​​Transforming security​ with Microsoft Security Exposure Management initiatives​

Just as nature sheds its winter coat, it's time to prune outdated security measures and plant the seeds of a more robust defense. For years, Microsoft Secure Score has served as a foundational tool for organizations to assess their security posture. By providing a numerical representation of...

Celebrate 20 years of Cybersecurity Awareness Month with Microsoft and let’s secure our world together

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, when we partner with the National Cybersecurity Alliance, the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA, and organizations around the world to amplify the importance of cybersecurity best practic...

Identifying cyberthreats quickly with proactive security testing

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 Matthew Hickey,...

Secure your endpoints with Transparity and Microsoft

This blog post is part of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association guest blog series. Learn more about MISA. Endpoint protection platforms EPPs are dead and no longer sufficient to protect your organization, right? Wrong. When it comes to cybersecurity, the ability to normalize and correlat...

Best practices for AI security risk management

Today, we are releasing an AI security risk assessment framework as a step to empower organizations to reliably audit, track, and improve the security of the AI systems. In addition, we are providing new updates to Counterfit, our open-source tool to simplify assessing the security posture of AI...

Behind the unprecedented effort to protect customers against the NOBELIUM nation-state attack

This is the third 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” pul...

Phishing Abuses RMM Tools for Persistent Access

In this article 1. Attack chain overview 2. Mitigation and protection guidance 3. Learn More In July 2026, Microsoft Defender Experts observed phishing campaigns targeting organizations across multiple industries that distributed a masqueraded MSP360 Remote Monitoring and Management RMM installer...

Microsoft named a Leader in the 2026 IDC MarketScape for MDR/MXDR for the Enterprise

Security teams are being asked to defend a growing attack surface with fewer people and around the clock, against threat actors who never take a night off. As cyberattackers increasingly use AI to launch and scale campaigns, the volume, speed, and sophistication of threats continue to rise. Closi...

5 insights from Frost & Sullivan’s 2025 Frost Radar™ for Cloud Security Posture Management

Cloud security posture management CSPM is being redefined as two forces collide: Cloud environments are becoming more interconnected—spanning workloads, identities, data, APIs, and development pipelines—while security teams must reduce risk faster with fewer tools and less time. Frost & Sullivan’...

Accelerating the quantum-safe timeline

The quantum-safe timeline has changed For years, planning for post-quantum cryptography PQC was framed as a future problem: important, inevitable, but distant. That perspective is evolving as technology advances and organizations prepare for the scale and complexity of the transition ahead. At...

Simplifying AWS defense with Microsoft Sentinel UEBA

In this article 1. Under the hood: The tables 2. Traditional vs. new approach 3. Real-world attack scenarios: Microsoft Sentinel UEBA in action 4. Practical implementation: Getting started 5. Limitations and constraints 6. From raw logs to behavioral context With the expansion of Microsoft Sentin...

SOHO router compromise leads to DNS hijacking and adversary-in-the-middle attacks

In this article 1. DNS hijacking attack chain: From compromised devices to AiTM and other follow-on activity 2. Mitigation and protection guidance 3. Microsoft Defender detection and hunting guidance Executive summary Forest Blizzard, a threat actor linked to the Russian military, has been...

Addressing the OWASP Top 10 Risks in Agentic AI with Microsoft Copilot Studio

Agentic AI is moving fast from pilots to production. That shift changes the security conversation. These systems do not just generate content. They can retrieve sensitive data, invoke tools, and take action using real identities and permissions. When something goes wrong, the failure is not limit...

From transparency to action: What the latest Microsoft email security benchmark reveals

In our last benchmarking post, Clarity in complexity: New insights for transparent email security ,1 we shared why transparency matters more than ever in email security and how clear, consistent benchmarking helps security teams cut through noise and make confident decisions. Today, we’re...

New e-book: Establishing a proactive defense with Microsoft Security Exposure Management

Effective exposure management begins by illuminating and hardening risks across the entire attack surface. Some of the most meaningful shifts in security happen quietly—when teams take a clear look at their exposure landscape and acknowledge the gap between where they stand today and where they...

Microsoft SDL: Evolving security practices for an AI-powered world

As AI reshapes the world, organizations encounter unprecedented risks, and security leaders take on new responsibilities. Microsoft’s Secure Development Lifecycle SDL is expanding to address AI-specific security concerns in addition to the traditional software security areas that it has...

Turning threat reports into detection insights with AI

Security teams routinely need to transform unstructured threat knowledge, such as incident narratives, red team breach-path writeups, threat actor profiles, and public reports into concrete defensive action. The early stages of that work are often the slowest. These include extracting tactics,...

Turning threat reports into detection insights with AI

Security teams routinely need to transform unstructured threat knowledge, such as incident narratives, red team breach-path writeups, threat actor profiles, and public reports into concrete defensive action. The early stages of that work are often the slowest. These include extracting tactics,...

Microsoft announces the 2026 Security Excellence Awards winners

In today’s fast‑moving digital arena, security isn’t a solo act—it’s a team sport. Every day, defenders across the globe suit up, strategize, and work shoulder‑to‑shoulder to protect organizations and communities from an ever‑evolving field of cyberthreats. That shared spirit of collaboration is...

From awareness to action: Building a security-first culture for the agentic AI era

The insights gained from Cybersecurity Awareness Month, right through to Microsoft Ignite 2025, demonstrate that security remains a top priority for business leaders. It serves as a strategic lever for organizational growth, fosters trust, and facilitates the advancement of AI innovation. The Wor...

​​Ambient and autonomous security for the agentic era​​

Over the past year, I've had countless conversations with customers who are striving to unlock human ambition with AI. They are on their journey to become Frontier Firms, where humans and agents push the boundaries of innovation and create new possibilities, empowering humans to become limitless...

​​Securing critical infrastructure: Why Europe’s risk-based regulations matter

The Deputy CISO blog series is where Microsoft Deputy Chief Information Security Officers CISOs share their thoughts on what is most important in their respective domains. In this series, you will get practical advice, tactics to start and stop deploying, forward-looking commentary on where the...

​​Securing critical infrastructure: Why Europe’s risk-based regulations matter

The Deputy CISO blog series is where Microsoft Deputy Chief Information Security Officers CISOs share their thoughts on what is most important in their respective domains. In this series, you will get practical advice, tactics to start and stop deploying, forward-looking commentary on where the...

The 5 generative AI security threats you need to know about detailed in new e-book

Generative AI is reshaping the way security teams operate—accelerating threat detection, automating workflows, and enabling scale. But as defenders embrace AI to strengthen their posture, cyberattackers are doing the same to evolve faster than traditional defenses can adapt. Microsoft’s 2025...

XCSSET evolves again: Analyzing the latest updates to XCSSET’s inventory

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has identified yet another XCSSET variant in the wild that introduces further updates and new modules beyond those detailed in our March 2025 blog post. The XCSSET malware is designed to infect Xcode projects, typically used by software developers, and run while an...

Microsoft at Black Hat USA 2025: A unified approach to modern cyber defense

Microsoft will be at Black Hat USA 2025, August 5–7 in Las Vegas, and we’re bringing you a unified, practitioner-driven experience built around real-world insights, threat intelligence, incident response, and hands-on AI expertise. We believe security teams are strongest when intelligence, tools,...

Cyber resilience begins before the crisis

In this blog you will hear directly from Microsoft’s Deputy Chief Information Security Officer CISO for Customer Security, Ann Johnson, about the need for proactive planning in cyber incidents, particularly surrounding communications. This blog is part of a new, ongoing series where our Deputy...

US Department of Labor’s journey to Zero Trust security with Microsoft Entra ID

For several years, Microsoft has been helping United States federal and state government groups, including military departments and civilian agencies, transition to a Zero Trust security model. Advanced features in Microsoft Entra ID have helped these organizations meet requirements to employ...

Strengthening identity protection in the face of highly sophisticated attacks

The post Strengthening identity protection in the face of highly sophisticated attacks appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog...

How the Microsoft Incident Response team helps customers remediate threats

Each year, organizations face tens of billions of malware, phishing, and credential threats—with real-world impacts. When an attack succeeds, it can result in grave impacts on any industry. For example, it could delay a police or fire department’s response to an emergency, prevent a hospital from...

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...

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...

When AI infrastructure becomes the target: Securing gateways and control points

In this article 1. AI workloads are becoming high-value control points 2. Case study 1: LiteLLM gateway compromise 3. Case study 2: RAGFlow compromise 4. Case study 3: Kestra compromise 5. Mitigation and protection guidance 6. MITRE ATT&CK techniques observed 7. References 8. Learn more AI is...

DeadLock ransomware: Breaking down a Rust-based encryptor with decentralized recovery infrastructure

In this article 1. Pre-encryption 2. Encryption 3. Post-encryption 4. Defending against DeadLock ransomware 5. Indicators of compromise Microsoft Threat Intelligence tracks DeadLock ransomware as an emerging financially motivated operation distinguished by its use of decentralized infrastructure ...

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

Every organization needs security that protects end to end with the speed and scale of AI. Microsoft’s vision is simple: security should be ambient and autonomous, just like the AI it protects. As organizations scale AI and expand across environments, security teams need protection that covers...

​​Better security starts with better questions

As organizations move beyond AI experimentation, success will depend on how effectively they combine intelligence and trust. The same systems that amplify knowledge, accelerate decisions, and unlock new outcomes must also protect data, govern AI, and build resilience. In this next phase of...

Rethinking security for the age of AI

Why security needs a new Cyber Stack — Introducing Project Perception The physics of cybersecurity are changing. Autonomous systems can now reason, adapt and operate continuously. At the same time, the cost of offense is falling, while the volume, velocity and complexity of what must be secured...

​​Forrester names Microsoft a Leader in the 2026 Extended Detection and Response Platforms Wave™ report

We are excited to share that Microsoft has been named a Leader inThe Forrester Wave™: Extended Detection and Response Platforms, Q2 2026. Microsoft ranked the highest of any vendor evaluated in the Strategy category and is the only vendor to receive the highest score in Vision. Microsoft also...

AI-powered defense for an AI-accelerated threat landscape

We are at an inflection point in cybersecurity. Recent advances in AI model capabilities are changing how vulnerabilities are discovered and exploited. AI models can autonomously discover weaknesses, chain multiple lower-severity issues into working end-to-end exploits, and produce working...

When tax season becomes cyberattack season: Phishing and malware campaigns using tax-related lures

In this article 1. A wide range of tax-themed campaigns 2. How to protect users and organization against tax-themed campaigns 3. Microsoft Defender detection and hunting guidance 4. Indicators of compromise During tax season, threat actors reliably take advantage of the urgency and familiarity of...

Help on the line: How a Microsoft Teams support call led to compromise

In our eighth Cyberattack Series report, Microsoft Incident Response—the Detection and Response Team DART—investigates a recent identity-first, human-operated intrusion that relied less on exploiting software vulnerabilities and more on deception and legitimate tools. After a customer reached out...

Secure agentic AI for your Frontier Transformation

Today we shared the next step to make Frontier Transformation real for customers across every industry with Wave 3 of Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Agent 365, and Microsoft 365 E7: The Frontier Suite. Introducing the First Frontier Suite built on Intelligence and Trust As our customers rapidly...

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...

A one-prompt attack that breaks LLM safety alignment

Large language models LLMs and diffusion models now power a wide range of applications, from document assistance to text-to-image generation, and users increasingly expect these systems to be safety-aligned by default. Yet safety alignment is only as robust as its weakest failure mode. Despite...

Security strategies for safeguarding governmental data

The Deputy CISO blog series is where Microsoft Deputy Chief Information Security Officers CISOs share their thoughts on what is most important in their respective domains. In this series, you will get practical advice, tactics to start and stop deploying, forward-looking commentary on where the...

A new era of agents, a new era of posture

The rise of AI Agents marks one of the most exciting shifts in technology today. Unlike traditional applications or cloud resources, these agents are not passive components- they reason, make decisions, invoke tools, and interact with other agents and systems on behalf of users. This autonomy...

Four priorities for AI-powered identity and network access security in 2026

No doubt, your organization has been hard at work over the past several years implementing industry best practices, including a Zero Trust architecture. But even so, the cybersecurity race only continues to intensify. AI has quickly become a powerful tool misused by threat actors, who use it to...

How Microsoft builds privacy and security to work hand-in-hand

The Deputy CISO blog series is where Microsoft Deputy Chief Information Security Officers CISOs share their thoughts on what is most important in their respective domains. In this series, you will get practical advice, tactics to start and stop deploying, forward-looking commentary on where the...

New Microsoft e-book: 3 reasons point solutions are holding you back

While patchwork tools slow defenders down and impact visibility into potential cyberthreats, they’re an unfortunate reality for many organizations. As digital risk accelerates and attack surfaces multiply, security leaders are doing their best to stitch together point solutions while trying to...

Imposter for hire: How fake people can gain very real access

In the latest edition of our Cyberattack Series, we dive into a real-world case of fake employees. Cybercriminals are no longer just breaking into networks—they’re gaining access by posing as legitimate employees. This form of cyberattack involves operatives posing as legitimate remote hires,...