How Office 365 protects your organization from modern phishing campaigns

This post is authored by Debraj Ghosh, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft 365 Security. We often allude to the benefits of having an integrated threat protection stack in Office 365. Today we wanted to take the opportunity to walk you through how the combined features and services in the...

Tips for getting started on your security deployment

This blog is part of a series that responds to common questions we receive from customers about how to most effectively deploy Microsoft 365 Security. In this series youll find context, answers, and guidance for deployment and driving adoption within your organization. This past year, weve been...

The role that regions can and should play in critical infrastructure protection

Todays report, Critical Infrastructure Protection in Latin America and the Caribbean 2018, developed in partnership between Microsoft and the Organization of American States OAS, demonstrates the value of regional cooperation in global efforts to increase the security of the online environment...

FinFisher exposed: A researcher’s tale of defeating traps, tricks, and complex virtual machines

Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection Office 365 ATP blocked many notable zero-day exploits in 2017. In our analysis, one activity group stood out: NEODYMIUM. This threat actor is remarkable for two reasons: Its access to sophisticated zero-day exploits for Microsoft and Adobe software Its use of...

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...

How to mitigate rapid cyberattacks such as Petya and WannaCrypt

In the first blog post of this 3-part series, we introduced what rapid cyberattacks are and illustrated how rapid cyberattacks are different in terms of execution and outcome. In the second blog post, we provided some details on Petya and how it worked. In this final blog post, we will share:...

How a national cybersecurity agency can help avoid a national cybersecurity quagmire

This last October we saw more countries than ever participate in initiatives to raise cybersecurity awareness. What was once largely a US approach has evolved into events and initiatives around the world by governments, civil society groups, and private sector partners. This increased breadth and...

How artificial intelligence stopped an Emotet outbreak

At 12:46 a.m. local time on February 3, a Windows 7 Pro customer in North Carolina became the first would-be victim of a new malware attack campaign for Trojan:Win32/Emotet. In the next 30 minutes, the campaign tried to attack over a thousand potential victims, all of whom were instantly and...

Cyber resilience for the modern enterprise

Many organizations are undergoing a digital transformation that leverages a mix of cloud and on-premises assets to increase business efficiency and growth. While increased dependence on technology is necessary for this transformation, and to position the business for success, it does pose risks...

Developing an effective cyber strategy

The word strategy has its origins in the Roman Empire and was used to describe the leading of troops in battle. From a military perspective, strategy is a top-level plan designed to achieve one or more high-order goals. A clear strategy is especially important in times of uncertainty as it provid...

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,...

Protecting customers from being intimidated into making an unnecessary purchase

There has been an increase in free versions of programs that purport to scan computers for various errors, and then use alarming, coercive messages to scare customers into buying a premium version of the same program. The paid version of these programs, usually called cleaner or optimizer...

IGF proves the value of bottom-up, multi-stakeholder model in cyberspace policy-making

In December, the Internet Governance Forum IGF brought the world together to talk about the internet. I tend to take a definite interest in cybersecurity, but there were many more important topics discussed. They ranged from diversity in the technology sector through to philosophy in the digital...

Now you see me: Exposing fileless malware

Attackers are determined to circumvent security defenses using increasingly sophisticated techniques. Fileless malware boosts the stealth and effectiveness of an attack, and two of last years major ransomware outbreaks Petya and WannaCry used fileless techniques as part of their kill chains. The...

Overview of rapid cyberattacks

Rapid cyberattacks like Petya and WannaCrypt have reset our expectations on the speed and scope of damage that a cyberattack can inflict. The Microsoft Enterprise Cybersecurity Group Detection and Response team worked extensively to help customers respond to and recover from these kinds of attack...

Microsoft offers several mechanisms to protect against ransomware

The start of a new year is the perfect time to reassess your security strategy and tactics especially when looking back at the new levels of ransomwares reach and damage in 2017. Its no secret that ransomware attacks are increasing. In fact, a business is hit with ransomware every 40 seconds. If...

How to disrupt attacks caused by social engineering

This post is authored by Milad Aslaner, Senior Program Manager, Windows & Devices Group. A decade ago, most cyber-attacks started with a piece of malware or a complex method to directly attack the infrastructure of a company. But this picture has changed and today all it takes is a sophisticated...

A worthy upgrade: Next-gen security on Windows 10 proves resilient against ransomware outbreaks in 2017

Adopting reliable attack methods and techniques borrowed from more evolved threat types, ransomware attained new levels of reach and damage in 2017. The following trends characterize the ransomware narrative in the past year: Three global outbreaks showed the force of ransomware in making...

Understanding the performance impact of Spectre and Meltdown mitigations on Windows Systems

Last week the technology industry and many of our customers learned of new vulnerabilities in the hardware chips that power phones, PCs and servers. We and others in the industry had learned of this vulnerability under nondisclosure agreement several months ago and immediately began developing...

Application fuzzing in the era of Machine Learning and AI

Proactively testing software for bugs is not new. The earliest examples date back to the 1950s with the term fuzzing. Fuzzing as we now refer to it is the injection of random inputs and commands into applications. It made its debut quite literally on a dark and stormy night in 1988. Since then,...

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...

How public-private partnerships can combat cyber adversaries

For several years now, policymakers and practitioners from governments, CERTs, and the security industry have been speaking about the importance of public-private partnerships as an essential part of combating cyber threats. It is impossible to attend a security conference without a keynote...

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...

Microsoft teams up with law enforcement and other partners to disrupt Gamarue (Andromeda)

Today, with help from Microsoft security researchers, law enforcement agencies around the globe, in cooperation with Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit DCU, announced the disruption of Gamarue, a widely distributed malware that has been used in networks of infected computers collectively called the...

Windows Defender ATP machine learning and AMSI: Unearthing script-based attacks that ‘live off the land’

Scripts are becoming the weapon of choice of sophisticated activity groups responsible for targeted attacks as well as malware authors who indiscriminately deploy commodity threats. Scripting engines such as JavaScript, VBScript, and PowerShell offer tremendous benefits to attackers. They run...

Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection defense for corporate networks against recent Office exploit attacks

The Office 365 Threat Research team has seen an uptick in the use of Office exploits in attacks across various industry sectors in recent months. In this blog, we will review several of these exploits, including a group of Office moniker exploits that attackers have used in targeted as well as...

Minimize cybersecurity risk with Software Asset Management

This post is authored by Patama Chantaruck, General Manager of Worldwide Software Asset Management & Compliance. By 2021, worldwide cybercrime damage is expected to reach $6 trilliondouble what it cost businesses in 2015. Unapproved apps, unmanaged devices, poor password protection, and other...

#AVGater vulnerability does not affect Windows Defender Antivirus, MSE, or SCEP

On November 10, 2017, a vulnerability called AVGater was discovered affecting some antivirus products. The vulnerability requires a non-administrator-level account to perform a restore of a quarantined file. Windows Defender Antivirus and other Microsoft antimalware products, including System...

Detecting reflective DLL loading with Windows Defender ATP

Today's attacks put emphasis on leaving little, if any, forensic evidence to maintain stealth and achieve persistence. Attackers use methods that allow exploits to stay resident within an exploited process or migrate to a long-lived process without ever creating or relying on a file on disk. In...

A decade inside Microsoft Security

Ten years ago, I walked onto Microsofts Redmond campus to take a role on a team that partnered with governments and CERTs on cybersecurity. Id just left a meaningful career in US federal government service because I thought it would be fascinating to experience first-hand the security challenges...