Microsoft has introduced today Microsoft Security Experts, a new service category designed to address the unique security needs of customers across various industries, including healthcare, financial services, and more. The new Security Experts category expands the existing incident response and security advisory services and combines both human-lead services and automated intelligence to help businesses improve their security posture, compliance, and productivity.
As cybersecurity attacks have become even more sophisticated and impactful in recent months, Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) is actively tracking 250 unique threat actors and over 35 ransomware gangs. Microsoft emphasizes that it is important to provide organizations with expert guidance and technical tools that can help them proactively detect and mitigate ransomware attacks.
“With Security Experts, customers and partners gain access to the company’s leading technologies, threat intelligence and an unparalleled amount of security signal to detect threats more accurately, speed up response times, and keep your team informed,” the company explained.
Interestingly, this announcement follows Google’s planned $5.4 billion acquisition of the cybersecurity firm Mandiant. It is important to note that Microsoft also reportedly explored buying Mandiant, but the deal couldn’t be finalized. With this new Security Experts Service, the Redmond giant plans to bolster its cybersecurity capabilities and eventually attract more customers.
Microsoft has collaborated with its partners to launch its Security Experts solution with three new managed services. These services should help customers ease the burden of their existing security teams.
Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting
Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting is the first managed service that will become generally available this Summer. The service is specifically designed for organizations that already have in-house security operations centers (SOCs). Microsoft’s experts will assist customers in detecting security threats across Office 365, endpoints, identity, and cloud-based apps.
According to Microsoft, organizations will be able to receive targeted attack alerts and expert advice regarding particular security incidents directly from the security portal. If you’re interested, you can sign up for the Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting public preview on this support page.
Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR
Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR is another managed services solution that is launching in preview in Fall 2022. Specifically, it is designed for companies looking for threat monitoring, detection, and response capabilities to protect their environments. This eXtended Detection and Response (XDR) solution will enable customers to detect, analyze, and respond to security threats across identity, servers, email, and cloud applications.
Microsoft Security Services for Enterprise
Lastly, Microsoft Security Services for Enterprise is the third solution that is available for enterprise customers on a statement of work basis starting today. Microsoft described it as a “comprehensive, expert-led service combines proactive threat hunting and managed XDR” with dedicated security experts that provide protection across cloud environments and platforms. The firm says that its security experts can help businesses to manage different scenarios such as incident response, onboarding, infrastructure modernization, and more.
Microsoft to rebrand some existing security services
Microsoft also announced today that it’s rebranding some of its existing services, which will become a part of the Security Experts family. First up, the Microsoft Security Services for Incident Response solution provides support to organizations “before, during, and after” a security breach. Additionally, the Microsoft Security Services for Modernization offering can enable customers to embrace the zero-trust approach and switch to modern security solutions.
Going forward, Microsoft plans to make a new multi-million-dollar investment in its managed XDR partner community in 2023. This initiative will help partners meet the growing demand for managed detection and response (MDR) services, and you can learn more on Microsoft’s official blog post.