Microsoft is named a leader in the Forrester Wave for XDR

“Defenders think in lists, attackers think in graphs.”1 This remains a reality for the many organizations that operate across siloed security tools, fueling the demand on security operations SOC teams, as advanced cyberattacks continue to increase in frequency and speed. That’s where extended...

Exposed and vulnerable: Recent attacks highlight critical need to protect internet-exposed OT devices

Since late 2023, Microsoft has observed an increase in reports of attacks focusing on internet-exposed, poorly secured operational technology OT devices. Internet-exposed OT equipment in water and wastewater systems WWS in the US were targeted in multiple attacks over the past months by different...

6 insights from Microsoft’s 2024 state of multicloud risk report to evolve your security strategy

Multicloud computing has become the foundation for digital businesses, with 86% of organizations having already adopted a multicloud approach.1 However, for all its benefits around increased agility, flexibility, and choice, we also see unique challenges with multicloud—including the need to mana...

Moonstone Sleet emerges as new North Korean threat actor with new bag of tricks

Microsoft has identified a new North Korean threat actor, now tracked as Moonstone Sleet formerly Storm-1789, that uses both a combination of many tried-and-true techniques used by other North Korean threat actors and unique attack methodologies to target companies for its financial and...

Cyber Signals: Inside the growing risk of gift card fraud

In the ever-evolving landscape of cyberthreats, staying ahead of malicious actors is a constant challenge. Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed that gift cards are attractive targets for fraud and social engineering practices. Unlike credit or debit cards, there’s no customer name or bank...

New Windows 11 features strengthen security to address evolving cyberthreat landscape

Ahead of the Microsoft Build 2024 conference, we announced a new class of Windows computers, Copilot+ PC. Alongside this exciting new class of PCs, we are introducing important security features and updates that make Windows 11 more secure for users and organizations and give developers the tools...

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...

Microsoft is again named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Security Information and Event Management​​

We are pleased to announce that Microsoft has been recognized as a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Security Information and Event Management SIEM.1 We believe our position in the Leaders quadrant validates our vision and continued investments in Microsoft Sentinel making it a...

How implementing a trust fabric strengthens identity and network

The identity security landscape is transforming rapidly. Every digital experience and interaction is an opportunity for people to connect, share, and collaborate. But first, we need to know we can trust those digital experiences and interactions. Customers note a massive rise in the sheer number ...

Microsoft announces the 2024 Microsoft Security Excellence Awards winners

At this years Microsoft Security Excellence Awards, we took a journey through the evolution of cybersecurity from the 1950s to today. While this event theme celebrated the significant technological advancements that have shaped each decade, the main focus was on the Microsoft Intelligent Security...

New capabilities to help you secure your AI transformation

AI is transforming our world, unlocking new possibilities to enhance human abilities and to extend opportunities globally. At the same time, we are also facing an unprecedented threat landscape with the speed, scale, and sophistication of attacks increasing rapidly. To meet these challenges, we...

Security above all else—expanding Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative

Last November, we launched the Secure Future Initiative SFI to prepare for the increasing scale and high stakes of cyberattacks. SFI brings together every part of Microsoft to advance cybersecurity protection across our company and products. Since then, the threat landscape has continued to rapid...

Microsoft named an overall leader in KuppingerCole Leadership Compass for ITDR

The post Microsoft named an overall leader in KuppingerCole Leadership Compass for ITDR appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog...

Microsoft introduces passkeys for consumer accounts

Ten years ago, Microsoft envisioned a bold future: a world free of passwords. Every year, we celebrate World Password Day by updating you on our progress toward eliminating passwords for good. Today, we’re announcing passkey support for Microsoft consumer accounts, the next step toward our vision...

“Dirty stream” attack: Discovering and mitigating a common vulnerability pattern in Android apps

Microsoft discovered a path traversal-affiliated vulnerability pattern in multiple popular Android applications that could enable a malicious application to overwrite files in the vulnerable application’s home directory. The implications of this vulnerability pattern include arbitrary code...

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...

Patching Perforce perforations: Critical RCE vulnerability discovered in Perforce Helix Core Server

Microsoft discovered, responsibly disclosed, and helped remediate four vulnerabilities that could be remotely exploited by unauthenticated attackers in Perforce Helix Core Server “Perforce Server”, a source code management platform largely used in the videogame industry and by multiple...

Threat actors misuse OAuth applications to automate financially driven attacks

Threat actors are misusing OAuth applications as an automation tool in financially motivated attacks. OAuth is an open standard for token-based authentication and authorization that enables applications to get access to data and resources based on permissions set by a user. Threat actors compromi...

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...

New Microsoft Incident Response team guide shares best practices for security teams and leaders

As enterprise networks grow in both size and complexity, securing them from motivated cyberthreat actors becomes more challenging. The incident response process can be a maze that security professionals must quickly learn to navigate—which is no easy task. Surprisingly, many organizations still...

New Microsoft Purview features use AI to help secure and govern all your data

In the past few years, we have witnessed how digital and cloud transformation has accelerated the growth of data. With more and more customers moving to the cloud, and with the rise of hybrid work, data usage has moved beyond the traditional borders of business. Data is now stored in multiple clo...

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...

Microsoft Security Copilot drives new product integrations at Microsoft Ignite to empower security and IT teams

First announced in March 2023, Microsoft Security Copilot—Microsofts first generative AI security product—has sparked major interest. The widespread enthusiasm was on full display after announcing our Early Access Program in October 2023 and sharing our incredible Security Copilot innovations at...

Microsoft Incident Response lessons on preventing cloud identity compromise

Microsoft observed a surge in cyberattacks targeting identities in 2023, with attempted password-based attacks increasing by more than tenfold in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. Threat actors leverage compromised identities to achieve a significant level of access t...

3 reasons why now is the time to go cloud native for device management

The post 3 reasons why now is the time to go cloud native for device management appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog...

Protecting credentials against social engineering: Cyberattack Series

Our story begins with a customer whose help desk unwittingly assisted a threat actor posing as a credentialed employee. In this fourth report in our ongoing Cyberattack Series, we look at the steps taken to discover, understand, and respond to a credential phishing and smishing text-based phishin...

Forrester names Microsoft Intune a Leader in the 2023 Forrester Wave™ for Unified Endpoint Management

Maintaining a secure and optimized digital environment allows new ideas to flourish wherever they occur. In the modern workplace, where devices and locations are no longer fixed, Microsoft Intune eases the task of managing and protecting the endpoints of businesses everywhere. It helps secure...

Diamond Sleet supply chain compromise distributes a modified CyberLink installer

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has uncovered a supply chain attack by the North Korea-based threat actor Diamond Sleet ZINC involving a malicious variant of an application developed by CyberLink Corp., a software company that develops multimedia software products. This malicious file is a legitima...

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...

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 unveils expansion of AI for security and security for AI at Microsoft Ignite

The future of security with AI The increasing speed, scale, and sophistication of recent cyberattacks demand a new approach to security. Traditional tools are no longer enough to keep pace with the threats posed by cybercriminals. In just two years, the number of password attacks detected by...

Microsoft shares threat intelligence at CYBERWARCON 2023

At the CYBERWARCON 2023 conference, Microsoft and LinkedIn analysts are presenting several sessions detailing analysis across multiple sets of threat actors and related activity. This blog is intended to summarize the content of the research covered in these presentations and demonstrates Microso...

Insights from Microsoft Security Copilot early adopters

To understand why customers are adopting generative AI solutions like Microsoft Security Copilot, we have to go back to the cyberthreat landscape—which continues to get more challenging. Organizations are facing a surge in cyberattacks while also dealing with a global shortage of security talent...

Digital security sessions at Microsoft Ignite to prepare you for the era of AI

Thousands of security professionals will join us for Microsoft Ignite 2023 from November 14 to 17, 2023, where we will share how to embrace the AI era confidently, with protection for people, data, devices, and apps that extends across clouds and platforms. With more than 45 security sessions,...

Automatic Conditional Access policies in Microsoft Entra streamline identity protection

Extending our commitment to help customers be secure by default, today were announcing the auto-rollout of Microsoft Entra Conditional Access policies that will automatically protect tenants based on risk signals, licensing, and usage. Weve designed these policies based on our deep knowledge of t...

Announcing Microsoft Secure Future Initiative to advance security engineering

Today Microsoft’s Vice Chair and President Brad Smith shared insight on the global cybersecurity landscape and introduced our Secure Future Initiative. These engineering advances anticipate future cyberthreats, such as increasing digital attacks on identity systems. They also address how we will...

Starting your journey to become quantum-safe

There’s no doubt we are living through a time of rapid technological change. Advances in ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence transform nearly every aspect of work and life. As the world moves forward with new advancements and distributed technologies, so too does the need to understand...

From classroom to cyberfront: Unlocking the potential of the next generation of cyber defenders

In a world where the digital frontier is expanding and cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated with speed and scale, the guardians of our virtual realms have never been in greater demand.1 It’s important to leverage this year’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month to celebrate the people who keep u...

An integrated incident response solution with Microsoft and PwC

Today Microsoft Incident Response is excited to announce a new collaboration with PwC to expand our joint incident response and recovery capability. In this global alliance, Microsoft begins the initial containment and investigation, bringing a deep understanding of a company’s infrastructure to...

Octo Tempest crosses boundaries to facilitate extortion, encryption, and destruction

Microsoft has been tracking activity related to the financially motivated threat actor Octo Tempest, whose evolving campaigns represent a growing concern for organizations across multiple industries. Octo Tempest leverages broad social engineering campaigns to compromise organizations across the...

Top insights and best practices from the new Microsoft Data Security Index report

A whopping 74 percent of organizations recently surveyed experienced at least one data security incident with their business data exposed in the previous year. That’s just one of our interesting insights from Microsoft’s new Data Security Index: Trends, insights, and strategies to secure data...

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint now stops human-operated attacks on its own

Defenders need every edge they can get in the fight against ransomware. Today, were pleased to announce that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint customers will now be able automatically to disrupt human-operated attacks like ransomware early in the kill chain without needing to deploy any other...

Automatic disruption of human-operated attacks through containment of compromised user accounts

Our experience and insights from real-world incidents tell us that the swift containment of compromised user accounts is key to disrupting hands-on-keyboard attacks, especially those that involve human-operated ransomware. In these attacks, lateral movement follows initial access as the next...

Expanded Microsoft Security Experts offerings provide comprehensive protection

Since we first introduced Microsoft Security Experts in May 2022, we’ve worked hard to expand our new security services category. In the past 16 months, we’ve launched new services, expanded our capabilities, and introduced new ways to buy. Our customers face an unprecedented number of security...

Defending new vectors: Threat actors attempt SQL Server to cloud lateral movement

Microsoft security researchers recently identified a campaign where attackers attempted to move laterally to a cloud environment through a SQL Server instance. This attack technique demonstrates an approach weve seen in other cloud services such as VMs and Kubernetes cluster, but not in SQL Serve...

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...

Join the new Microsoft Security experience at Microsoft Ignite 2023

During the past few years, we’ve managed a lot of change and disruption in our security work, in our lives, and in society at large. This year we’re excited to welcome back security leaders, aspiring leaders, and IT professionals—in person—to Microsoft Ignite from November 14 to 17, 2023, and...

New security features in Windows 11 protect users and empower IT

While attacks are getting more sophisticated, so are our defenses. With recent innovations like secured-core PCs that are 60 percent more resilient to malware than non-secured-core PCs,1 and the Microsoft Pluton Security Processor that adds more protection by isolating sensitive data like...

New Microsoft security tools to protect families and businesses

Today marks an exciting milestone in Microsoft’s AI journey. This morning, at an event in New York City, we made several major announcements to empower people across work and life—you can read more about Microsoft Bing and Edge with Copilot, what’s new from Microsoft 365 Copilot and Bing Chat...

Microsoft 365 Defender demonstrates 100 percent protection coverage in the 2023 MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK® Evaluations: Enterprise

For the fifth consecutive year, Microsoft 365 Defender demonstrated industry-leading extended detection and response XDR capabilities in the independent MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK® Evaluations: Enterprise. The attack used during the test highlights the importance of a unified XDR platform and showcas...