Microsoft customers need to step up authentication, says Microsoft

With cyberattacks on computers becoming less attractive (due to better defenses), criminals are more interested in attacks on identities.

That is according to Microsoft, which has long suffered reputational damage from exploits. The company recorded more than $10 billion in security revenue in 2020, and has funneled a bit of that largess into a new quarterly marketing publication, called Cyber Signals.

Cyber Signals will share observations from the company’s research and security teams about threat trends, with the inaugural issue focusing on digital identity as an attack vector.

In announcing the e-collateral, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of security and identity, Vasu Jakkal said his customers can do better.

According to Jakkal, 22 percent of those using Azure Active Directory did so with strong identity authentication as of December.

A blog sharing research from Beyond Identity, meanwhile, indicates that lax security practices extend even after employment in many cases. More than four in five survey respondents have accessed accounts from an employer they are no longer with, and many used that continued access to harm their former employer.

Microsoft products stopped 25.6 billion brute-force authentication attacks on Azure AD during calendar 2021.

Article Topics

authentication  |  Beyond Identity  |  biometrics  |  cybersecurity  |  digital identity  |  identity management  |  Microsoft  |  multifactor authentication