manager acts as champion for identity security

A technology career embodies the ancient Roman saying that “luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Few industries are as dynamic, fast-paced, or intense as technology. With so many challenges to solve, opportunities are everywhere, but as I’ve learned myself through the years, the best...

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...

Microsoft protects against human-operated ransomware across the full attack chain in the 2022 MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK® Evaluations

For the fourth year in a row, the independent MITRE Engenuity Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge ATT&CK® Evaluations demonstrated Microsoft’s strong detection and protection capabilities thanks to our multi-platform extended detection and response XDR defenses. The ever-evolvin...

What’s Next in Security from Microsoft

One of the biggest challenges in security today is complexity. Not only is there an ever-growing number of threats, but many organizations are defending their companies with a patchwork of security solutions that don’t work well together. This piecemeal approach is costly, less secure, and hinder...

Microsoft Zero Trust solutions deliver 92 percent return on investment, says new Forrester study

In the last two years, we’ve seen a staggering increase in the adoption of cloud-based services, remote work solutions, bring your own device BYOD, and IoT devices as organizations digitally transform themselves to enable a hybrid workforce.1 Zero Trust has become the essential security strategy...

Stay safe online this holiday shopping season with tips from Microsoft

You may have already noticed this holiday shopping season feels different than those we’ve had before. Headlines about supply chain issues, worker shortages, costs rising—all while the pandemic continues to impact our lives. In my own inbox, I saw emails from brands touting Black Friday sales as...

Join us at InfoSec Jupyterthon 2021

We’re excited to invite our community of infosec analysts and engineers to the second annual InfoSec Jupyterthon taking place on December 2-3, 2021. This is an online event organized by our friends in the Open Threat Research Forge, together with folks from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Cente...

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...

Microsoft achieves a Leader placement in Forrester Wave for XDR

We are excited to share that Microsoft has been named a Leader in The Forrester New Wave: Extended Detection and Response XDR, Q4, 2021,1 receiving one of the highest scores in the strategy category. Microsoft 365 Defender was rated as “differentiated” in seven criteria including detection,...

Identity at Microsoft Ignite: Rising to the challenges of secure remote access and employee productivity

These past months have changed the way we work in so many ways. When businesses and schools went remote overnight, many of you had to adapt quickly to ensure your users could stay productive while working from home. Bad actors are trying to exploit these seismic shifts, making it more important...

Accelerate your adoption of SIEM using Azure Sentinel and a new offer from Microsoft

Take advantage of the efficiency benefits of Cloud-native SIEM using Azure Sentinel Today, security needs are evolving faster than ever—and the importance of being agile and cost-effective has never been clearer. Security teams need to get more done, faster, with less budget. On-premises security...

CISO Stressbusters Post #3: 3 ways to share accountability for security risk management

Jim Eckart, former Chief Information Security Officer CISO of The Coca-Cola Company and current Chief Security Advisor at Microsoft shares his advice for relieving stress in today’s CISO Stressbuster post. If you are a CISO, it can feel like the responsibility for keeping the company secure rests...

Updates for Microsoft 365 help strengthen data privacy

As data continues to grow exponentially and travel across organizational boundaries, privacy and compliance professionals play an increasingly strategic role within organizations. Several updates—announced today—for Microsoft 365 provide organizations with more control and options to strengthen...

Hunting MacSync Stealer infrastructure through behavioral pivots

In this article 1. Activity overview 2. Discovery of additional rotating infrastructure 3. Attack chain overview 4. Mitigation and protection guidance 5. References 6. Learn more MacSync Stealer is a macOS-focused information stealer that relies on changing infrastructure to deliver payloads,...

StealC and Amadey: Breaking down infostealers and the cybercrime services that deliver them

In this article 1. The role of infostealers: From credential theft to intrusion 2. StealC: Infostealer for rent 3. Amadey: Malware-as-a-service for delivery of infostealers 4. Defending against StealC and Amadey intrusions 5. Microsoft Defender detections 6. Indicators of compromise Infostealers...

AI is accelerating cyberattacks—here’s how to stay ahead

In March, we wrote that identity security has become the new pressure point for modern cyberattacks. Since then, AI has only increased that pressure. AI helps cyberattackers move faster across the attack chain: personalizing social engineering at scale, automating reconnaissance, analyzing leaked...

How Storm-2949 turned a compromised identity into a cloud-wide breach

In this article 1. Attack chain overview 1. Cloud compromise: Microsoft Entra ID and Microsoft 365 2. Initial access and persistence through targeted social engineering and SSPR abuse 3. Directory discovery and persistence 4. Microsoft 365 discovery and exfiltration 5. Cloud compromise: Microsoft...

Defense in depth for autonomous AI agents

Designing Secure Autonomous AI Agents with Defense in Depth AI agents are moving beyond assistance and into action. Instead of generating content, they invoke tools, modify data, trigger workflows, and operate across systems with increasing autonomy. This shift changes the security problem...

Kazuar: Anatomy of a nation-state botnet

In this article 1. Delivery 2. Module types 3. Botnet operations 4. Who is Secret Blizzard? 5. Mitigation and protection guidance 6. Microsoft Defender detections Kazuar, a sophisticated malware family attributed to the Russian state actor Secret Blizzard, has been under constant development for...

CVE-2026-31431: Copy Fail vulnerability enables Linux root privilege escalation across cloud environments

In this article 1. Vulnerability details 2. Mitigation and protection guidance 3. Microsoft Defender XDR detections 4. References 5. Learn more Microsoft Defender is investigating a high-severity local privilege escalation vulnerability CVE-2026-31431 affecting multiple major Linux distributions...

Incident response for AI: Same fire, different fuel

In this article 1. The fundamentals still hold 2. Where AI changes the equation 3. Closing the gaps in telemetry, tooling, and response 4. The human dimension 5. Looking ahead When a traditional security incident hits, responders replay what happened. They trace a known code path, find the defect...

Secure agentic AI end-to-end

Next week, RSAC™ Conference celebrates its 35-year anniversary as a forum that brings the security community together to address new challenges and embrace opportunities in our quest to make the world a safer place for all. As we look towards that milestone, agentic AI is reshaping industries...

80% of Fortune 500 use active AI Agents: Observability, governance, and security shape the new frontier

Today, Microsoft is releasing the new Cyber Pulse report to provide leaders with straightforward, practical insights and guidance on new cybersecurity risks. One of today’s most pressing concerns is the governance of AI and autonomous agents. AI agents are scaling faster than some companies can s...

Manipulating AI memory for profit: The rise of AI Recommendation Poisoning

That helpful "Summarize with AI" button? It might be secretly manipulating what your AI recommends. Microsoft security researchers have discovered a growing trend of AI memory poisoning attacks used for promotional purposes, a technique we call AI Recommendation Poisoning. Companies are embedding...

Microsoft named a leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Email Security

We’re honored to share that Microsoft has been named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Email Security. We believe this recognition highlights the value of Microsoft Defender for Office 365’s innovative capabilities in addressing today’s complex email security challenges. Protect...

Microsoft Named a Leader in the 2025 IDC CNAPP MarketScape: Key Takeaways for Security Buyers

The cloud-native application protection platform CNAPP market continues to evolve rapidly as organizations look to secure increasingly complex cloud environments. In the recently published 2025 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide CNAPP, Microsoft has been recognized as a Leader, reaffirming its...

14 secure coding tips: Learn from the experts at Microsoft Build

Hey friends! If you are a developer, you know that writing clean and efficient code is just the starting point. Now, with AI playing a bigger role, secure coding isn't just a 'nice-to-have'—it's a must. Whether you're building web apps, working on cloud services, or adding AI to your projects,...

Securing our future: April 2025 progress report on Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative

The Microsoft Secure Future Initiative SFI stands as the largest cybersecurity engineering project in history and most extensive effort of its kind at Microsoft. Since inception, we've dedicated the equivalent of 34,000 engineers working full-time for 11 months to mitigate risks and address the...

Malvertising campaign leads to info stealers hosted on GitHub

In early December 2024, Microsoft Threat Intelligence detected a large-scale malvertising campaign that impacted nearly one million devices globally in an opportunistic attack to steal information. The attack originated from illegal streaming websites embedded with malvertising redirectors, leadi...