Microsoft announced several new intelligent security tools to help enterprises more easily secure their data and networks against today’s biggest threats and emerging threats aimed at IoT and edge devices. The rollout includes:
- Azure Sphere — microcontroller unit (MCU) for connected devices. Microsoft describes Azure Sphere as “a holistic platform for creating highly secured, connected MCU devices on the intelligent edge.” Azure Sphere will boast more than five times the power of legacy MCUs, an OS custom built for IoT security, and a turnkey cloud security service that guards every Azure Sphere device.
- New intelligent security features for the Microsoft 365 commercial cloud offering.
- Microsoft Secure Score and Attack Simulator — makes it easier for organizations to determine which controls to enable to help protect users, data and devices by quickly assessing readiness and providing an overall security benchmark score. I
- Attack Simulator — a part of Office 365 Threat Intelligence, lets security teams run simulated attacks — including mock ransomware and phishing campaigns — to event-test their employees’ responses and tune configurations accordingly.
- Windows 10 update — now in preview, Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) works across other parts of Microsoft 365 to include threat protection and remediation spanning Office 365, Windows and Azure. Also in the upcoming Windows 10 update, are new automated investigation and remediation capabilities in Windows Defender ATP, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to quickly detect and respond to threats on endpoints, within seconds, at scale.
- Conditional Access – provides real-time risk assessments to help ensure that access to sensitive data is appropriately controlled, without getting in the way of users’ productivity. Microsoft 365 is now adding the device risk level set by Windows Defender ATP to Conditional Access in preview to help ensure that compromised devices can’t access sensitive business data.
- A new security API for connecting Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph-enabled products as well as intelligence from solutions built by customers and technology partners to greatly enhance the fidelity of intelligence.
- A new Microsoft Intelligent Security Association for security technology partners – Palo Alto Networks and Anomali join PwC and other existing partners as founding members of the new association.
“As last year’s devastating cyberattacks demonstrated, security threats are evolving and becoming even more serious,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft. “The tech sector’s innovations need to accelerate to outpace security threats. Today’s steps bring important security advances not just to the cloud, but to the billions of new devices that are working on the edge of the world’s computer networks.”