Microsoft introduces Security Experts service for businesses

• Cybercrime to cost the world US$10.5 trillion annually by 2025
• Microsoft blocked over 9.6bil malware threats, 35.7bil phishing emails

Microsoft has announced that it is offering new and expanded services for security under a new service category called Microsoft Security Experts. 

In a statement, the tech giant said Security Experts includes three new managed services - Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting, Microsoft Defender Experts for extended detection and response (XDR), Microsoft Security Services for Enterprise.

It also includes two existing services, Microsoft Security Experts for Modernization, and Microsoft Security Experts for Incident Response, it said.

According to Microsoft, the security landscape has become increasingly challenging and complex for all customers. 

It added that threats have grown at an alarming rate over the last year, and cybercrime is now expected to cost the world US$10.5 trillion (RM46 trillion) annually by 2025, up from US$3 trillion (RM13 trillion) a decade ago and US$6 trillion (RM26.2 trillion) in 2021.
 
The company claimed last year, Microsoft Security blocked over 9.6 billion malware threats and more than 35.7 billion phishing and other malicious emails. 

It is also actively tracking more than 35 ransomware families and 250 unique threat actors across observed nation-state, ransomware, and criminal activities, and its technology has blocked more than 900 brute force password theft attempts every second, it claimed.

Vasu Jakkal (pic), corporate vice president, security, compliance and identity at Microsoft said, as attacks increase in scale, so must our defenses. 

‘It’s getting harder every day for organisations to build and maintain a full security team, let alone one with the ever-expanding skillset required to meet the range of today’s security demands.

“This is why we are launching Microsoft Security Experts, which combines expert-trained technology with human-led services to help organisations achieve more secure, compliant, and productive outcomes,” Jakkal said.

Microsoft said it has designed three new managed services that will help partners and customers scale their team of experts to fit their needs, without having to face hiring and training challenges. These include:

1. Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting: Aimed at customers who have a robust security operations center but want Microsoft to help them proactively hunt for threats across Microsoft Defender data, including endpoints, Office 365, cloud applications, and identity. This service will be generally available from mid-2022, and interested customers can request to be part of the preview;
2. Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR: This is available for customers who need to extend the capacity of their security operations center. It is a managed XDR service that extends beyond endpoints to provide detection and response across Microsoft 365 Defender, investigating alerts, and using automation and human expertise to respond to incidents alongside the business’ security team. This service will move into preview in late 2022; and
3. Microsoft Security Services for Enterprise: Targeted at large enterprises looking for more comprehensive, high-touch managed services from Microsoft experts, this comprehensive, expert-led service combines proactive threat hunting and managed XDR, leveraging Microsoft’s complete security information and event management and XDR stack to protect all cloud environments and all platforms.

Visit Microsoft Security Experts’ website to learn more about its solutions.