Accelerate your security deployment with FastTrack for Microsoft 365

This blog is part of a series that responds to common questions we receive from customers about Microsoft 365 Security and Enterprise Mobility + Security. In this series youll find context, answers, and guidance for deployment and driving adoption within your organization. Inpart one of this...

AI security risk assessment using Counterfit

Today, we are releasing Counterfit, an automation tool for security testing AI systems as an open-source project. Counterfit helps organizations conduct AI security risk assessments to ensure that the algorithms used in their businesses are robust, reliable, and trustworthy. AI systems are...

Securing our approach to domain fronting within Azure

Every single day our teams analyze the trillions of signals we see to understand attack vectors, and then take those learnings and apply them to our products and solutions. Having that understanding of the threat landscape is key to ensuring our customers are kept safe every day. However, being a...

Using Zero Trust principles to protect against sophisticated attacks like Solorigate

The Solorigate supply chain attack has captured the focus of the world over the last month. This attack was simultaneously sophisticated and ordinary. The actor demonstrated sophistication in the breadth of tactics used to penetrate, expand across, and persist in affected infrastructure, but many...

New Forrester study shows customers who deploy Microsoft Azure AD benefit from 123% ROI.

Over the past six months, organizations around the world have accelerated digital transformation efforts to rapidly enable a remote workforce. As more employees than ever access apps via their home networks, the corporate network perimeter has truly disappeared, making identity the control plane...

Inside Microsoft Threat Protection: Correlating and consolidating attacks into incidents

Cybersecurity incidents are never contained to just one of your organization’s assets. Most attacks involve multiple elements across domains, including email, endpoints, identities, and applications. To rapidly understand and address incidents, your Security Operations Center SOC analysts need to...

Build support for open source in your organization

Have you ever stared at the same lines of code for hours only to have a coworker identify a bug after just a quick glance? That’s the power of community! Open source software development is guided by the philosophy that a diverse community will produce higher quality code by allowing anyone to...

Azure Sentinel uncovers the real threats hidden in billions of low fidelity signals

Cybercrime is as much a people problem as it is a technology problem. To respond effectively, the defender community must harness machine learning to compliment the strengths of people. This is the philosophy that undergirds Azure Sentinel. Azure Sentinel is a cloud-native SIEM that exploits...

Go passwordless to strengthen security and reduce costs

We all know passwords are inherently unsecure. They’re also expensive to manage. Users struggle to remember them. It’s why we’re so passionate about eliminating passwords entirely. Passwordless solutions, such as Windows Hello, FIDO2 security keys, and the Microsoft Authenticator app, provide mor...

Further enhancing security from Microsoft, not just for Microsoft

Legacy infrastructure. Bolted-on security solutions. Application sprawl. Multi-cloud environments. Company data stored across devices and apps. IT and security resource constraints. Uncertainty of where and when the next attack or leak will come, including from the inside. These are just a few of...

Operational resilience begins with your commitment to and investment in cyber resilience

Operational resilience cannot be achieved without a true commitment to and investment in cyber resilience. Global organizations need to reach the state where their core operations and services won’t be disrupted by geopolitical or socioeconomic events, natural disasters, and cyber events if they...

3 investments Microsoft is making to improve identity management

As a large enterprise with global reach, Microsoft has the same security risks as its customers. We have a distributed, mobile workforce who access corporate resources from external networks. Many individuals struggle to remember complex passwords or reuse one password across many accounts, which...

4 tried-and-true prevention strategies for enterprise-level security

Why is it that dentists advise people over and over to floss, yet so few do it? It only takes a minute of your time, yet if you’re running late or feeling tired, you may be tempted to skip it. That is until you remember your upcoming teeth cleaning appointment. There is nothing like the memory of...

Jumpstart your Microsoft Graph Security API integration with the new JavaScript sample app

The Microsoft Graph Security API, which launched this spring, is a unified REST API for integrating data and intelligence from Microsoft products, services, and partners. Using Microsoft Graph, developers can easily build applications that consolidate and correlate security alerts from multiple...

Working towards a more diverse future in security

Last year I embarked on an exercise to examine diversity in cybersecurity. As one full year has passed, I decided to revisit this topic and the ongoing challenges of recruiting AND retaining diverse talent in the cybersecurity field. This past year saw the MeToo movement in the spotlight, and whi...

Best practices for securely moving workloads to Microsoft Azure

Azure is Microsofts cloud computing environment. It offers customers three primary service delivery models including infrastructure as a service IaaS, platform as a service PaaS, and software as a service SaaS. Adopting cloud technologies requires a shared responsibility model for security, with...

Forrester names Microsoft a Leader in Q4 2022 Security Analytics Platforms Wave report

We’re excited to announce that Microsoft is named a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Security Analytics Platforms, Q4 2022. Microsoft achieved the highest possible score in 17 different criteria, including partner ecosystem, innovation roadmap, product security, case management, and architecture. Wi...

Full Operational Shutdown—another cybercrime case from the Microsoft Detection and Response Team

Recently, we published our first case report 001: …And Then There Were Six by the Microsoft Detection and Response Team DART. We received significant positive response from our customers and colleagues and our team has been getting inquiries asking for more reports. We are glad to share the DART...

Are students prepared for real-world cyber curveballs?

With a projected “skills gap” numbering in the millions for open cyber headcount, educating a diverse workforce is critical to corporate and national cyber defense moving forward. However, are today’s students getting the preparation they need to do the cybersecurity work of tomorrow? To help...

Contagious Interview: Malware delivered through fake developer job interviews

Microsoft Defender Experts has observed the Contagious Interview campaign, a sophisticated social engineering operation active since at least December 2022. Microsoft continues to detect activity associated with this campaign in recent customer environments, targeting software developers at...

Stopping attacks against on-premises Exchange Server and SharePoint Server with AMSI

Exchange Server and SharePoint Server are business-critical assets and considered crown jewels for many organizations, making them attractive targets for attacks. To help customers protect their environments and respond to these attacks, Exchange Server and SharePoint Server now integrate with th...

Threat actors misusing Quick Assist in social engineering attacks leading to ransomware

June 2024 update: At the end of May 2024, Microsoft Threat Intelligence observed Storm-1811 using Microsoft Teams as another vector to contact target users. Microsoft assesses that the threat actor uses Teams to send messages and initiate calls in an attempt to impersonate IT or help desk...

Simplify privacy protection with Microsoft Priva Subject Rights Requests

The General Data Protection Regulation GDPR came into effect in 2018 and set a new standard for the level of control individuals in the European Union had on the personal data they shared online. Since then, the number of privacy regulations around the world has flourished and impacted the privac...

Microsoft acquires CloudKnox Security to offer unified privileged access and cloud entitlement management

Today on the Official Microsoft Blog, Microsoft announced the acquisition of CloudKnox Security, a leader in Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management CIEM. CloudKnox offers complete visibility into privileged access. It helps organizations right-size permissions and consistently enforce...

Investigating a unique “form” of email delivery for IcedID malware

Microsoft threat analysts have been tracking activity where contact forms published on websites are abused to deliver malicious links to enterprises using emails with fake legal threats. The emails instruct recipients to click a link to review supposed evidence behind their allegations, but are...

Microsoft open sources CodeQL queries used to hunt for Solorigate activity

A key aspect of the Solorigate attack is the supply chain compromise that allowed the attacker to modify binaries in SolarWinds’ Orion product. These modified binaries were distributed via previously legitimate update channels and allowed the attacker to remotely perform malicious activities, suc...

Simplify compliance and manage risk with Microsoft Compliance Manager

The cost of non-compliance is more than twice that of compliance costs. Non-compliance with the ever-increasing and changing regulatory requirements can have a significant impact on your organizations brand, reputation, and revenue. According to a study by the Ponemon Institute and Globalscape,...

Azure Active Directory empowers frontline workers with simplified and secure access

Howdy folks, The past year has shown us all just how critical frontline workers are to our communities and our economy. They’re the people behind the counter, in the call centers, in hospital ICUs, on the supermarket floor—doing the critical work that makes the difference in feeding our families,...

Open-sourcing new COVID-19 threat intelligence

A global threat requires a global response. While the world faces the common threat of COVID-19, defenders are working overtime to protect users all over the globe from cybercriminals using COVID-19 as a lure to mount attacks. As a security intelligence community, we are stronger when we share...

Security guidance for remote desktop adoption

As the volume of remote workers quickly increased over the past two to three months, the IT teams in many companies scrambled to figure out how their infrastructures and technologies would be able to handle the increase in remote connections. Many companies were forced to enhance their capabiliti...

New privacy assessments now included in Microsoft Compliance Score

Keeping up with rapidly changing regulatory requirements has become one of the biggest challenge’s organizations face today. Just as companies finished preparing for the General Data Protection Regulation GDPR, California’s privacy regulation—California Consumer Privacy Act CCPA—went into effect ...

Spear phishing campaigns—they’re sharper than you think

Even your most security-savvy users may have difficulty identifying honed spear phishing campaigns. Unlike traditional phishing campaigns that are blasted to a large email list in hopes that just one person will bite, advanced spear phishing campaigns are highly targeted and personal. They are so...

Overview of the Marsh-Microsoft 2019 Global Cyber Risk Perception survey results

Technology is dramatically transforming the global business environment, with continual advances in areas ranging from artificial intelligence AI and the Internet of Things IoT to data availability and blockchain. The speed at which digital technologies evolve and disrupt traditional business...

Identity enhancements to support the more than 1 million active third-party applications on our platform

This week at //build 2019, we’re announcing several enhancements to our identity platform for developers. These enhancements are designed to support the more than one million active third-party applications using our identity platform each month and include: Our work to unify the Microsoft identi...

DART: the Microsoft cybersecurity team we hope you never meet

If you spent 270 days away from home, not on vacation, you’d want it to be for a good reason. When boarding a plane, sometimes having been pulled out of bed to leave family for weeks on end, I know it’s because one of our customers is in need. It means there is a security compromise and they may ...

Poisoned peer-to-peer app kicked off Dofoil coin miner outbreak

On March 7, we reported that a massive Dofoil campaign attempted to install malicious cryptocurrency miners on hundreds of thousands of computers. Windows Defender Antivirus, with its behavior monitoring, machine learning technologies, and layered approach to security detected and blocked the...

Star Blizzard increases sophistication and evasion in ongoing attacks

Microsoft Threat Intelligence continues to track and disrupt malicious activity attributed to a Russian state-sponsored actor we track as Star Blizzard formerly SEABORGIUM, also known as COLDRIVER and Callisto Group. Star Blizzard has improved their detection evasion capabilities since 2022 while...

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...

Trickbot disrupted

As announced today, Microsoft took action against the Trickbot botnet, disrupting one of the world’s most persistent malware operations. Microsoft worked with telecommunications providers around the world to disrupt key Trickbot infrastructure. As a result, operators will no longer be able to use...

CISO Stressbusters: Post #2: 4 tips for getting the first 6 months right as a new CISO

In your first six months in a new Chief Information Security Officer CISO role, you will often be tasked with building a security program. For some of us this is the most exciting part of the job, but it can also be stressful. You’re probably working under a deadline. Plus, it can be difficult to...

Protecting your organization against password spray attacks

When hackers plan an attack, they often engage in a numbers game. They can invest significant time pursing a single, high-value target—someone in the C-suite for example and do “spear phishing.” Or if they just need low-level access to gain a foothold in an organization or do reconnaissance, they...

Data science for cybersecurity: A probabilistic time series model for detecting RDP inbound brute force attacks

Computers with Windows Remote Desktop Protocol RDP exposed to the internet are an attractive target for adversaries because they present a simple and effective way to gain access to a network. Brute forcing RDP, a secure network communications protocol that provides remote access over port 3389,...

IoT security will set innovation free: Azure Sphere general availability scheduled for February 2020

Today, at the IoT Solutions World Congress, we announced that Azure Sphere will be generally available in February of 2020. General availability will mark our readiness to fulfill our security promise at scale, and to put the power of Microsoft’s expertise to work for our customers every day—by...

Traditional perimeter-based network defense is obsolete—transform to a Zero Trust model

Digital transformation has made the traditional perimeter-based network defense obsolete. Your employees and partners expect to be able to collaborate and access organizational resources from anywhere, on virtually any device, without impacting their productivity. Customers expect personalized...

Microsoft is awarded Zscaler’s Technology Partner of the Year for 2019

Last week at Zscaler’s user conference, Zenith Live, Microsoft received Zscaler’s Technology Partner of the Year Award in the Impact category. The award was given to Microsoft for the depth and breadth of integrations we’ve collaborated with Zscaler on and the positive feedback received from...

Building the security operations center of tomorrow—better insights with compound detection

In the physical world, humans are fantastic at connecting low quality signals into high quality analysis. Consider speaking with someone in a crowded place. You may not hear every word they say, but because you are fluent in the language and can piece together context from the words, you can hear...

Driving data security is a shared responsibility, here’s how you can protect yourself

You're driving a long, dark road on a rainy night. If you're driving 20 miles over the speed limit and you don't step on the brakes when the car in front of you comes to a sudden stop, is it your fault or your car manufacturers fault if you rear-end the car that is in front of you? When we drive,...

Microsoft is named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection

As threats become more coordinated and faster to execute, endpoint protection has become the proving ground for modern defense. For the seventh consecutive time, Microsoft has been named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection. We believe this reflects both the...

The evolution of a matrix: How ATT&CK for Containers was built

Note: The content of this post is being released jointly with the Center for Threat-Informed Defense. It is co-authored with Chris Ante and Matthew Bajzek. The Center post can be found here. As containers become a major part of many organizations’ IT workloads, it becomes crucial to consider the...

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint now supports Windows 10 on Arm devices

Today, we are excited to announce that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint support of Windows 10 on Arm devices is generally available. This expanded support is part of our continued efforts to extend Microsoft Defender for Endpoint capabilities across all the endpoints defenders need to secure. Arm...