Cybersecurity Awareness Month is an international initiative celebrated in the United States each October. It’s the perfect time to reflect on our digital habits and fortify our defenses against cybercriminals. In an age where technology permeates every aspect of our lives, ensuring our personal devices and accounts are secure has never been more crucial.

Here are five practical actions you can take to significantly reduce the likelihood of being hacked or breached by cybercriminals.

Step 1: Use strong, unique passwords

One of the most effective ways to shield yourself from cyberthreats is by using strong, unique passwords for each of your accounts. Avoid common passwords such as “123456” or “password,” and instead create complex combinations of letters, numbers, and special characters. Using a different password for each account ensures that even if one password is compromised, your other accounts remain secure. Consider using a reputable password manager to generate and store your passwords securely.

Step 2: Enable two-factor authentication (2FA)

Two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security to your accounts by requiring two forms of verification before granting access. Typically, this involves something you know (like your password) and something you have (such as a verification code sent to your phone). Enabling 2FA significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access, even if your password is compromised. Make sure to enable 2FA on all accounts that offer it, especially those containing sensitive information.

Step 3: Keep your software updated

Regularly updating your software is a simple yet powerful way to protect against cyberthreats. Software updates often include patches for security vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit. Ensure that your operating system, applications, and antivirus software are set to update automatically. This practice not only enhances your device’s performance but also fortifies your defenses against potential attacks.

Step 4: Be wary of phishing scams

Phishing scams are a common tactic used by hackers to trick individuals into revealing sensitive information. These scams often come in the form of emails or messages that appear to be from legitimate sources but contain malicious links or attachments. To avoid falling victim to phishing, always verify the sender’s identity and refrain from clicking on suspicious links. Additionally, be cautious of unsolicited requests for personal information and report any suspicious activity to the appropriate authorities.

Step 5: Secure your Wi-Fi network

Your home Wi-Fi network can be a gateway for hackers if not properly secured. Start by changing the default username and password of your router to something more secure. Use WPA3 encryption, if available, to enhance your network’s protection. Additionally, consider hiding your network’s SSID (service set identifier) to make it less visible to potential intruders. Regularly monitoring your network for any unfamiliar devices can also help detect unauthorized access.

Stay safe!

As we become increasingly reliant on digital technologies, the importance of cybersecurity cannot be overstated. By implementing these simple yet effective measures, you can significantly reduce your risk of falling prey to cybercriminals. This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, take proactive steps to safeguard your and your customers’ digital life and encourage others to do the same. Remember, a secure digital environment starts with informed and vigilant individuals. Learn more about Microsoft industry-leading Security solutions.

Keep learning

I have the privilege of working with many Microsoft partners across the Americas. If you are a Microsoft partner (anywhere in the world) bookmark the Microsoft Security Partners page. Stay up to date on new content, including recently launched Security training videos!

Stay safe, stay secure, and embrace the power of cybersecurity!

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Want to explore this and other topics you care about with Microsoft and other US partners? Head over to the Microsoft Americas Partner Community on LinkedIn.

As businesses shift their operations from on-premises to the cloud, security has become a top priority. Cloud workloads are the applications, data, and other IT assets that run on cloud platforms including Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. Securing cloud workloads is essential to preventing unauthorized access, data breaches, cyberattacks, and compliance violations that could compromise the performance, availability, and integrity of your cloud services. Let’s explore what you can do to help protect your customers’ cloud environments.

Minimize the risks with a cloud workload protection platform

A cloud workload protection platform (CWPP) is a cloud security solution that helps protect cloud workloads—offering unified cloud workload protection across multiple providers. By using a CWPP, your customers can leverage the benefits of cloud computing while reducing the risks and challenges of cloud workload security.

According to a report by Wiz, a cloud security company, 50 percent of the public cloud environments they analyzed had at least one critical vulnerability associated with unsecured APIs. Examples of vulnerabilities associated with unsecured APIs include suboptimal access controls, weak authentication protocols, wrong rate limits, and accidental exposure. These oversights can leave the interfaces vulnerable to malicious activities, so it’s important to secure cloud workloads by using a CWPP that can monitor and remediate API-related issues in near real-time.

Why Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

For many, a CWPP is part of a larger cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP). A CNAPP combines the workload protection tools from a CWPP along with cloud security posture management (CSPM) solutions, which focus on the accounts associated with cloud applications.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a CSPM and CWPP designed to protect your customers’ cloud environments. Among other benefits, Microsoft Defender for Cloud can help your customers:

• Detect and respond to cyberattacks in real time across multiple cloud platforms, as well as on-premises workloads.
• Reduce attack surface by identifying and remediating vulnerabilities before they’re exploited and automatically safeguarding new workloads as soon as they’re deployed.
• Integrate their unified security operations platform and provide connected investigation and hunting with Microsoft Defender XDR and Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence.
• Customize their security with the right cloud workload protection plan for their resources, such as servers, storage, containers, databases, and APIs.

Figure 1. Microsoft Defender for Cloud pillars: Unify your DevOps security management, strengthen and manage your cloud security posture, protect your cloud workloads.

To learn more about Defender for Cloud, see:

• What is Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
• Microsoft Defender for Cloud product page
• Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing page

Earn partner incentives

Not only is Defender for Cloud a powerful technology for securing cloud workloads, as a Microsoft partner you can also earn incentives on it. Part of the Microsoft Commerce Incentives (MCI) portfolio, the Workload Acquisition & Nurture incentive (WANI) rewards qualifying partners for landing new workloads on Azure. WANI offers up to $9K per customer per workload for acquisition and 30 percent on month-over-month growth of partner-led Azure consumed revenue (PAL ACR) for nurture. This incentive is available to partners who deliver top-notch Azure solutions across various scenarios, such as security, migration, modernization, and hybrid.

Learn more

Cloud Workload Protection Solutions | Microsoft Security

Azure Foundations: Security & Defender for Cloud (microsoft.com)

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Join the conversation

Want to explore this and other topics you care about with Microsoft and other US partners? Head over to the Microsoft Americas Partner Community on LinkedIn.

In response to partner feedback, Microsoft is setting up a new community for our Managed Service Provider partners. To kick off this new community, we’ll be hosting an inaugural Microsoft MSP Summit on November 2. Register today for this 2.5-hour virtual event, and keep reading to learn more.

Why join the MSP Partner Community?

SMB customers face unprecedented challenges, and so do the partners that service them. An unpredictable economy, a rise in cyber threats, maturing compliance requirements, competitive pressures, and emerging technologies are just some of the factors impacting you and your customers like never before. Based on feedback from our partner ecosystem, Microsoft is making a big investment in the SMB space in FY24, with a primary focus on increased support of our Managed Service Provider partners.

We’re creating the MSP Partner Community so we can continue to learn from, and share the latest news and advancements with, our MSP partners. The inaugural Microsoft MSP Summit on November 2 will provide an overview of:

• • Microsoft’s advancements in the MSP space.
  • Tools and investments to help you get started and expand into new service areas.
  • Invaluable industry thought leadership and key insights from experts in the field.

See the agenda and register here for the inaugural Microsoft MSP Summit!

More resources for MSP partners

• • Go-to-market and technical guidance for expanding your MSP services to include Microsoft-powered security. View the three-part webinar series on demand.
  • MSP Security toolkit for fast onboarding and Microsoft-powered managed security service build-out.
  • Give feedback to help us address your challenges as an MSP.
  • Join the Microsoft Americas Partner group on LinkedIn.

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Driving growth with Microsoft-powered security managed services | Microsoft

Join the conversation

Want to explore this and other topics you care about with Microsoft and other US partners? Head over to the Microsoft Americas Partner Community on LinkedIn.

Managed services are a key driver of partner profitability and revenue growth. Security services represent the largest opportunity for partners, due to the increasingly complex state of cybersecurity that’s driving businesses of all sizes to look for help. Protecting customers’ endpoints and workloads against advanced threats, improving permissions and access management, and battling increasing economic pressures are all top of mind. Whether you’re new to security, a longtime Microsoft partner, or anywhere in between, we’ve made it fast and easy to extend a Microsoft-powered managed security service.

Quickly spin up a robust Microsoft-powered managed security service

After years of working with managed service provider (MSP) partners, a few key areas have emerged as most strategic for ensuring an MSP can operate a new service that will yield sufficient ROI:

Effective multi-tenant management
The ability to manage multiple independent customer environments simultaneously generates huge advantages for an MSP. Microsoft 365 Lighthouse enables Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs) to grow their business and deliver managed services to customers at scale through a single pane of glass. With the new “Exposure Score” capability that enables MSPs to identify which customers are at high risk, coupled with the ability to perform remediation actions for individual customers, Microsoft 365 Lighthouse is ideal. Not to mention, Microsoft 365 Lighthouse is free of charge for partners, which helps in getting a new security service up and running quickly.

Proven technology from a company with staying power to build on
When expanding into security, the foundation you build on needs to be thoroughly vetted. Of course, the most important aspect of your offering is that it will enable you to successfully protect your customers against advanced threats in various scenarios. To this end, Microsoft security technologies:

• • Are fueled by the world’s largest threat intelligence network for superior protection.
  • Have built-in AI and automation for additional ease of scale.
  • Include ongoing assessment, visualization, and recommendations for best practices.
  • Have achieved high rankings by major analyst firms.

Some of the best options for building an endpoint detection and response (EDR) or a managed detection and response (MDR) practice include Microsoft Business Premium, Microsoft 365 E3, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud.

It’s also important to select a company with whom you can innovate and grow. Partnering with Microsoft will help you differentiate your services. You’ll also be well-positioned to integrate Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Security Copilot for exponential efficiencies that are sure to set you apart from the crowd.

Easy licensing, cost-effective operations, and partner profitability
Underestimated administrative overhead is the sleeping giant waiting to squash MSP success. It’s very important to choose a company with a licensing model for recurring business that can be efficiently managed across hundreds of customers with several scenarios for up-sell, cross-sell, and license ownership. Microsoft’s CSP model paired with strategic SKUs and tools offer:

• • Monthly licensing.
  • Flexibility of license ownership between you and your customers.
  • Unmatched cross-sell and up-sell—across Microsoft 365 Business Premium/Microsoft 365 E3 bundles, Sentinel, Defender for Cloud, and beyond to the vast portfolio of Microsoft technologies, even outside of security.
  • No charge to get started for customers that already own Microsoft Business Premium or Microsoft 365 E3, which include security workloads. In addition, Microsoft 365 Lighthouse is also offered free of charge to partners.
  • A 15 percent discount on Microsoft 365 E3.

Demand and pipeline generation help
Getting your service spun up is half the challenge. The other half is knowing how to fill your new managed security services pipeline. Microsoft understands this challenge and is well-positioned to help you hit the ground running. For example, we recently launched Sales Advisor, which uses AI-driven sales insights to help you identify which customers are highest-value opportunities. Now available to partners and built into Microsoft 365 Lighthouse, Sales Advisor can help you acquire new users, improve retention, and drive growth.

Even more, Microsoft tools like campaigns-in-a-box, available via Digital Marketing Content OnDemand, give you the option of highly customizable assets that you can integrate into a campaign of your own, or content and a platform for a six-week automated drip campaign.

Learn more

• • Watch the MSP security managed services webinar series.
  • Download the Microsoft Managed Services Partner Security Kit.
  • Read how to deploy and configure Azure Firewall Basic.
  • Read how to defend against DDoS attacks with Azure DDoS IP Protection.

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Join the conversation

Want to explore this and other topics you care about with Microsoft and other US partners? Head over to the Microsoft Americas Partner Community on LinkedIn.