Microsoft 365 Defender demonstrated 100 percent visibility and complete coverage across all stages of the attack and achieved 100 percent protection across both Windows and Linux, showcasing the strong multiplatform capabilities of the solution. These results demonstrate that Microsoft’s XDR provides organizations with industry-leading visibility and protection in a world of evolving threats.  

Figure 1. Microsoft 365 Defender providing full attack chain coverage.

These results are only possible with continuous innovations built on the feedback of our customers. In just the last 12 months, Microsoft 365 Defender strengthened its endpoint protection with capabilities such as automatic attack disruption, which uses AI to suspend in-progress ransomware attacks, the release of a unified device settings management experience, and expanded identity protection to include Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS). 

This year’s ATT&CK® Evaluations emulated the Turla threat group, tracked by Microsoft Threat Intelligence as Secret Blizzard. They are a Russian-based activity group that has been primarily targeting government organizations worldwide since the early 2000s. They employ extensive resources to remain on a target network in a clandestine manner, making detection more challenging for traditional security products.    

Let’s take a closer look at how Microsoft 365 Defender once again achieved industry-leading results in this year’s MITRE evaluation and how Microsoft’s AI breakthroughs are shaping the future of security to respond to threats like Turla.  

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100 percent visibility across all stages of the attack chain in real-time 

In the face of a rapidly evolving threat carried out by adversaries like Turla, the speed of response makes a significant difference in a security team’s effectiveness in mitigating an attack. A single delay can mean the difference of your organization’s devices getting encrypted or not. Microsoft 365 Defender’s XDR platform accelerates the security team’s ability to respond by providing real-time, unparalleled breadth and depth of understanding an attack, starting with 100 percent visibility in real-time. This unique breadth of Microsoft’s XDR extends across endpoints, network, hybrid identities, email, collaboration tools, software as a service (SaaS) apps, and data with centralized visibility, powerful analytics, and automatic attack disruption.  

Figure 2. Microsoft 365 Defender provides 100 percent visibility without delay in every attack stage.  

100 percent ATT&CK technique-level detections at every attack stage without delay 

As an attack unfolds, security teams need to know what they’re up against the moment it’s happening. Delayed and incomplete detections make it difficult for analysts to understand the attack in full, providing attackers an opportunity escalate their campaign by moving laterally, stealing credentials, or executing other malicious activities. With Microsoft 365 Defender’s 100 percent real-time ATT&CK technique-level coverage, analysts immediately receive relevant details within the alert that describe the attacker’s approach, equipping them with the knowledge to effectively and rapidly respond.

Figure 3. Microsoft 365 Defender delivers ATT&CK technique-level detections at every attack stage without delay.

100% protection for every attack stage across Windows and Linux 

This is the third year that MITRE has included a protection scenario as part of the evaluation, and for the third year running, Microsoft 365 Defender successfully blocked 100 percent of the attack stages across Windows and Linux platforms. Microsoft’s AI-powered next-generation protection blocked each attack attempt across 13 steps, representing complete prevention of any malicious activity. This outcome showcases the strong multiplatform capabilities of the solution, independent of the device’s operating system.  

Figure 4. Microsoft 365 Defender blocks every attack stage across Windows and Linux.  

Deep visibility into Linux devices 

With the prevalence of increasingly complex attacks, visibility into low-level protocols is critical for security teams to protect against sophisticated network sniffing and drive-by compromise attacks. Microsoft 365 Defender provides that visibility through ingestion of raw socket operations as well as into script content on Linux devices. It also takes action on script content that is obfuscated or encrypted, as well as suspicious network and other protocol behaviors.

Figure 5. 9.A.12: Traffic Signaling (T1205) and 9.A.13: Network Sniffing (T1040).

Eliminated blind spots with network detection and response 

Several stages of the Turla emulation involved network-based techniques. They are an increasingly popular way of infiltrating and moving across systems laterally as they leave minimal traces on source and target devices. Security teams gain full visibility into network traffic with Microsoft 365 Defender’s network detection and response capabilities. As a result, analysts receive high-confidence, context-rich alerts to hunt down and block these sophisticated attacks early in the kill chain. In addition, analysts can discover both managed and unmanaged devices, identify blind spots, and reduce their attack surface to increase their security posture. 

Figure 6. Sub-step 11.A.5 identifies beaconing behavior determining it to be a command-and-control type activity based on process and network frequency analysis.  

Deep visibility into each stage of lateral movement 

Adversaries wage increasingly sophisticated campaigns by moving across hosts in a domain. The test involved significant lateral movement with a total of 6 steps, which is more than 30 percent of the total steps. Microsoft’s XDR solution provides visibility into each stage of lateral movement, whether access is gained through brute force (5.A.3), valid accounts (14.A.3), pass the hash (17.A.1) or any other technique. When tools are being transferred laterally (sub-steps 5.A.6, 18.A.3), Microsoft’s XDR shows the full context of what was transferred, from which host to which destination. Whether the execution on the target host happens through masqueraded PsExec (17.A.1), plink.exe (9.A.5), or WMI (18.A.5), we provide detection and visibility. 

Figure 7. Sub-step 5.A.6 Microsoft 365 Defender portal showing tools being transferred across hosts.

Identity threat detection and response spanning the cloud to on-premises 

Part of the MITRE evaluation emulated one of the fastest-growing threat vectors—identity-based attacks where malicious actors seek to exploit identities in the cloud and on-premises, or the underlying infrastructure and policies governing them. Microsoft XDR has native endpoint and identity protection to counter these types of attacks by providing security teams with high-fidelity, contextual signals that other vendors either lack entirely or require a separate integration for. Throughout the attack, Microsoft 365 Defender provided visibility on all identity-related attack steps like sensitive group enumeration, password spraying, and creation of accounts and unusual additions to sensitive groups.  

Figure 8. Sub-step 5.A.3: Our identity sensors on Active Directory revealed the utilization of the Password Spraying technique, providing information about the users whose login attempts failed and number of such attempts. 

Figures 9 and 10. Sub-step 17.A.5: Active Directory signals revealed the creation of accounts and unusual additions to sensitive group, all aimed at establishing persistence.   

Security in the era of AI 

The MITRE ATT&CK evaluation focused on detection and prevention in the case of one type of attack, for which Microsoft effectively blocked at the earliest step at every attack stage. In real world scenarios where millions of attacks are waged every day, sometimes adversaries can breach the security perimeter. With AI breakthroughs introduced by Microsoft, security teams have already seen first-hand how they can scale their defenses against breaches and respond in novel ways that challenge the assumption of an asymmetric battlefield.  

Announced in November 2022, Microsoft 365 Defender’s unique, industry-first automatic attack disruption stops the most sophisticated attack campaigns at machine speed like this Turla attack, spanning ransomware, business email compromise, and adversary-in-the-middle. This capability combines our industry-leading detection with AI-powered enforcement mechanisms to block threats early in the kill chain and contain their advancement. Analysts have a powerful tool against human-operated attacks while leaving them in complete control of investigating, remediating, and bringing assets back online. 

Microsoft Security Copilot, first announced at Microsoft Secure in March 2023, is the industry’s first generative AI security product that allows security teams to move at machine speed. It combines OpenAI’s GPT-4 generative AI model with Microsoft’s security-specific model informed by our unique global threat intelligence and more than 65 trillion daily signals. Security teams benefit from Security Copilot by simplifying complex tasks with capabilities like guided response actions, and gaining intuitive, actionable insight across the threat landscape such as summarized incidents in natural language. As a result, organizations can detect threats earlier and outpace adversaries. Security Copilot is currently in private preview and in the nomination period for an early access program. The single best way to prepare to realize the benefits of Microsoft Security Copilot is by adopting and deploying Microsoft 365 Defender today.  

Customer reality is core to Microsoft’s testing approach 

As the threat landscape rapidly evolves, Microsoft is committed to empowering defenders with industry-leading, cross-platform XDR. Our evaluation philosophy is to reflect the real world by configuring the product as customers would in line with industry best practices. For instance, our configuration used the most updated OS versions to test the latest protection available to customers. In the MITRE Evaluations, as with all simulations, Microsoft 365 Defender achieved industry-leading visibility without manual processing or fine-tuning and can be run in customer environments without generating an untenable number of false positives. Microsoft’s commitment to protection while minimizing false positives is reflected in regularly occurring public evaluations.  

We thank MITRE Engenuity for the opportunity to contribute to and participate in this year’s evaluation. 

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About MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK® Evaluations  

ATT&CK® Evaluations is built on the backbone of MITRE’s objective insight and conflict-free perspective. Cybersecurity providers turn to the Evaluations program to improve their offerings and to provide defenders with insights into their product’s capabilities and performance. Evaluations enable defenders to make better informed decisions on how to leverage the products that secure their networks. The program follows a rigorous, transparent methodology using a collaborative, threat-informed, purple-teaming approach that brings together providers and MITRE experts to evaluate solutions within the context of ATT&CK. In line with MITRE Engenuity’s commitment to serve the public good, Evaluations results and threat emulation plans are freely accessible. ATT&CK Evaluations | MITRE Engenuity (mitre-engenuity.org) 

About MITRE Engenuity 

MITRE Engenuity, a subsidiary of MITRE, is a tech foundation for public good. MITRE’s mission-driven teams are dedicated to solving problems for a safer world. Through our public-private partnerships and federally funded R&D centers, we work across government and in partnership with industry to tackle challenges to the safety, stability, and well-being of our nation. MITRE Engenuity brings MITRE’s deep technical know-how and systems thinking to the private sector to solve complex challenges that government alone cannot solve. MITRE Engenuity catalyzes the collective R&D strength of the broader U.S. federal government, academia, and private sector to tackle © 2023 MITRE Engenuity, LLC. Approved for Limited Release to MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK® Evaluations: Enterprise 2023: Turla Participants. national and global challenges, such as protecting critical infrastructure, creating a resilient semiconductor ecosystem, investing in pandemic preparedness, accelerating use case innovation in 5G, and democratizing threat-informed cyber defense. 

The post Microsoft 365 Defender demonstrates 100 percent protection coverage in the 2023 MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK® Evaluations: Enterprise  appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

• Complete visibility and analytics to all stages of the attack chain
• 100% protection, blocking all stages in early steps
• Each attack generated a single comprehensive incident for the SOC
• Differentiated XDR capabilities with integrated identity protection
• Protection for Linux across all attack stages
• Deep and integrated Windows device sensors
• Leading with product truth and a customer-centric approach

Microsoft 365 Defender XDR solution displayed top-class coverage by successfully surfacing to the security operations center (SOC) a single comprehensive incident per each of the simulated attacks. This comprehensive view provided in each incident detailed suspicious device and identity activities coupled with unparalleled coverage of adversary techniques across the entire attack chain. Microsoft 365 Defender also demonstrated 100% protection by blocking both attacks in the early stages.

This is the third year in which Microsoft 365 Defender showcases the power of the combined XDR suite, demonstrating coverage across devices, identities, and cloud applications.

Demonstrated complete visibility and analytics across all stages of the attack chain

Microsoft 365 Defender demonstrated complete technique-level coverage across all the attack stages of Wizard Spider and Sandworm, leveraging our artificial intelligence-driven adaptive protection.

Defending against human-operated ransomware requires a defense in-depth approach that continuously evaluates device, user, network, and organization risk and then leverages these signals to alert on potential threats across the entire attack chain. Providing detection and visibility enables defenders to evict the attackers from the network during the pre-ransom phase. It also minimizes the impact of encryption or extortion through data exfiltration activities.

Technique-level detection coverage in real time without delays

Human-operated ransomware attacks evolve within minutes, and the time it takes for defenders to respond and prevent attackers from performing destructive actions—such as encrypting devices or exfiltrating information for extortion—is crucial. Organizations need real-time detections with no delays to ensure they can rapidly evict attackers before they have a chance to continue to move laterally through the infrastructure. Microsoft 365 Defender provided technique-level coverage at every attack stage in real time without any delayed detections.

100% protection coverage, blocking all stages in early steps

Microsoft 365 Defender provided superior coverage and blocked 100% of the attack stages, offering excellent coverage across Windows and Linux platforms. Moreover, its next-generation protection capabilities proceeded without hindering productivity by blocking benign activities or a need for user consent.  

In real-world scenarios, blocking ransomware activities early—that is, in the pre-ransom stage across all platforms and assets—is crucial in protecting customers and mitigating the downstream extortion and disruption attack impact.

Each attack generated a single comprehensive incident for the SOC

Unlike many other vendors surfacing multiple alerts and multiple incidents, Microsoft 365 Defender surfaced exactly one incident per attack, combining all events across device and identity into a single comprehensive view of each attack.

Microsoft 365 Defender’s unique incident correlation technology is tremendously valuable for SOC analysts in dealing with alert fatigue. It significantly improves the efficiency in responding to threats, saving time they might have otherwise spent in manual correlations or dealing with individual alerts. It also makes triage and investigation easier and faster with a view of the full attack graph.  

Unique and durable detections from the integrated Microsoft Defender for Identity

Microsoft 365 Defender’s integrated identity protection capabilities uncover and durably block identity-related attacks regardless of the specific attacker technique implemented on a device, making it practically impossible for attackers to evade. Furthermore, building these protections in the identity fabric provides in-depth, context-rich signals for security teams to investigate and respond effectively. Other vendors leveraging endpoint-only signals may be more susceptible to evasion, and their detections typically have less context.

Here are some examples representing Microsoft 365 Defender’s unique identity protection capabilities in the evaluation:

• Step 5.A.4 – query to a security account manager (SAM) database was uncovered using Active Directory signals with detailed context on user enumeration activity. This identity-based detection approach prevents attacker evasion and provides rich investigation context for security teams. Some other vendors in the test relied on process creation telemetry to get similar visibility but lacked context and could be easily bypassed.

• Step 6.A.2 – resource-access activity on a domain controller was also uncovered using our identity sensors, with details of the exposed service principal name (SPN) and the compromised related resource name. Here too, this approach provides similar detection durability and investigation details advantages.

Protection for Linux across all attack stages

Microsoft 365 Defender continues to demonstrate excellent protection coverage on all platforms, with top-level coverage on Windows and Linux. It covered all Linux-related stages via technique-level analytics, context-rich alerts, and in-depth investigation signals.

Customers face threats from various entry points across devices, and device discovery and lateral movement to identify high-value assets are table stakes for advanced attacks like human-operated ransomware. Therefore, having excellent coverage across all platforms is crucial to protect organizations against attacks.

For example, as seen in Figure 10 below, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on a Linux device alerted of suspicious behavior by a web server process. The alert allowed for blocking sensitive file read and preventing further file read. The attacker then attempted to download and run a backdoor on the device. However, that was also blocked behaviorally, thus preventing subsequent compromise.

Unique and durable detections from Windows deep native sensors  

While most attack steps on devices could be observed by inspecting process and script activities, solely relying on this type of telemetry can be challenging in several aspects.

From a detection durability standpoint, attackers could easily avoid detection by obfuscating or pivoting to alternative methods. Furthermore, in terms of detection quality, relying solely on “surface-level” telemetry could potentially produce a higher number of false positives and overhead for security teams. Finally, this type of telemetry lacks the needed context to enable effective investigation and response.

Unlike other solutions, Microsoft 365 Defender’s unique platform-native deep device sensors introduced signal depth, providing durable, context-rich signals for security teams to identify, investigate and respond to. Here are some examples, as seen during the evaluation:

• Steps 1.A.6 and 19.A.11 were uncovered via enhanced Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) sensors, providing visibility to evasive attacker activities without relying on a process or script execution telemetry.

• Step 3.A.4 was uncovered via COM sensors, providing visibility to the Microsoft Outlook COM interface and detecting an attacker’s search for unsecured passwords in Outlook without relying on process command lines that attackers can easily evade by using COM interfaces directly.

• Step 17.A.2 was uncovered via Data Protection API (DPAPI) sensors, providing visibility to credential access—an extremely important activity. Other solutions monitor web browser folders for file access which is extremely prone to false positives in real-world environments.

A final word: Leading with product truth and a customer-centric approach

As in previous years, Microsoft’s philosophy in this evaluation was to empathize with our customers—the “protection that works for customers in the real world” approach. We participated in the evaluation with product capabilities and configurations that we expect customers to use.

As you review evaluation results, you should consider additional important aspects, including depth and durability of protection, completeness of signals and actionable insights, and quality aspects such as device performance impact and false-positive rates. All of these are critical to the solution’s reliable operation and translate directly to protection that works in real customer production environments.

We thank MITRE Engenuity for the opportunity to contribute to and participate in this year’s evaluation.

The post Microsoft 365 Defender demonstrates industry-leading protection in the 2022 MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK® Evaluations appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

While phishing and other email attacks are indeed happening, the volume of malicious emails mentioning the coronavirus is very small. Still, customers are asking us what Microsoft is doing to help protect them from these types of attacks, and what they can do to better protect themselves. We thought this would be a useful time to recap how our automated detection and signal-sharing works to protect customers (with a specific recent example) as well as share some best practices you can use personally to stay safe from phishing attempts.

What Microsoft is doing

First, 91 percent of all cyberattacks start with email. That’s why the first line of defense is doing everything we can to block malicious emails from reaching you in the first place. A multi-layered defense system that includes machine learning, detonation, and signal-sharing is key in our ability to quickly find and shut down email attacks.

If any of these mechanisms detect a malicious email, URL, or attachment, the message is blocked and does not make its way to your inbox. All attachments and links are detonated (opened in isolated virtual machines). Machine learning, anomaly analyzers, and heuristics are used to detect malicious behavior. Human security analysts continuously evaluate user-submitted reports of suspicious mail to provide additional insights and train machine learning models.

Once a file or URL is identified as malicious, the information is shared with other services such as Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) to ensure endpoint detection benefits from email detection, and vice versa.

An interesting example of this in action occurred earlier this month, when an attacker launched a spear-phishing campaign that lasted less than 30 minutes.

Attackers crafted an email designed to look like a legitimate supply chain risk report for food coloring additives with an update based on disruptions due to coronavirus. The attachment, however, was malicious and delivered a sophisticated, multi-layer payload based on the Lokibot trojan (Trojan:Win32/Lokibot.GJ!MTB).

Had this payload been successfully deployed, hackers could have used it to steal credentials for other systems—in this case FTP accounts and passwords—which could then be used for further attacks.

Only 135 customer tenants were targeted, with a spray of 2,047 malicious messages, but no customers were impacted by the attack. The Office 365 ATP detonation service, signal-sharing across services, and human analysts worked together to stop it.

And thanks to signal sharing across services, customers not using a Microsoft email service like Office 365, hosted Exchange, or Outlook.com, but using a Windows PC with Microsoft Defender enabled, were fully protected. When a user attempted to open the malicious attachment from their non-Microsoft email service, Microsoft Defender kicked in, querying its cloud-based machine learning models and found that the attachment was blocked based on a previous Office 365 ATP cloud detection. The attachment was prevented from executing on the PC and the customer was protected.

What you can do

While bad actors are attempting to capitalize on the COVID-19 crisis, they are using the same tactics they always do. You should be especially vigilant now to take steps to protect yourself.

Make sure your devices have the latest security updates installed and an antivirus or anti-malware service. For Windows 10 devices, Microsoft Defender Antivirus is a free built-in service enabled through Settings. Turn on cloud-delivered protection and automatic sample submission to enable artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to quickly identify and stop new and unknown threats.

Enable the protection features of your email service. If you have Office 365, you can learn about Exchange Online Protection here and Office 365 ATP here.

Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all your accounts. Most online services now provide a way to use your mobile device or other methods to protect your accounts in this way. Here’s information on how to use Microsoft Authenticator and other guidance on this approach.

MFA support is available as part of the Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Free offering. Learn more here.

Educate yourself, friends, and colleagues on how to recognize phishing attempts and report suspected encounters. Here are some of the tell-tale signs.

• Spelling and bad grammar. Cybercriminals are not known for their grammar and spelling. Professional companies or organizations usually have an editorial staff to ensure customers get high-quality, professional content. If an email message is fraught with errors, it is likely to be a scam.
• Suspicious links. If you suspect that an email message is a scam, do not click on any links. One method of testing the legitimacy of a link is to rest your mouse—but not click—over the link to see if the address matches what was typed in the message. In the following example, resting the mouse on the link reveals the real web address in the box with the yellow background. Note that the string of IP address numbers looks nothing like the company’s web address.

• Suspicious attachments. If you receive an email with an attachment from someone you don’t know, or an email from someone you do know but with an attachment you weren’t expecting, it may be a phishing attempt, so we recommend you do not open any attachments until you have verified their authenticity. Attackers use multiple techniques to try and trick recipients into trusting that an attached file is legitimate.
  • Do not trust the icon of the attachment.
  • Be wary of multiple file extensions, such as “pdf.exe” or “rar.exe” or “txt.hta”.
  • If in doubt, contact the person who sent you the message and ask them to confirm that the email and attachment are legitimate.

• Threats. These types of emails cause a sense of panic or pressure to get you to respond quickly. For example, it may include a statement like “You must respond by end of day.” Or saying that you might face financial penalties if you don’t respond.
• Spoofing. Spoofing emails appear to be connected to legitimate websites or companies but take you to phony scam sites or display legitimate-looking pop-up windows.
• Altered web addresses. A form of spoofing where web addresses that closely resemble the names of well-known companies, but are slightly altered; for example, “www.micorsoft.com” or “www.mircosoft.com”.
• Incorrect salutation of your name.
• Mismatches. The link text and the URL are different from one another; or the sender’s name, signature, and URL are different.

If you think you’ve received a phishing email or followed a link in an email that has taken you to a suspicious website, there are few ways to report what you’ve found.

If you think the mail you’ve received is suspicious:

• Outlook.com. If you receive a suspicious email message that asks for personal information, select the checkbox next to the message in your Outlook inbox. Select the arrow next to Junk, and then point to Phishing scam.
• Microsoft Office Outlook 2016 and 2019 and Microsoft Office 365. While in the suspicious message, select Report message in the Protection tab on the ribbon, and then select Phishing.

If you’re on a suspicious website:

• Microsoft Edge. While you’re on a suspicious site, select the More (…) icon > Send feedback > Report Unsafe site. Follow the instructions on the web page that displays to report the website.
• Internet Explorer. While you’re on a suspicious site, select the gear icon, point to Safety, and then select Report Unsafe Website. Follow the instructions on the web page that displays to report the website.

If you think you have a suspicious file:

• Submit the file for analysis.
• If you are using Office 365:
  • Admins can use the Submissions portal in the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center to submit email messages, URLs, and attachments to Microsoft for scanning if they were received in one of their user’s Exchange Online mailboxes. More details can be found here.

This is just one area where our security teams at Microsoft are working to protect customers and we’ll share more in the coming weeks. For additional information and best practices for staying safe and productive through remote work, community support and education during these challenging times, visit Microsoft’s COVID-19 resources page for the latest information.

The post Protecting against coronavirus themed phishing attacks appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Windows Defender Antivirus is the next-generation protection component of Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (Microsoft Defender ATP), Microsoft’s unified endpoint security platform. Much like how Microsoft Defender ATP integrates multiple capabilities to address the complex security challenges in modern enterprises, Windows Defender Antivirus uses multiple engines to detect and stop a wide range of threats and attacker techniques at multiple points.

These next-generation protection engines provide industry-best detection and blocking capabilities. Many of these engines are built into the client and provide advanced protection against majority of threats in real-time. When the client encounters unknown threats, it sends metadata or the file itself to the cloud protection service, where more advanced protections examine new threats on the fly and integrate signals from multiple sources.

These next-generation protection engines ensure that protection is:

• Accurate: Threats both common and sophisticated, a lot of which are designed to try and slip through protections, are detected and blocked
• Real-time: Threats are prevented from getting on to devices, stopped in real-time at first sight, or detected and remediated in the least possible time (typically within a few milliseconds)
• Intelligent: Through the power of the cloud, machine learning (ML), and Microsoft’s industry-leading optics, protection is enriched and made even more effective against new and unknown threats

My team continuously enhances each of these engines to be increasingly effective at catching the latest strains of malware and attack methods. These enhancements show up in consistent top scores in industry tests, but more importantly, translate to threats and malware outbreaks stopped and more customers protected.

Here’s a rundown of the many components of the next generation protection capabilities in Microsoft Defender ATP:

In the cloud:

• Metadata-based ML engine – Specialized ML models, which include file type-specific models, feature-specific models, and adversary-hardened monotonic models, analyze a featurized description of suspicious files sent by the client. Stacked ensemble classifiers combine results from these models to make a real-time verdict to allow or block files pre-execution.
• Behavior-based ML engine – Suspicious behavior sequences and advanced attack techniques are monitored on the client as triggers to analyze the process tree behavior using real-time cloud ML models. Monitored attack techniques span the attack chain, from exploits, elevation, and persistence all the way through to lateral movement and exfiltration.
• AMSI-paired ML engine – Pairs of client-side and cloud-side models perform advanced analysis of scripting behavior pre- and post-execution to catch advanced threats like fileless and in-memory attacks. These models include a pair of models for each of the scripting engines covered, including PowerShell, JavaScript, VBScript, and Office VBA macros. Integrations include both dynamic content calls and/or behavior instrumentation on the scripting engines.
• File classification ML engine – Multi-class, deep neural network classifiers examine full file contents, provides an additional layer of defense against attacks that require additional analysis. Suspicious files are held from running and submitted to the cloud protection service for classification. Within seconds, full-content deep learning models produce a classification and reply to the client to allow or block the file.
• Detonation-based ML engine – Suspicious files are detonated in a sandbox. Deep learning classifiers analyze the observed behaviors to block attacks.
• Reputation ML engine – Domain-expert reputation sources and models from across Microsoft are queried to block threats that are linked to malicious or suspicious URLs, domains, emails, and files. Sources include Windows Defender SmartScreen for URL reputation models and Office 365 ATP for email attachment expert knowledge, among other Microsoft services through the Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph.
• Smart rules engine – Expert-written smart rules identify threats based on researcher expertise and collective knowledge of threats.

On the client:

• ML engine – A set of light-weight machine learning models make a verdict within milliseconds. These include specialized models and features that are built for specific file types commonly abused by attackers. Examples include models built for portable executable (PE) files, PowerShell, Office macros, JavaScript, PDF files, and more.
• Behavior monitoring engine – The behavior monitoring engine monitors for potential attacks post-execution. It observes process behaviors, including behavior sequence at runtime, to identify and block certain types of activities based on predetermined rules.
• Memory scanning engine – This engine scans the memory space used by a running process to expose malicious behavior that may be hiding through code obfuscation.
• AMSI integration engine – Deep in-app integration engine enables detection of fileless and in-memory attacks through Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI), defeating code obfuscation. This integration blocks malicious behavior of scripts client-side.
• Heuristics engine – Heuristic rules identify file characteristics that have similarities with known malicious characteristics to catch new threats or modified versions of known threats.
• Emulation engine – The emulation engine dynamically unpacks malware and examines how they would behave at runtime. The dynamic emulation of the content and scanning both the behavior during emulation and the memory content at the end of emulation defeat malware packers and expose the behavior of polymorphic malware.
• Network engine – Network activities are inspected to identify and stop malicious activities from threats.

Together with attack surface reduction—composed of advanced capabilities like hardware-based isolation, application control, exploit protection, network protection, controlled folder access, attack surface reduction rules, and network firewall—these next-generation protection engines deliver Microsoft Defender ATP’s pre-breach capabilities, stopping attacks before they can infiltrate devices and compromise networks.

As part of Microsoft’s defense-in-depth solution, the superior performance of these engines accrues to the Microsoft Defender ATP unified endpoint protection, where antivirus detections and other next-generation protection capabilities enrich endpoint detection and response, automated investigation and remediation, advanced hunting, threat and vulnerability management, managed threat hunting service, and other capabilities.

These protections are further amplified through Microsoft Threat Protection, Microsoft’s comprehensive, end-to-end security solution for the modern workplace. Through signal-sharing and orchestration of remediation across Microsoft’s security technologies, Microsoft Threat Protection secures identities, endpoints, email and data, apps, and infrastructure.

The enormous evolution of Microsoft Defender ATP’s next generation protection follows the same upward trajectory of innovation across Microsoft’s security technologies, which the industry recognizes, and customers benefit from. We will continue to improve and lead the industry in evolving security.

Tanmay Ganacharya (@tanmayg)
Principal Director, Microsoft Defender ATP Research

Talk to us

Questions, concerns, or insights on this story? Join discussions at the Microsoft Defender ATP community.

Follow us on Twitter @MsftSecIntel.

The post Inside out: Get to know the advanced technologies at the core of Microsoft Defender ATP next generation protection appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

• Three global outbreaks showed the force of ransomware in making real-world impact, affecting corporate networks and bringing down critical services like hospitals, transportation, and traffic systems
• Three million unique computers encountered ransomware; millions more saw downloader trojans, exploits, emails, websites and other components of the ransomware kill chain
• New attack vectors, including compromised supply chain, exploits, phishing emails, and documents taking advantage of the DDE feature in Office were used to deliver ransomware
• More than 120 new ransomware families, plus countless variants of established families and less prevalent ransomware caught by heuristic and generic detections, emerged from a thriving cybercriminal enterprise powered by ransomware-as-a-service

The trend towards increasingly sophisticated malware behavior, highlighted by the use of exploits and other attack vectors, makes older platforms so much more susceptible to ransomware attacks. From June to November, Windows 7 devices were 3.4 times more likely to encounter ransomware compared to Windows 10 devices.

Figure 1. Ransomware encounter rates on Windows 7 and Windows 10 devices. Encounter rate refers to the percentage of computers running the OS version with Microsoft real-time security that blocked or detected ransomware.

The data shows that attackers are targeting Windows 7. Given today’s modern threats, older platforms can be infiltrated more easily because these platforms don’t have the advanced built-in end-to-end defense stack available on Windows 10. Continuous enhancements further make Windows 10 more resilient to ransomware and other types of attack.

Windows 10: Multi-layer defense against ransomware attacks

The year 2017 saw three global ransomware outbreaks driven by multiple propagation and infection techniques that are not necessarily new but not typically observed in ransomware. While there are technologies available on Windows 7 to mitigate attacks, Windows 10’s comprehensive set of platform mitigations and next-generation technologies cover these attack methods. Additionally, Windows 10 S, which is a configuration of Windows 10 that’s streamlined for security and performance, locks down devices against ransomware outbreaks and other threats.

In May, WannaCry (Ransom:Win32/WannaCrypt) caused the first global ransomware outbreak. It used EternalBlue, an exploit for a previously fixed SMBv1 vulnerability, to infect computers and spread across networks at speeds never before observed in ransomware.

On Windows 7, Windows AppLocker and antimalware solutions like Microsoft Security Essentials and System Center Endpoint Protection (SCEP) can block the infection process. However, because WannaCry used an exploit to spread and infect devices, networks with vulnerable Windows 7 devices fell victim. The WannaCry outbreak highlighted the importance of keeping platforms and software up-to-date, especially with critical security patches.

Windows 10 was not at risk from the WannaCry attack. Windows 10 has security technologies that can block the WannaCry ransomware and its spreading mechanism. Built-in exploit mitigations on Windows 10 (KASLR, NX HAL, and PAGE POOL), as well as kCFG (control-flow guard for kernel) and HVCI (kernel code-integrity), make Windows 10 much more difficult to exploit.

Figure 2. Windows 7 and Windows 10 platform defenses against WannaCry

In June, Petya (Ransom:Win32/Petya.B) used the same exploit that gave WannaCry its spreading capabilities, and added more propagation and infection methods to give birth to arguably the most complex ransomware in 2017. Petya’s initial infection vector was a compromised software supply chain, but the ransomware quickly spread using the EternalBlue and EternalRomance exploits, as well as a module for lateral movement using stolen credentials.

On Windows 7, Windows AppLocker can stop Petya from infecting the device. If a Windows 7 device is fully patched, Petya’s exploitation behavior did not work. However, Petya also stole credentials, which it then used to spread across networks. Once running on a Windows 7 device, only an up-to-date antivirus that had protection in place at zero hour could stop Petya from encrypting files or tampering with the master boot record (MBR).

On the other hand, on Windows 10, Petya had more layers of defenses to overcome. Apart from Windows AppLocker, Windows Defender Application Control can block Petya’s entry vector (i.e., compromised software updater running an untrusted binary), as well as the propagation techniques that used untrusted DLLs. Windows 10’s built-in exploit mitigations can further protect Windows 10 devices from the Petya exploit. Credential Guard can prevent Petya from stealing credentials from local security authority subsystem service (LSASS), helping curb the ransomware’s propagation technique. Meanwhile, Windows Defender System Guard (Secure Boot) can stop the MBR modified by Petya from being loaded at boot time, preventing the ransomware from causing damage to the master file table (MFT).

Figure 3. Windows 7 and Windows 10 platform defenses against Petya

In October, another sophisticated ransomware reared its ugly head: Bad Rabbit ransomware (Ransom:Win32/Tibbar.A) infected devices by posing as an Adobe Flash installer available for download on compromised websites. Similar to WannaCry and Petya, Bad Rabbit had spreading capabilities, albeit more traditional: it used a hardcoded list of user names and passwords. Like Petya, it can also render infected devices unbootable, because, in addition to encrypting files, it also encrypted entire disks.

On Windows 7 devices, several security solutions technologies can block the download and installation of the ransomware, but protecting the device from the damaging payload and from infecting other computers in the network can be tricky.

With Windows 10, however, in addition to stronger defense at the infection vector, corporate networks were safer from this damaging threat because several technologies are available to stop or detect Bad Rabbit’s attempt to spread across networks using exploits or hardcoded user names and passwords.

More importantly, during the Bad Rabbit outbreak, detonation-based machine learning models in Windows Defender AV cloud protection service, with no human intervention, correctly classified the malware 14 minutes after the very first encounter. The said detonation-based ML models are a part of several layers of machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies that evaluate files in order to reach a verdict on suspected malware. Using this layered approach, Windows Defender AV protected Windows 10 devices with cloud protection enabled from Bad Rabbit within minutes of the outbreak.

Figure 4. Windows 7 and Windows 10 platform defenses against Bad Rabbit

As these outbreaks demonstrated, ransomware has indeed become a highly complex threat that can be expected to continue evolving in 2018 and beyond. The multiple layers of next-generation security technologies on Windows 10 are designed to disrupt the attack methods that we have previously seen in highly specialized malware but now also see in ransomware.

Ransomware protection on Windows 10

For end users, the dreaded ransom note announces that ransomware has already taken their files hostage: documents, precious photos and videos, and other important files encrypted. On Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, a new feature helps stop ransomware from accessing important files in real-time, even if it manages to infect the computer. When enabled, Controlled folder access locks down folders, allowing only authorized apps to access files.

Controlled folder access, however, is but one layer of defense. Ransomware and other threats from the web can be blocked by Microsoft Edge, whose exploit mitigation and sandbox features make it a very secure browser. Microsoft Edge significantly improves web security by using Windows Defender SmartScreen’s reputation-based blocking of malicious downloads and by opening pages within low-privilege app containers.

Windows Defender Antivirus also continues to enhance defense against threats like ransomware. Its advanced generic and heuristic techniques and layered machine learning models help catch both common and rare ransomware families. Windows Defender AV can detect and block most malware, including never-before-seen ransomware, using generics and heuristics, local ML models, and metadata-based ML models in the cloud. In rare cases that a threat slips past these layers of protection, Windows Defender AV can protect “patient zero” in real-time using analysis-based ML models, as demonstrated in a real-life case scenario where a customer was protected from a very new Spora ransomware in a matter of seconds. In even rarer cases of inconclusive initial classification, additional automated analysis and ML models can still protect customers within minutes, as what happened during the Bad Rabbit outbreak.

Windows 10 S locks down devices from unauthorized content by working exclusively with apps from the Windows Store and by using Microsoft Edge as the default browser. This streamlined, Microsoft-verified platform seals common entry points for ransomware and other threats.

Reducing the attack surface for ransomware and other threats in corporate networks

For enterprises and small businesses, the impact of ransomware is graver. Losing access to files can mean disrupted operations. Big enterprise networks, including critical infrastructures, fell victim to ransomware outbreaks. The modern enterprise network is under constant assault by attackers and needs to be defended on all fronts.

Windows Defender Exploit Guard locks down devices against a wide variety of attack vectors. Its host intrusion prevention capabilities include the following components, which block behaviors commonly used in malware attacks:

• Attack Surface Reduction (ASR) is a set of controls that blocks common ransomware entry points: Office-, script-, and email-based threats that download and install ransomware; ASR can also protect from emerging exploits like DDEDownloader, which has been used to distribute ransomware
• Network protection uses Windows Defender SmartScreen to block outbound connections to untrusted hosts, such as when trojan downloaders connect to a malicious server to obtain ransomware payloads
• Controlled folder access blocks ransomware and other untrusted processes from accessing protected folders and encrypting files in those folders
• Exploit protection (replacing EMET) provides mitigation against a broad set of exploit techniques that are now being used by ransomware authors

Additionally, the industry-best browser security in Microsoft Edge is enhanced by Windows Defender Application Guard, which brings Azure cloud grade isolation and security segmentation to Windows applications. This hardware isolation-level capability provides one of the highest levels of protection against zero-day exploits, unpatched vulnerabilities, and web-based malware.

For emails, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) uses built-in anti-spam filtering capabilities that help protect Office 365 customers against ransomware attacks that begin with email. Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection helps secure mailboxes against email attacks by blocking emails with unsafe attachments, malicious links, and linked-to files leveraging time-of-click protection.

Integrated security for enterprises

Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection allows SecOps personnel to stop the spread of ransomware through timely detection of ransomware activity in the network. Windows Defender ATP’s enhanced behavioral and machine learning detection libraries flag malicious behavior across the ransomware attack kill-chain, enabling SecOps to promptly investigate and respond to ransomware attacks.

With Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Windows Defender ATP was expanded to include seamless integration across the entire Windows protection stack, including Windows Defender Exploit Guard, Windows Defender Application Guard, and Windows Defender AV. This integration is designed to provide a single pane of glass for a seamless security management experience.

To test how Windows Defender ATP can help your organization detect, investigate, and respond to advanced attacks, sign up for a free trial.

With all of these security technologies, Microsoft has built the most secure Windows version ever with Windows 10. While the threat landscape will continue to evolve in 2018 and beyond, we don’t stop innovating and investing in security solutions that continue to harden Windows 10 against attacks. The twice-per-year feature update release cycle reflects our commitment to innovate and to make it easier to disrupt successful attack techniques with new protection features. Upgrading to Windows 10 not only means decreased risk; it also means access to advanced, multi-layered defense against ransomware and other types of modern attacks.

Tanmay Ganacharya (@tanmayg)
Principal Group Manager, Windows Defender Research

*Edited 01/11/2018 to remove the statement “Windows 10 has a much larger install base than Windows 7“.

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The post A worthy upgrade: Next-gen security on Windows 10 proves resilient against ransomware outbreaks in 2017 appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

The trend towards increasingly sophisticated malware behavior, highlighted by the use of exploits and other attack vectors, makes older platforms so much more susceptible to ransomware attacks. From June to November 2017, Windows 7 devices were 3.4 times more likely to encounter ransomware compared to Windows 10 devices.

Read our latest report: A worthy upgrade: Next-gen security on Windows 10 proves resilient against ransomware outbreaks in 2017

In the first six months of 2017, ransomware threats reached new levels of sophistication. The same period also saw the reversal of a six-month downward trend in ransomware encounters. New ransomware code was released at a higher rate with increasing complexity. Two high-profile ransomware incidents brought cybersecurity to the forefront of mainstream conversations as the impact of attacks was felt around the world by organizations and individuals alike.

The recently released Microsoft Security Intelligence Report summarizing movements in different areas of the threat landscape in the first quarter of the year showed the continued global presence of ransomware. The highest encounter rates, defined as the percentage of computers running Microsoft real-time security products that report blocking or detecting ransomware, were registered in the Czech Republic, Korea, and Italy from January to March 2017.

Sustained ransomware campaigns and high-profile attacks continued to highlight the need for advanced comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. In this blog entry, we share our key observations on the ransomware landscape and offer insights on what can be learned from trends and developments so far in 2017.

Figure 1. Global distribution of ransomware encounters by month, January-June 2017

Ransomware growth rallies

In March of 2017, the volume of ransomware encounters started to pick up again after several months of decline. The growth is driven to a certain extent by sustained activities from established ransomware operations like Cerber, with an onslaught of attacks powered by ransomware-as-a-service.

Figure 2. Total ransomware encounters by month, July 2016-June 2017 (source: Ransomware FAQ page)

In part, this surge is also driven by the emergence of new ransomware families, which are being released into the wild at a faster rate. In the first half of 2017, we discovered 71 new ransomware families, an increase from the 64 new families we found in the same period in 2016.

Some of these new ransomware families stand out because they exhibit new behaviors that make them more complex. For instance, the latest Microsoft Security Intelligence Report shows that in March 2017, two-month old Spora overtook Cerber as the most prevalent ransomware family.

Figure 3. Trends for several commonly encountered ransomware families in 1Q17, by month (source: Microsoft Security Intelligence Report 22)

Spora’s quick rise to the top may be traced to its capability to spread via network drives and removable drives, such as USB sticks. Initial versions targeted Russia and featured a ransom note in the local language. It has since gone global, spreading to other countries with a ransom note in English.

Other notable new ransomware families in 2017 include Jaffrans, Exmas, and Ergop. While these families have not quite achieved the prevalence of Spora, they show signs of persistence and periodic improvements that are observed in older, successful families.

Microsoft protects customers from new and emerging ransomware like Spora using a combination of advanced heuristics, generics, and machine learning, which work together to deliver predictive, real-time protection. In a recent blog post, we demonstrated how we could better protect from never-before-seen ransomware with enhancements to the Windows Defender Antivirus cloud protection service.

The rise of global ransomware outbreaks

WannaCrypt (also known as WannaCry) is one of the most well-known new ransomware to surface so far this year. It emerged in May carrying an exploit for a patched vulnerability and quickly spread to out-of-date Windows 7 computers in Europe and later the rest of the world (the exploit did not affect Windows 10). The attack left several impacted organizations, high-tech facilities, and other services affected in its aftermath.

Only a few weeks after the WannaCrypt outbreak, a new variant of Petya wreaked havoc in June. This Petya variant applied some of the propagation techniques used by WannaCrypt, but incorporated more methods to spread within a network. The outbreak started in Ukraine, where a compromised supply-chain delivered the ransomware through a software update process. The Petya infections swiftly spread to other countries in the course of a few hours. Petya’s impact was not as widespread as the WannaCrypt outbreak; however, as our in-depth analysis of Petya revealed, its upgrades made it so much more complex and caused more damage to organizations affected.

WannaCrypt and Petya defied the trend of more targeted and localized attacks and became the first global malware attacks in quite a while. They generated worldwide mainstream interest. Interestingly, this attention might have added more challenges for attackers. For instance, the Bitcoin wallets used in these attacks were closely monitored by security researchers.

WannaCrypt and Petya showed that ransomware attacks powered by sophisticated exploits on a global scale can be particularly catastrophic. Global attacks emphasize the need to avert ransomware epidemics by enabling responders to detect, respond to, and investigate attacks so infections can be contained and not allowed to swell. Security patches need to be applied as soon as they become available.

Increasing sophistication

The trend of global outbreaks is likely a result of more techniques incorporated by ransomware. WannaCrypt, Petya, Spora, and other new ransomware variants sported new capabilities that allowed them to spread faster and wreak more havoc than other malware.

Lateral movement using exploits

Spora’s aforementioned ability to spread via network drives and removable drives made it one of the most widespread ransomware. Though it was not the first ransomware family to integrate a worm-like spreading mechanism, it was able to use this capability to infect more computers.

With worm capabilities, ransomware attacks can have implications beyond endpoint security, introducing challenges to enterprise networks. This was particularly true for WannaCrypt, which spread by exploiting a vulnerability (CVE-2017-0144, dubbed EternalBlue, previously patched in security update MS17-010), affecting networks with out-of-date computers.

Petya expanded on WannaCrypt’s spreading mechanism by exploiting not one, but two vulnerabilities. Apart from CVE-2017-0144, it also exploited CVE-2017-0145 (known as EternalRomance, and fixed in the same security update as EternalBlue), affecting out-of-date systems.

These two attacks highlighted the importance of applying security patches as they become available. They likewise highlight the importance of immediately detecting and stopping malicious behavior related to exploits.

It is important to note that the EternalBlue and EternalRomance exploits did not affect Windows 10, underscoring the benefits of upgrading to the latest, most secure version of platforms and software. Even if the exploits were designed to work on Windows 10, the platform has multiple mitigations against exploits, including zero-days. In addition, Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (Windows Defender ATP) detects malicious activities resulting from exploits without the need for signature updates.

Credential theft

One of Petya’s more noteworthy behaviors is its credential-stealing capability, which it does either by using a credential dumping tool or by stealing from the Credential Store. This capability poses a significant security challenge for networks with users who sign in with local admin privileges and have active sessions opens across multiple machines. In this situation, stolen credentials can provide the same level of access the users have on other machines.

The Petya outbreak is testament to the importance of credential hygiene. Enterprises need to constantly review privileged accounts, which have unhampered network access and access to corporate secrets and other critical data. Credential Guard uses virtualization-based security to protect derived domain credentials and stop attempts to compromise privileged accounts.

Network scanning

Armed with exploits or stolen credentials, ransomware can spread across networks through network scanning. For example, Petya scanned affected networks to establish valid connections to other computers. It then attempted to transfer copies of the malware using stolen credentials. Petya also scanned for network shares in an attempt to spread through those shares.

WannaCrypt, on the other hand, ran massive scanning of IP addresses to look for computers that are vulnerable to the EternalBlue exploit. This gave it the ability to spread to out-of-date computers outside the network. Network defenders can uncover and stop unauthorized network scanning behaviors.

Destructive behavior

In most ransomware cases, the attacker motivation is clear: victims need to pay the ransom or never gain back access to encrypted files. While there is no guarantee that files are decrypted after payment is made, most ransomware infections make their intention clear through a ransom note. In August, WannaCrypt actors wrapped up their campaign by withdrawing ransom pain in Bitcoins from online wallets.

Petya behaved like other ransomware in this aspect. Attackers emptied the Petya online wallets earlier in July. However, Petya had far more destructive routines: it overwrote or damaged the Master Boot Record (MBR) and Volume Boot Record (VBR), rendering affected computers unusable. This started a conversation about whether this Petya variant was primarily a ransomware like WannaCrypt or a destructive cyberattack like Depriz (also known as Shamoon).

Figure 4. Petya incorporated complex behaviors not typical of ransomware

The debate is not settled, but the Petya attack does raise an important point—attackers can easily incorporate other payloads into ransomware code to facilitate targeted attacks and other types of destructive cyberattacks. As the threat of ransomware escalates, enterprises and individuals alike need a sound cybersecurity strategy and a protection suite that will defend against the end-to-end ransomware infection process.

Integrated end-to-end security suite against ransomware

With high-profile global outbreaks and other notable trends, the first six months of 2017 can be considered one of the more turbulent periods in the history of ransomware. The observations we summarized in this blog highlight the potency of the ransomware threat. Unfortunately, given the trends, we may see similarly sophisticated or even more complex attacks in the foreseeable future. More importantly, however, we should learn from these attacks and developments, because they highlight the areas of cybersecurity that need to be improved and reevaluated.

At Microsoft, we’re always hard at work to continuously harden Windows 10 against ransomware and other attacks. In the upcoming Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, we will integrate Microsoft security solutions into a powerful single pane of glass—centralized management that will allow customers to consume, manage, and integrate security for devices in the network. Windows Defender ATP will be expanded to include seamless integration across the entire Windows protection stack. The suite of tools will include the new Windows Defender Exploit Guard and Windows Defender Application Guard, as well as the enhanced Windows Defender Device Guard and Windows Defender AV.

To test how Windows Defender ATP can help your organization detect, investigate, and respond to advanced attacks, sign up for a free trial.

Today, Windows 10 Creators Update has next-gen technologies that protect against ransomware attacks.

Figure 5. Windows 10 end-to-end protection stack (source: Next-gen ransomware protection with Windows 10 Creators Update)

Windows 10 has multiple exploit mitigations, including control flow-guard for kernel (kFCG), kernel mode code integrity (KMCI), better kernel address space layout randomization (KASLR), NX HAL, and PAGE POOL (non-executable kernel regions). These mitigations help make Windows 10 resilient to exploit attacks, such as those used by WannaCrypt and Petya.

Intelligent Security Graph and machine learning

Security built into Windows 10 is powered by the Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph, which correlates signals from billions of sensors. Unique insights from this vast security intelligence enable Microsoft to deliver real-time protection through Windows Defender AV, Windows Defender ATP, and other next-gen security technologies.

The increasing magnitude and complexity of ransomware require advanced real-time protection. Windows Defender AV uses precise machine learning models as well as generic and heuristic techniques, improved detection of script-based ransomware, and enhanced behavior analysis to detect common and complex ransomware code. Using the cloud protection service, Windows Defender AV provides real-time protection. In recent enhancements, the cloud protection service can make a swift assessment of new and unknown files, allowing Windows Defender AV to block new malware the first time it is seen.

Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection empowers SecOps personnel to stop ransomware outbreaks in the network. Both WannaCrypt and Petya showed how critical it is to detect, investigate, and respond to ransomware attacks and prevent the spread. Windows Defender ATP’s enhanced behavioral and machine learning detection libraries flag malicious behavior across the ransomware infection process. The new process tree visualization and improvements in machine isolation further help security operations to investigate and respond to ransomware attacks.

Online safety with Microsoft Edge and Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection

Microsoft Edge can help block ransomware infections from the web by opening pages within app container boxes. It uses reputation-based blocking of downloads. Its click-to-run feature for Flash can stop ransomware infections that begin with exploit kits.

To defend against ransomware attacks that begin with email, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) uses built-in anti-spam filtering capabilities that help protect Office 365 customers. Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection helps secure mailboxes against email attacks by blocking emails with unsafe attachments, malicious links, and linked-to files leveraging time-of-click protection. Outlook.com anti-spam filters also provide protection against malicious emails.

Virtualization-based security and application control

Credential Guard can protect domain credentials from attacks like Petya, which attempted to steal credentials for use in lateral movement. Credential Guard uses virtualization-based security to protect against credential dumping.

Enterprises can implement virtualization-based lockdown security, which can block all types of unauthorized content. Windows Defender Device Guard combines virtualization-based security and application control to allow only authorized apps to run. Petya, whose first infections were traced back to a compromised software update process, was blocked on devices with Device Guard enabled.

Microsoft-vetted security with Windows 10 S and more security features in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

Devices can achieve a similar lockdown security with Windows 10 S, which streamlines security and performance by working exclusively with apps from the Windows Store, ensuring that only apps that went through the Store onboarding, vetting, and signing process are allowed to run.

All of these security features make Windows 10 our most secure platform. Next-gen security technologies in Windows 10 provide next-gen protection against ransomware.

Figure 6. Windows 10 next-gen security

But the work to further harden Windows 10 against ransomware and other threats continues. Expect more security features and capabilities in the upcoming Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.

Tanmay Ganacharya (@tanmayg)

Principal Group Manager, Windows Defender Research

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The post Ransomware 1H 2017 review: Global outbreaks reinforce the value of security hygiene appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

One of the biggest threats to data is ransomware. Organizations, hospitals, and businesses have succumbed to paying attackers – a testament to the importance of key data to business continuity. Unfortunately, these incidents can indicate the absence of effective backup strategies in these organizations, which can make ransomware attacks more lucrative for attackers.

We have observed a decline in ransomware encounters in recent months. In part, we believe this downward trend is a result of enhanced detection of ransomware downloaders by Windows Defender AV via heuristics and improved cloud protection, which are powered by precise machine learning models. The blocking of ransomware downloaders significantly decreased the volume of ransomware that reaches the endpoint. Those that do reach the computer can be detected and removed by generic heuristic-based ransomware detections.

But that doesn’t mean that the threat of ransomware is going away any time soon. If anything, we’re seeing a lot of innovation in malware code in ransomware families like Cerber and Locky, as well as in cybercriminal operations that distribute them. They will continue to be a big threat to companies, especially as they are observed to take on characteristics of targeted attacks. The sad truth is, cybercriminals know they can get significantly better returns from companies.

The other threat to data is data-wiping malware, which delete or replace all files on the computer. These threats are being used in high-profile targeted attacks against large organizations. Given the extent of their damage, they can halt business operations or take services offline.

One such malware is Depriz (aka Shamoon), which has been used in multiple targeted attacks in the Middle East since 2016. Attacks that use Depriz are destructive in nature, so there is barely any chance of restoring damaged files.

In a very curious development, a new version of Depriz was spotted sporting a ransomware component. This combination pointedly emphasizes how much attackers want to go after company data, whether to encrypt them for extortion money as ransomware would, or to delete them for sabotage as data-wipers would.

Ransomware and data-wipers pile on to already existing threats to data: theft, hardware breakdown, natural disasters, or even human mistakes. The general advice is to assume compromise. It takes only one employee falling prey to a social engineering lure to start a chain of infection that will lead to data loss.

The impact of ransomware and data-wiping malware can be minimized by making sound backup plans a critical component of any disaster recovery plan.

The 3-2-1 rule is a generally accepted practice for backing up. By creating three backup copies in at least two different storage media formats, with at least one copy in offline storage, you can have better safeguards to making sure your data is protected against these types of attacks. The 3-2-1 technique increases your chances of recovering from incidents.

Windows 10 has built-in technologies that can help you back up files systematically. You can turn on File History to regularly and automatically save copies of important files in a drive you specify. The best practice is to use an external drive as the backup drive, and to do a periodic offline backup by disconnecting the backup drive. This is because ransomware can encrypt file history backups just like any other files in the computer, including backup drives that are connected at the time of infection. File History can gracefully handle backup drives as they are connected and disconnected. You can then restore files from backup in the event your files are lost or damaged.

Microsoft OneDrive and Microsoft OneDrive for Business, which allow you to store, access, and share files from anywhere using any device, is integrated into Windows 10. On top of being a great collaboration and organization tool, OneDrive can help protect from ransomware and other threats using Version History, which automatically saves the previous version of your Office documents when you save or change them. You can then use your OneDrive backup to restore files.

Needless to say, endpoints and networks should be protected from ransomware and cyberattacks. Windows Defender Antivirus, for instance, uses a combination of heuristic and machine-learning technologies to deliver cloud-based protection against the latest threats.

On the other hand, Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection alerts security operations teams about suspicious activities associated with ransomware, zero-day exploits, targeted attacks, and other threats.

To test how Windows Defender ATP can help your organization detect, investigate, and respond to advanced attacks, sign up for a free trial.

Even with security solutions in place, however, your data may still be exposed to other risks, such as the aforementioned natural disasters, media failure, and human error. Everything must be done to make sure critical data is safe. Backing up is not optional – it should be a vital part of any cybersecurity strategy.

Tanmay Ganacharya
Principal Security GM, Windows Defender Research
Follow on Twitter: @tanmayg

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Questions, concerns, or insights on this story? Join discussions at the Microsoft community and Windows Defender Security Intelligence.

Follow us on Twitter @WDSecurity and Facebook Windows Defender Security Intelligence.

The post World Backup Day is as good as any to back up your data appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.