Microsoft Promises Stronger Data Security

Microsoft has launched a new Cyber Defense Operations Center at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, Nadella told attendees, as part of the US$1 billion a year it plans to spend on security.

Nadella laid out the various security improvements that Windows 10 and Azure users can expect when they upgrade, including Windows Hello, Passport, and Device Guard. The security features built into Windows 10 will be able to work alongside those found in Office 365, Microsoft Azure and the EMS to create a “holistic, agile security platform” for users to take advantage of. We will also be transparent about both the collection of data and the uses of data. “There is a corresponding growth in risk as people increase their exposure to cyber security threats”, Nadella said. “You all have a heterogeneous environment, and we need to operate within it”.

“There isn’t an aspect of the economy, from retail to healthcare to energy that is not using digital technology today to drive innovation and transform itself”.

It outlined a three-pronged security strategy calling for partnering, platform and intelligence generally.

He said cybersecurity is an essential priority for the whole technology industry. “Just the top eight data breaches led to 160 million data records being compromised”.

Next, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella thinks it will be the “agent”, the sort of virtual assistant like his company’s Cortana that controls the apps on our phone or computer for us.

“We have always had attacks on trust”, Mr. Nadella said, “[and] each time we have come together as a community to respond”. The defense center will focus on responding to threats in real time, while the cybersecurity group will provide solutions and analysis to other organizations, according to Microsoft’s website.

Microsoft’s general manager, Julia White, then showed off a few specific Windows 10-based features to back up Nadella’s message, including Device Guard, which can combat malware even if it’s unknown, by checking not only for valid signatures, but also sign-off from a trusted source. The company announced that Box and Adobe will offer the latest Microsoft Intune native apps on iOS and Android to help prevent accidental sharing of confidential corporate data to personal locations or cloud services.

Microsoft has also begun working with Barracuda, Checkpoint, Cisco Systems Inc, CloudFlare, F5 Networks, Imperva, Incapsula and Trend Micro Inc on a product called Azure Security Center.

In security, Nadella said, that translates to protection beyond the endpoint to secure applications, cloud services, sensors, data centers and more, as well as extending detection to behavior-based analytics to protect against unknown threats and providing response in an “as-a-service” format. It is a war room that rivals few others in the world that Microsoft uses to detect threats in advance, and share the information with all of its related product and service groups as well as its partners.