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Introduction Hyper-V is the backbone of Azure, running on its Hosts to provide efficient and fair sharing of resources, but also isolation. That’s why we, in the vulnerability research team for Windows, have been working in the background for years now helping secure Hyper-V. And why Microsoft invites security researchers across the globe to submit their vulnerabilities through the Hyper-V Bounty Program for payment of up to $250,000 USD.

Todays post was written by Sue Bohn, Director of Program Management at Microsoft, and Simon Cheng, who is responsible for Identity and Access Management at lululemon. Happy New Year and welcome to the next installment of the Voice of the Customer blog series. My name is Sue Bohn and I am the director of Program Management for Identity and Access Management. Im really excited about our next blog in this series. Last time, we featured The Walsh Group. Today, I am sharing a story from lululemon, who really inspired me to think more broadly about what you can achieve when you step back and look at where you want to go. Simon Cheng, responsible for Identity and Acces…

Today, a single breach, physical or virtual, can cause millions of dollars of damage to an organization and potentially billions in financial losses to the global economy. Each week seems to bring a new disclosure of a cybersecurity breach somewhere in the world. As we look at the current state of cybersecurity challenges today, we see the same types of attacks, but the sophistication and scope of each attack continues to grow and evolve. Add to these the threats of nation-state actors seeking to disrupt operations, conduct intelligence gathering, or generally undermine trust. You can download the Cyber Defense Operations Center strategy brief to gain more insight into…

Today, a single breach, physical or virtual, can cause millions of dollars of damage to an organization and potentially billions in financial losses to the global economy. Each week seems to bring a new disclosure of a cybersecurity breach somewhere in the world. As we look at the current state of cybersecurity challenges today, we see the same types of attacks, but the sophistication and scope of each attack continues to grow and evolve.

This blog post was authored by Vinicius Apolinario, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Windows Server. Updated on January 17, 2019:The Windows Server 2019 evaluation media is now available at the Evaluation Center. On October 2, 2018, we announced the availability of Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server, version 1809. Later that week, we paused the rollout of these new releases to investigate isolated reports of users missing files after updating to the latest Windows 10 feature update. We take any case of data loss seriously, so we proactively removed all related media from our channels as we started investigation of the reports and have now fixed all known re…

This blog post was authored byJoel Frauenheim, Principal Program Manager, Windows Servicing and Delivery. Starting with the November 13, 2018 Update Tuesday, Windows will again publish Express updates for Windows Server 2016. Express updates for Windows Server 2016 stopped in mid-2017 after a significant issue was found that kept the updates from installing correctly. While the issue was fixed in November 2017, the update team took a conservative approach to publishing the Express packages to ensure most customers would have the November 14, 2017 update (KB 4048953) installed on their server environments and not be impacted by the issue. System administrators fo…

This blog post was authored by Sue Hartford, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Windows Server. Dont let the name fool you. Azure Site Recovery (ASR) can be used as an Azure migration tool for 30 days at no charge. It has been used for years to support migration of our 64-bit versions of Windows Server, and we are pleased to announce it now supports migration of Windows Server 2008 32-bit applications to Azure Virtual Machines. This is good news for organizations that wish to take advantage of the new 2008 End of Support option to get three additional years of Extended Security Updates for free in Azure. The 2008 and 2008 R2 versions of Windows Server will reach …

This blog post was co-authored by Jonathan Federico, Product Marketing Manager, Desktop Virtualization and Christian Montoya, Program Manager, RDS. We released the newest version of Remote Desktop Services (RDS), RDS 2019, on October 2, 2018. RDS 2019 builds on the strong foundation of RDS 2016, letting you rapidly deploy on-premises or in the cloud. RDS 2019 is generally available with Windows Server 2019. RDS 2019 will give customers the opportunity to leverage fantastic enhancements that make it the optimal version of RDS, to date, with several areas of innovation to improve the administrative and client experiences. We brought innovation centered around…

This blog post was authored by Vinicius Apolinario, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Windows Server. Its hard to believe Ignite 2018 is now behind us. Last week at Ignite, we announced Windows Server 2019 and talked about the new hybrid, security, application platform, and hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities. Today, we are making it available for download. If you are a Windows Server customer with valid Software Assurance, you can download Windows Server 2019 on the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC). You can also download the evaluation version of Windows Server 2019 at the Evaluation Center. For customers running Windows Server on Azure…

This blog post was authored by Erin Chapple, Corporate Vice President, Windows Server. I am thrilled to be back at Ignite this year! Over the last two years, Ive had the pleasure to announce major releases of Windows Server. Two years ago, it was the launch of Windows Server 2016. Last year, it was the first release in the Semi-Annual Channel, Window Server, version 1709. This year is no different. Today, Im excited to announce that Windows Server 2019 will be generally available in October and we have updated Windows Admin Center, version 1809, to support Windows Server 2019 and Azure hybrid scenarios. Windows Server 2019 builds on the foundation of Windows Ser…

This blog post was authored by Vinicius Apolinario, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Windows Server. If youve been to Ignite before, you know its a busy week for the attendees. This year Ignite will have over 700 deep-dive sessions and over 100 expert-led and self-paced workshops aside from all the network-building activities. Building an agenda and focusing on the content and products that are valuable to you is extremely important, so you can make the most out of 5 these days. With that said, I wanted to provide an overview of the Windows Server presence at Ignite 2018! Breakout sessions by product team There are hundred of sessions around Windows Ser…

This blog post was co-authored by Samuel Li, Haley Rowland, Cosmos Darwin, and Daniel Lee, Program Managers, Windows Server. The momentum continues Its been an exciting debut year for Windows Admin Center, the next-generation graphical management for Windows Server. Our team is committed to helping you manage your Windows Server infrastructure and instances, wherever they run, more easily and more efficiently. This includes delivering a platform and core set of experiences that improve day-to-day Windows Server administration, as well as lighting up new functionality and scenarios to help your organization unlock the full power of the Microsoft cloud. In April…

This blog post was authored by Dean Wells, Principal Program Manager, Windows Server. In the preceding blogs, you were given a video-tour of some of the high-level advancements made in Windows Server 2019 that touched on areas such as the improvements made around hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), hybrid capabilities such as Azure File Sync and Azure Site Recovery, our new administrative experience with the Windows Admin Center (WAC), and an array of pretty mind-blowing storage enhancements. In this article, well describe some of the principles that help guide our thinking when designing security solutions and delve into a few of the innovations and enhancements w…

This blog post was co-authored by Irina Pivovarova, Senior Program Managerand Vinicius Apolinario, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Windows Server. For more than a decade the Windows Server team has been releasing Windows Server editions tailored to meet the needs of small business environments. Windows Server 2016 Essentials is the current in-market edition of Windows Server made for small business and is available for companies with up to 25 users. As we started working on next version, Windows Server 2019, we looked closely on the impact of recent technology trends on small business customers. We observed that cloud computing, in addition to affecting how la…

The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) is pleased to announce the launch of the Azure DevOps Bounty program, a program dedicated to providing rock-solid security for our DevOps customers. Starting January 17, 2019, we’re excited to offer rewards up to US$20,000 for eligible vulnerabilities in Azure DevOps online services and the latest release of Azure DevOps server. Azure DevOps is a cloud service for collaborating on code development, spanning the breadth of the development lifecycle to help developers ship software faster and with higher quality. The researcher community plays an essential role in keeping our customers secure, and we will review every …

Digital transformation and the transition to a modern workplace encourage employee engagement, productivity, and collaboration. This transition poses major challenges in protecting sensitive information. In the modern workplace, the perimeter between the corporate network and the cloud are fading. Sensitive data constantly travels between different locations and is often shared with others both inside and outside the organization. This significantly increases the attack surface and makes identifying, protecting, and monitoring sensitive data challenging. Additionally, the threat landscape is evolving. External adversaries and insider threats are becoming more sophist…

The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) is pleased to announce the launch of the Azure DevOps Bounty program, a program dedicated to providing rock-solid security for our DevOps customers. Starting January 17, 2019, we’re excited to offer rewards up to US$20,000 for eligible vulnerabilities in Azure DevOps online services and the latest release of Azure DevOps server.

The Top 10 actions to secure your environment series outlines fundamental steps you can take with your investment in Microsoft 365 security solutions. In Step 3. Protect your identities, youll learn how to define security policies to protect individual user identities against account compromise and protect your administrative accounts. Whether or not you have experienced a security incident in the past, you probably know that its not a matter of if an attacker will successfully compromise your corporate resources, but when. This is what is meant by an assume breach mindset. Preventative measures are critical, but in an assume breach” world, so are detection and rapid…

As the new year begins, progress with Microsoft Threat Protection continues. It remains one of the only solutions available in market, providing comprehensive, end-to-end security for the modern workplace. Microsoft Threat Protection helps users gain optimal security from the moment they sign in to their laptops or mobile devices, check their email or begin work on their documents, or utilize the many cloud applications common in the modern workplace. IT administrators benefit from minimal complexity in staying ahead of the threat landscape, gaining visibility and control over the expanding attack surface, and reducing the time, cost, and effort needed to understand and t…

After a strong year of product updates and innovations, were excited to so see that Microsoft jumped into the Challenger position in Gartners 2018 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) and solidified its leadership position in KuppingerColes 2018 Leadership Compass in the same product category, backed by strong customer adoption rates. CASBs give organizations the ability to securely embrace the possibilities of their cloud apps and services and they can be crucial in driving a successful cloud security strategy. While the market for CASB is still relatively young, analyst firm Gartner, Inc. predicts that 60 percent of large enterprises will be…

This post was cowritten by Jonathan Trull, Chief Security Advisor, Cybersecurity Solutions Group, and Sean Sweeney, Chief Security Advisor, Cybersecurity Solutions Group. Were excited to announce the availability of the Center for Internet Securitys (CIS) Microsoft 365 Foundations Benchmarkdeveloped by CIS in partnership with Microsoftto provide prescriptive guidance for establishing a secure baseline configuration for Microsoft 365. CIS is a nonprofit entity focused on developing global standards and recognized best practices for securing IT systems and data against the most pervasive attacks. Microsoft 365 provides powerful online cloud services that enable co…

Nations from every corner of the world are increasingly leveraging digital transformation to grow their economies and empower businesses to improve services, including vital services provided by critical infrastructures. This adoption of new information communications technologies (ICT) has unfortunately been accompanied by a rapid expansion in the frequency and severity of cyberattacks, prompting government policymakers to seek solutions that address these new challenges. The recently released Guide to Developing a National Cybersecurity Strategy provides helpful guidance to support this work. Developing effective policies to respond to cybersecurity challenges requ…

Recently, we shared details on how effectiveness is measured for Office 365 Exchange Online Protection (EOP) and Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). We also followed up with a comprehensive update on Office 365s improved ability to stop phishing emails from impacting users. These reports highlighted: Enhanced anti-phish capabilities for EOP/ATP. Visibility and transparency into our testing methods. Performance improvements from the engineering updates. Today, well cover recent research on a testing methodologyemail journalingwhich is often used but can lead to misinterpreted results. What is email journaling? Email journaling (Figure 1) is when an organiz…

Today, were introducing two new offerings to help address the security and compliance needs in an age of increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats as well as complex information protection needs due to regulations like GDPR. The new Identity & Threat Protection and Information Protection & Compliance packages will be available for purchase on February 1, 2019. Read the details on the Microsoft 365 blog. The post Two new Microsoft 365 offerings help address security and compliance needs appeared first on Microsoft Secure. Continue reading...

As hacking events have increased in number and severity, we in the cybersecurity community have united around common strategies that all organizations can implement to reduce their risk. Universal best practices provide organizations with many useful tools to protect their businesses. But what often gets overlooked in these discussions are the unique security challenges that each industry faces, and the tailored solutions required to address those issues. This is an area of interest to me, and lately Ive been fascinated by the path that the insurance industry is carving out when it comes to cybersecurity. Today, Ill discuss recent activity by the U.S. insurance industry a…