Microsoft Purview News and Insights | Microsoft Security Blog http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/security/blog/products/microsoft-purview/ Expert coverage of cybersecurity topics Fri, 28 Mar 2025 19:09:28 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 New innovations in Microsoft Purview for protected, AI-ready data http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/security/blog/2025/03/31/new-innovations-in-microsoft-purview-for-protected-ai-ready-data/ Mon, 31 Mar 2025 15:00:00 +0000 Microsoft Purview delivers a comprehensive set of solutions that help customers seamlessly secure and confidently activate data in the era of AI.

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The Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft Purview teams are excited to be in Las Vegas from March 31 to April 2, 2025, for the second annual and highly anticipated Microsoft Fabric Community Conference. With more than 200 sessions, 13 focused tracks, 21 hands-on workshops, and two keynotes, attendees can expect an engaging and informative experience. The conference offers a unique opportunity for the community to connect and exchange insights on key topics such as data and AI.

AI innovation is impacting every industry, business process, and individual. About 75% of knowledge workers today are currently using some sort of AI in their day to day.1 At the same time, the regulatory landscape is evolving at an unprecedented pace. Around the world, at least 69 countries have proposed more than 1,000 AI-related policy initiatives and legal frameworks to address public concerns around AI safety and governance.2 With the need to adhere to regulations and policy frameworks for AI transformation, a comprehensive solution is needed to address security, governance, and privacy concerns. Additionally, with the convergence of the responsibilities of cybersecurity and data teams, customers are asking for a solution that turns data security and data governance into a team sport to address issues such data discovery, data classification, data loss prevention, and data quality in a unified way. Microsoft Purview delivers a comprehensive set of solutions that address these needs, helping customers seamlessly secure and confidently activate their data in the era of AI.

We are excited to announce new innovations that help security and data teams accelerate their organization’s AI transformation:

  1. Enhancing Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (Purview DLP) support for lakehouse in Microsoft Fabric to help prevent sensitive data loss by restricting access.
  2. Expanding Purview DLP policy support for additional Fabric items such as KQL databases and Mirrored databases to send users notification through policy tips when they are working with sensitive data.
  3. Microsoft Purview integration with Copilot in Fabric, specifically for Power BI.
  4. Data Observability within the Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog.

Seamlessly secure data

Microsoft Purview is extending its proven data security value delivered to millions of Microsoft 365 users worldwide, to the Microsoft data platform. This helps users drive consistency across their multicloud and multiplatform data estate and simplify risks related to data leaks, oversharing, and risky user behavior as more users are managing and handling data in the era of AI.

1. Enhancing Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) support for lakehouse in Fabric to help prevent sensitive data loss by restricting access

Microsoft Purview Data Security capabilities are used by hundreds of thousands of customers for their integration with Microsoft 365 data. Since last year’s Microsoft Fabric Community Conference, Microsoft Purview has extended Microsoft Purview Information Protection and Purview DLP policy tip value across the data estate, including Fabric. Currently, Purview DLP supports the ability to show users notifications for when they are working with sensitive data in lakehouse. We are excited to share that we are enhancing the DLP value in lakehouse to prevent sensitive data leakage to guest users by restricting access. Data Security admins can configure policies and limit access to only internal users or data owners based on the sensitive data found. This control is valuable for when a Fabric tenant includes guest users and domain owners want to limit access to internal proprietary data in their lakehouses. 

Purview DLP restricting access to a Fabric lakehouse

Figure 1. DLP policy restricting access for guest users into lakehouse due to personally identifiable information (PII) data discovered 

2. Expanding DLP policy support for additional Fabric items such as KQL databases and Mirrored databases to show users notification through policy tips when they are working with sensitive data

A key part of securing sensitive data is to provide visibility to your users on where and how they are interacting with sensitive data. Purview DLP policies can help notify users when they are working with sensitive data through policy tips in lakehouse in Fabric. We are excited to announce that we are extending policy tips support for additional Fabric items—KQL databases and Mirrored databases in preview. (Mirrored Database sources include Azure Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure Databricks Unity Catalog, and Snowflake, with more sources available soon). KQL databases are the only databases used for real-time analytics so detecting sensitive data that comes through real-time analytics is huge for Fabric customers. Purview DLP for Mirrored databases reduces the security risk of sensitive data leakage when data is transferred in Fabric. We are happy to extend Purview DLP value to more data sources, providing end-to-end protection for customers within their Fabric environments, all to prepare for the safe deployment of AI.

Purview DLP triggering a policy tip for a KQL database

Figure 2. Policy tip triggered by Purview DLP due to PII being discovered in KQL databases.

Purview DLP triggering a policy tip for a Mirrored database

Figure 3. Policy tip triggered by Purview DLP due to PII being discovered in Mirrored databases.

3. Microsoft Purview for Copilot in Fabric

As organizations adopt AI, implementing data controls and a Zero Trust approach is crucial to mitigate risks like data oversharing and leakage, and potential non-compliant usage in AI. We are excited to announce Microsoft Purview capabilities in preview for Copilot in Fabric, starting with Copilot for Power BI. By combining Microsoft Purview and Copilot for Power BI, users can:

  • Discover data risks such as sensitive data in user prompts and responses and receive recommended actions in their Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) dashboard to reduce these risks.
  • Identify risky AI usage with Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management to investigate risky AI usage, such as an inadvertent user who has neglected security best practices and shared sensitive data in AI or a departing employee using AI to find sensitive data and exfiltrating the data through a USB device.
  • Govern AI usage with Microsoft Purview Audit, Microsoft Purview eDiscovery, retention policies, and non-compliant usage detection.
Microsoft Purview dashboard view displaying reports on Copilot in Fabric’s interactions over time, user activities, and the data entered and shared within the copilot.

Figure 4. Purview DSPM for AI provides admins with comprehensive reports on Copilot in Fabric’s user activities, as well as data entered and shared within the copilot.

Confidently activate data

4. Data observability, now in preview, within Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog

Within the Unified Catalog in Microsoft Purview, users can easily identify the root cause of data quality issues by visually investigating the relationship between governance domains, data products, glossary terms, and data assets associated with them through its lineage. Data assets and their respective data quality are visible across your multicloud, hybrid data estate. Maintaining high data quality is core to driving trustworthy AI innovation forward, and with the new data observability capabilities in Microsoft Purview, users can now improve how fast they can investigate and resolve root cause issues to improve data quality and respond to regulatory reporting requirements.

Microsoft Purview dashboard displaying data quality within a Data Product.

Figure 5. Lineage view of data assets that showcases data quality within a Data Product.

Microsoft Purview and Microsoft Fabric can help secure and activate data

As your organization continues to implement AI, Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft Purview will serve as key solutions to safely activate your data for AI. Stay tuned for even more exciting innovations to come and check out the Fabric blog to read more about the innovations in Fabric.

Learn more

Explore these resources to stay updated on our product innovations in security and governance for your data:

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.


1Work Trends Index

2AI Regulations around the World – 2025

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Microsoft unveils Microsoft Security Copilot agents and new protections for AI http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/security/blog/2025/03/24/microsoft-unveils-microsoft-security-copilot-agents-and-new-protections-for-ai/ Mon, 24 Mar 2025 16:00:00 +0000 Learn about the upcoming availability of Microsoft Security Copilot agents and other new offerings for a more secure AI future.

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In this age of AI, securing AI and using it to boost security are crucial for every organization. At Microsoft, we are dedicated to helping organizations secure their future with our AI-first, end-to-end security platform.

One year ago, we launched Microsoft Security Copilot to empower defenders to detect, investigate, and respond to security incidents swiftly and accurately. Now, we are excited to announce the next evolution of Security Copilot with AI agents designed to autonomously assist with critical areas such as phishing, data security, and identity management. The relentless pace and complexity of cyberattacks have surpassed human capacity and establishing AI agents is a necessity for modern security.

For example, phishing attacks remain one of the most common and damaging cyberthreats. Between January and December 2024, Microsoft detected more than 30 billion phishing emails targeting customers.1 The volume of these cyberattacks overwhelms security teams relying on manual processes and fragmented defenses, making it difficult to both triage malicious messages promptly and leverage data-driven insights for broader cyber risk management.

The phishing triage agent in Microsoft Security Copilot being unveiled today can handle routine phishing alerts and cyberattacks, freeing up human defenders to focus on more complex cyberthreats and proactive security measures. This is just one way agents can transform security.

Additionally, securing and governing AI continues to be the top priority for organizations, and we are excited to advance our purpose-built solutions with new innovations across Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Entra, and Microsoft Purview. 

Read on to learn about other agents we are introducing to Security Copilot and important developments in securing AI. 

Expanding Microsoft Security Copilot with AI agentic capabilities

Microsoft Threat Intelligence now processes 84 trillion signals per day, revealing the exponential growth in cyberattacks, including 7,000 password attacks per second.1 Scaling cyber defenses through AI agents is now an imperative to keep pace with this threat landscape. We are expanding Security Copilot with six security agents built by Microsoft and five security agents built by our partners—available for preview in April 2025.

Six new agentic solutions from Microsoft Security

Building on the transformative capabilities of Security Copilot, the six Microsoft Security Copilot agents enable teams to autonomously handle high-volume security and IT tasks while seamlessly integrating with Microsoft Security solutions. Purpose-built for security, agents learn from feedback, adapt to workflows, and operate securely—aligned to Microsoft’s Zero Trust framework. With security teams fully in control, agents accelerate responses, prioritize risks, and drive efficiency to enable proactive protection and strengthen an organization’s security posture.

Security Copilot agents will be available across the Microsoft end-to-end security platform, designed for the following:

  • Phishing Triage Agent in Microsoft Defender triages phishing alerts with accuracy to identify real cyberthreats and false alarms. It provides easy-to-understand explanations for its decisions and improves detection based on admin feedback.
  • Alert Triage Agents in Microsoft Purview triage data loss prevention and insider risk alerts, prioritize critical incidents, and continuously improve accuracy based on admin feedback.
  • Conditional Access Optimization Agent in Microsoft Entra monitors for new users or apps not covered by existing policies, identifies necessary updates to close security gaps, and recommends quick fixes for identity teams to apply with a single click.
  • Vulnerability Remediation Agent in Microsoft Intune monitors and prioritizes vulnerabilities and remediation tasks to address app and policy configuration issues and expedites Windows OS patches with admin approval.
  • Threat Intelligence Briefing Agent in Security Copilot automatically curates relevant and timely threat intelligence based on an organization’s unique attributes and cyberthreat exposure.

Security Copilot’s agentic capabilities are an example of how we continue to deliver innovation leveraging our decades of AI research. See how agents work.

“This is just the beginning; our security AI research is pushing the boundaries of innovation, and we are eager to continuously bring even greater value to our customers at the speed of AI.”  

—Alexander Stojanovic, Vice President of Microsoft Security AI Applied Research

Five new agentic solutions from Microsoft Security partners

Security is a team sport and Microsoft is committed to empowering our security ecosystem with an open platform upon which partners can build to deliver value to customers. In this spirit, the following five AI agents from our partners will be available in Security Copilot:

  • Privacy Breach Response Agent by OneTrust analyzes data breaches to generate guidance for the privacy team on how to meet regulatory requirements.
  • Network Supervisor Agent by Aviatrix performs root cause analysis and summarizes issues related to VPN, gateway, or Site2Cloud connection outages and failures.
  • SecOps Tooling Agent by BlueVoyant assesses a security operations center (SOC) and state of controls to make recommendations that help optimize security operations and improve controls, efficacy, and compliance.
  • Alert Triage Agent by Tanium provides analysts with the necessary context to quickly and confidently make decisions on each alert.
  • Task Optimizer Agent by Fletch helps organizations forecast and prioritize the most critical cyberthreat alerts to reduce alert fatigue and improve security.

“An agentic approach to privacy will be game-changing for the industry. Autonomous AI agents will help our customers scale, augment, and increase the effectiveness of their privacy operations. Built using Microsoft Security Copilot, the OneTrust Privacy Breach Response Agent demonstrates how privacy teams can analyze and meet increasingly complex regulatory requirements in a fraction of the time required historically.”

—Blake Brannon, Chief Product and Strategy Officer, OneTrust

Learn more about Security Copilot agents and get started with Security Copilot. Current Security Copilot customers can join our Customer Connection Program for the latest updates.

New AI-powered data security investigations and analysis   

We are also announcing Microsoft Purview data security investigations to help data security teams quickly understand and mitigate risks associated with sensitive data exposure. Data security investigations introduce AI-powered deep content analysis, which identifies sensitive data and other risks linked to incidents. Incident investigators can use these insights to collaborate securely with partner teams and simplify complex and time-consuming tasks, thus improving mitigation. This solution links data security investigations to Defender incidents and Purview insider risk cases—available for preview starting April 2025.  

Further advances in securing and governing generative AI

Successful AI transformation requires a strong cybersecurity foundation. As organizations rapidly adopt generative AI, there is growing urgency to secure and govern the creation, adoption, and use of AI in the workplace. According to our new report, “Secure employee access in the age of AI,” 57% of organizations report an increase in security incidents from AI usage. And while most organizations recognize the need for AI controls, 60% have not yet started.

Securing AI is still a relatively new challenge, and leaders share some specific concerns: how to prevent data oversharing and leakage; how to minimize new AI threats and vulnerabilities; and how to comply with shifting regulatory compliance requirements. Microsoft Security solutions are purpose-built for AI to help every organization address these concerns. We’re announcing new advanced capabilities so that organizations can secure their AI investments—both Microsoft AI and other AI.

AI security posture management for multimodel and multicloud environments

Organizations developing their own custom AI solutions will need to strengthen the security posture for AI that they source from multiple models, running in multiple AI platforms and clouds. To address this need, Microsoft Defender has extended AI security posture management beyond Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services to include Google VertexAI and all models in the Azure AI Foundry model catalog. Available for preview in May 2025, this coverage includes Gemini, Gemma, Meta Llama, Mistral, and custom models. With new multicloud interoperability, organizations will gain broader code-to-runtime AI security posture visibility across Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud. Microsoft Defender can give organizations a jumpstart to securing AI posture across multimodel and multicloud environments.

New detection and protection for emerging AI threats

With AI comes new risks, including new cyberattack surfaces and unknown vulnerabilities. The Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) identifies the highest priority risks and mitigations for generative AI apps. Starting in May 2025, new and enriched AI detections for several risks identified by OWASP such as indirect prompt injection attacks, sensitive data exposure, and wallet abuse will be generally available in Microsoft Defender. With these new detections, SOC analysts can better protect and defend custom-built AI apps with new safeguards for Azure OpenAI Service and models found in the Azure AI Foundry catalog.

New controls to prevent risky access and data leaks into shadow AI apps

With the rapid user adoption of generative AI, many organizations are uncovering widespread use of AI apps that have not yet been approved by IT or security teams. This unsanctioned, unprotected use of AI has created a “shadow AI” phenomenon, which has drastically increased the risk of sensitive data leakage. We are announcing general availability of AI web category filter in Microsoft Entra internet access to help enforce granular access controls that can curb the risk of shadow AI by enforcing policies governing which users and groups have access to different types of AI applications.

With policy enforcement in place to govern authorized access to AI apps, the next layer of defense is to prevent users from leaking sensitive data into AI apps. To address this, we are announcing the preview of Microsoft Purview browser data loss prevention (DLP) controls built into Microsoft Edge for Business. This helps security teams enforce DLP policies to prevent sensitive data from being typed into generative AI apps, starting with ChatGPT, Copilot Chat, DeepSeek, and Google Gemini.

Learn more about our new innovations in Security for AI.

New phishing protection in Microsoft Teams for safer collaboration

While email continues to be the primary cyberthreat vector for phishing, collaboration software has become a common target. Generally available in April 2025, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 will protect users against phishing and other advanced cyberthreats within Teams. With inline protection, Teams will have better protection against malicious URLs, including real-time detonation of attachments and links. And to give SOC teams full visibility into related attempts and incidents, alerts and data will be available in Microsoft Defender. 

Agile innovation to build a safer world

We continue to innovate across the Microsoft Security portfolio, applying the principles of our Secure Future Initiative, to deliver powerful, end-to-end protection to give defenders industry-leading AI, and to empower every organization with the tools to secure and govern AI. We are grateful for our customers and partners and together, with them, we look forward to building a more secure world for all.

Microsoft Secure

To see these innovations in action, join us on April 9, 2025 for Microsoft Secure, a digital event focused on security in the age of AI. 

A woman in black dress

Learn with Microsoft Security

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.


1Based on Microsoft internal data.

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Microsoft at Legalweek: Help safeguard your AI future with Microsoft Purview​ http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/security/blog/2025/02/20/microsoft-at-legalweek-help-safeguard-your-ai-future-with-microsoft-purview/ Thu, 20 Feb 2025 17:00:00 +0000 ​Connect with Microsoft at Legalweek 2025 to learn how to embrace AI while protecting your organization’s data with Microsoft Purview. ​

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Generative AI is reshaping almost every industry and the legal field is no different. A Thompson Reuters Institute study of legal professionals found “a remarkable 79% of law firm respondents anticipate AI will have a high or transformational impact on their work within the next five years—a significant 10-point increase from 2023.”1 There are many promising opportunities to streamline workflows and drive efficiency by bringing AI into legal and litigation workflows. Simultaneously, there’s a need to ensure data compliance, security, governance, and privacy while deploying AI throughout your organization.  

Microsoft is continuously innovating, empowering people and organizations to achieve more, and Microsoft Purview is a key part of that mission. New advanced capabilities in Microsoft Purview eDiscovery make it easier to safeguard and manage compliance of data. eDiscovery allows you to easily search, collect, and review AI-based interactions across more than 25 AI applications. It also uses advanced AI capabilities to streamline eDiscovery workflows—from natural language queries for more intuitive searching to automatic case summarization for a quick snapshot of key insights. And more powerful AI-driven features are on the horizon to further accelerate and simplify the eDiscovery process. 

We are excited to share more about new developments across Microsoft Security at Legalweek 2025. If you are attending the conference in New York City from March 24 to March 27, 2025, we’d love to connect. Read on for an overview of our sessions. And request to attend our Executive Breakfast on Tuesday, March 25, 2025, from 7:30am–8:45am (ET) at the Mercury Ballroom, New York Hilton Midtown, to learn how to protect Microsoft 365 Copilot with Microsoft Purview as well as our latest developments in eDiscovery.  

Mark your calendar for these Legalweek sessions 

At Legalweek 2025, we will have experts from Microsoft and the legal field to offer insights into the latest cybersecurity challenges facing the legal sector as well as strategies to tackle these pressing issues. 

Session TitleSpeakersSession Date and TimeSession Description
Trustworthy AI: Helping to ensure privacy and security in AI transformation​ Katelyn Rothney, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft Azure AI; Ashley Pusey, Cyber Security and Data Privacy Associate, Kennedy’s CMP LLP; Rebecca Engrav, co-chair of the AI industry group at Perkins Coie; and John Israel, Global AI Security and Data Security Lead, KPMG. Tuesday, March 25, 2025, 11:30 AM–12:30 PM​ Eastern Time (ET) This session will delve into the complex interplay between AI innovation and data protection, exploring the necessary frameworks for designing AI solutions that prioritize transparency, integrity, and accountability. Learn the security and privacy risks inherent in AI adoption and how to mitigate them. 
Global compliance deep dive: Mastering the EU AI Act and international data regulationsManny Sahota, Director of Global Cloud Privacy, Regulatory Risk, and Compliance, Microsoft; Dajin Li, Partner, Taylor Wessing; Jennifer Driscoll, Partner, Robinson Cole; Jessica Long, Vice President, Head of Legal, Chief Privacy Officer, Allstate Canada; and Patrick J. Austin, Of Counsel, Woods Rogers.​ Tuesday, March 25, 2025, 2:00 PM–3:00 PM​ (ETNavigate the complexities of global data compliance and learn how to stay ahead of regulatory requirements with an in-depth analysis of the EU AI Act and other key international regulations. Learn how to harmonize compliance strategies across different jurisdictions, overcome regulatory challenges, and future-proof your organization’s data governance framework. 
Collaboration in complex litigation: Streamlining team communication and document sharing EJ Bastien, Sr. Director, Discovery Programs, Microsoft; Lindsey Lanier, Director, Product Management, Relativity; Candi Smith, eDiscovery Analyst, Disney; Scott Milner, Partner & Global Practice Group Leader of eData, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP; and Greg Buckles, Market Analyst–Press, eDiscovery Journal.Tuesday, March 25, 2025, 3:30 PM–4:30PM (ETExplore how legal teams can streamline document sharing and optimize communication workflows to keep all stakeholders connected and informed. Learn how to simplify case management, enhance team collaboration, and make information easily accessible—even in hybrid work environments. 
Navigating the AI revolution: Strategic insights and innovations​ Jessica Escalera, Head of Legal Operations, Americas at HSBC; Nicole Langston, Head of eDiscovery, Counsel for Barclays; Nisha Narasimhan, Principal Product Manager, Microsoft; and Robert Keeling, Partner, Redgrave LLPWednesday, March 26, 2025, 11:30 AM–12:30PM (ETThis forward-looking panel discussion delves into how you can use cutting-edge products to steer your AI journey effectively. Join industry experts as they share insights on strategic approaches, address common challenges, and highlight the latest AI innovations.  

Connect with Microsoft at Legalweek 

If you seek strategies for safeguarding and managing the compliance of your data and AI applications, check out one or more of our sessions at Legalweek. Throughout the conference, you can also interact with our Microsoft experts directly in a few ways: 

  • Stop byBooth #3103 in New York Hilton Midtown Americas Hall 2 to learn how Microsoft solutions can address your challenges. 
  • Request to attend the Executive Breakfast on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 from 7:30am – 8:45am ET at Mercury Ballroom, New York Hilton Midtown.
  • Request dedicated time with our experts, who will be available in meeting rooms at 1700 Broadway, between 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM ET, Monday, March 24, 2025, through Thursday, March 27, 2025. We’d love to connect. Hope to see you there! 

Connect with members of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association  

At Microsoft we truly believe security is a team sport. And we are thrilled to welcome three of our strategic Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA) members to demonstrate their solutions at the Microsoft booth. Join Epiq Global, Lighthouse, and Relativity as they share their expertise and discuss how their solutions—together with Microsoft technology—are helping our mutual customers secure their data efficiently in the age of AI. 

  • Epiq Global: Tuesday, March 25, 2025, 12:00 – 2:00 PM ET 
  • Lighthouse: Wednesday, March 26, 2025, 2:30 – 4:30 PM ET 
  • Relativity: Thursday, March 27, 2025, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET 

Read more about MISA and membership benefits. 

Learn more about Microsoft Security solutions

To help your organization efficiently respond to legal matters or internal investigations with intelligent capabilities that reduce data to only what’s relevant, learn more about Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Learn how to accelerate the secure adoption of AI with ready-to-go security and governance tools built for generative AI at The Microsoft at RSAC experience. From our signature Pre-Day to demos and networking, discover how Microsoft Security can give you the advantage you need in the era of AI. 

 Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity. 


Sources:

 1 The Future of Professionals: How AI is impacting the legal profession | Legal Blog 

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Securing DeepSeek and other AI systems with Microsoft Security http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/security/blog/2025/02/13/securing-deepseek-and-other-ai-systems-with-microsoft-security/ Thu, 13 Feb 2025 17:00:00 +0000 Microsoft Security provides cyberthreat protection, posture management, data security, compliance and governance, and AI safety, to secure AI applications that you build and use. These capabilities can also be used to secure and govern AI apps built with the DeepSeek R1 model and the use of the DeepSeek app. 

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A successful AI transformation starts with a strong security foundation. With a rapid increase in AI development and adoption, organizations need visibility into their emerging AI apps and tools. Microsoft Security provides threat protection, posture management, data security, compliance, and governance to secure AI applications that you build and use. These capabilities can also be used to help enterprises secure and govern AI apps built with the DeepSeek R1 model and gain visibility and control over the use of the seperate DeepSeek consumer app. 

Secure and govern AI apps built with the DeepSeek R1 model on Azure AI Foundry and GitHub 

Develop with trustworthy AI 

Last week, we announced DeepSeek R1’s availability on Azure AI Foundry and GitHub, joining a diverse portfolio of more than 1,800 models.   

Customers today are building production-ready AI applications with Azure AI Foundry, while accounting for their varying security, safety, and privacy requirements. Similar to other models provided in Azure AI Foundry, DeepSeek R1 has undergone rigorous red teaming and safety evaluations, including automated assessments of model behavior and extensive security reviews to mitigate potential risks. Microsoft’s hosting safeguards for AI models are designed to keep customer data within Azure’s secure boundaries. 

azure AI content Safety

Learn more

With Azure AI Content Safety, built-in content filtering is available by default to help detect and block malicious, harmful, or ungrounded content, with opt-out options for flexibility. Additionally, the safety evaluation system allows customers to efficiently test their applications before deployment. These safeguards help Azure AI Foundry provide a secure, compliant, and responsible environment for enterprises to confidently build and deploy AI solutions. See Azure AI Foundry and GitHub for more details.

Start with Security Posture Management

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Learn more

AI workloads introduce new cyberattack surfaces and vulnerabilities, especially when developers leverage open-source resources. Therefore, it’s critical to start with security posture management, to discover all AI inventories, such as models, orchestrators, grounding data sources, and the direct and indirect risks around these components. When developers build AI workloads with DeepSeek R1 or other AI models, Microsoft Defender for Cloud’s AI security posture management capabilities can help security teams gain visibility into AI workloads, discover AI cyberattack surfaces and vulnerabilities, detect cyberattack paths that can be exploited by bad actors, and get recommendations to proactively strengthen their security posture against cyberthreats.

AI security posture management in Defender for Cloud identifies an attack path to a DeepSeek R1 workload, where an Azure virtual machine is exposed to the Internet.
Figure 1. AI security posture management in Defender for Cloud detects an attack path to a DeepSeek R1 workload.

By mapping out AI workloads and synthesizing security insights such as identity risks, sensitive data, and internet exposure, Defender for Cloud continuously surfaces contextualized security issues and suggests risk-based security recommendations tailored to prioritize critical gaps across your AI workloads. Relevant security recommendations also appear within the Azure AI resource itself in the Azure portal. This provides developers or workload owners with direct access to recommendations and helps them remediate cyberthreats faster. 

Safeguard DeepSeek R1 AI workloads with cyberthreat protection

While having a strong security posture reduces the risk of cyberattacks, the complex and dynamic nature of AI requires active monitoring in runtime as well. No AI model is exempt from malicious activity and can be vulnerable to prompt injection cyberattacks and other cyberthreats. Monitoring the latest models is critical to ensuring your AI applications are protected.

Integrated with Azure AI Foundry, Defender for Cloud continuously monitors your DeepSeek AI applications for unusual and harmful activity, correlates findings, and enriches security alerts with supporting evidence. This provides your security operations center (SOC) analysts with alerts on active cyberthreats such as jailbreak cyberattacks, credential theft, and sensitive data leaks. For example, when a prompt injection cyberattack occurs, Azure AI Content Safety prompt shields can block it in real-time. The alert is then sent to Microsoft Defender for Cloud, where the incident is enriched with Microsoft Threat Intelligence, helping SOC analysts understand user behaviors with visibility into supporting evidence, such as IP address, model deployment details, and suspicious user prompts that triggered the alert. 

When a prompt injection attack occurs, Azure AI Content Safety prompt shields can detect and block it. The signal is then enriched by Microsoft Threat Intelligence, enabling security teams to conduct holistic investigations into the incident.
Figure 2. Microsoft Defender for Cloud integrates with Azure AI to detect and respond to prompt injection cyberattacks.

Additionally, these alerts integrate with Microsoft Defender XDR, allowing security teams to centralize AI workload alerts into correlated incidents to understand the full scope of a cyberattack, including malicious activities related to their generative AI applications. 

A jailbreak prompt injection attack on a Azure AI model deployment was flagged as an alert in Defender for Cloud.
Figure 3. A security alert for a prompt injection attack is flagged in Defender for Cloud

Secure and govern the use of the DeepSeek app

In addition to the DeepSeek R1 model, DeepSeek also provides a consumer app hosted on its local servers, where data collection and cybersecurity practices may not align with your organizational requirements, as is often the case with consumer-focused apps. This underscores the risks organizations face if employees and partners introduce unsanctioned AI apps leading to potential data leaks and policy violations. Microsoft Security provides capabilities to discover the use of third-party AI applications in your organization and provides controls for protecting and governing their use.

Secure and gain visibility into DeepSeek app usage 

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Learn more

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps provides ready-to-use risk assessments for more than 850 Generative AI apps, and the list of apps is updated continuously as new ones become popular. This means that you can discover the use of these Generative AI apps in your organization, including the DeepSeek app, assess their security, compliance, and legal risks, and set up controls accordingly. For example, for high-risk AI apps, security teams can tag them as unsanctioned apps and block user’s access to the apps outright.

Security teams can discover the usage of GenAI applications, assess risk factors, and tag high-risk apps as unsanctioned to block end users from accessing them.
Figure 4. Discover usage and control access to Generative AI applications based on their risk factors in Defender for Cloud Apps.

Comprehensive data security 

Data security

Learn more

In addition, Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) for AI provides visibility into data security and compliance risks, such as sensitive data in user prompts and non-compliant usage, and recommends controls to mitigate the risks. For example, the reports in DSPM for AI can offer insights on the type of sensitive data being pasted to Generative AI consumer apps, including the DeepSeek consumer app, so data security teams can create and fine-tune their data security policies to protect that data and prevent data leaks. 

In the report from Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management for AI, security teams can gain insights into sensitive data in user prompts and unethical use in AI interactions. These insights can be broken down by apps and departments.
Figure 5. Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) for AI enables security teams to gain visibility into data risks and get recommended actions to address them.

Prevent sensitive data leaks and exfiltration  

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

Learn more

The leakage of organizational data is among the top concerns for security leaders regarding AI usage, highlighting the importance for organizations to implement controls that prevent users from sharing sensitive information with external third-party AI applications.

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) enables you to prevent users from pasting sensitive data or uploading files containing sensitive content into Generative AI apps from supported browsers. Your DLP policy can also adapt to insider risk levels, applying stronger restrictions to users that are categorized as ‘elevated risk’ and less stringent restrictions for those categorized as ‘low-risk’. For example, elevated-risk users are restricted from pasting sensitive data into AI applications, while low-risk users can continue their productivity uninterrupted. By leveraging these capabilities, you can safeguard your sensitive data from potential risks from using external third-party AI applications. Security admins can then investigate these data security risks and perform insider risk investigations within Purview. These same data security risks are surfaced in Defender XDR for holistic investigations.

 When a user attempts to copy and paste sensitive data into the DeepSeek consumer AI application, they are blocked by the endpoint DLP policy.
Figure 6. Data Loss Prevention policy can block sensitive data from being pasted to third-party AI applications in supported browsers.

This is a quick overview of some of the capabilities to help you secure and govern AI apps that you build on Azure AI Foundry and GitHub, as well as AI apps that users in your organization use. We hope you find this useful!

To learn more and to get started with securing your AI apps, take a look at the additional resources below:  

Learn more with Microsoft Security

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity. 

The post Securing DeepSeek and other AI systems with Microsoft Security appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

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Hear from Microsoft Security experts at these top cybersecurity events in 2025 http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/security/blog/2025/02/03/hear-from-microsoft-security-experts-at-these-top-cybersecurity-events-in-2025/ Mon, 03 Feb 2025 17:00:00 +0000 Security events offer a valuable opportunity to learn about the latest trends and solutions, evolve your skills for cyberthreats, and meet like-minded security professionals. See where you can meet Microsoft Security in 2025.

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Inspiration can spark in an instant when you’re at a conference. Perhaps you discover a new tool during a keynote that could save you hours of time. Or maybe a peer shares a story over coffee that makes you rethink an approach. One conversation, one session, or one event could give you fresh ideas, renewed excitement, and a vision for what to do next.

In the current AI landscape, inspiration and information are more important than ever for security professionals to stay ahead of threat actors. So if you’re looking to boost your skills and stay ahead of the threat landscape, join Microsoft Security at the top cybersecurity events in 2025.

Whether you join us at an industry staple like RSAC or one of our own events like Microsoft Secure, you can benefit in several key ways:

  • Get insights and strategies needed to overcome obstacles and drive your security initiatives forward with confidence.
  • See live demos of the latest products, product features, skills, and tools you can use in your work. Be among the first to hear about Microsoft Security innovations, such as Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative and XSPA (cross-site port attack) updates attendees of Microsoft Ignite 2024 heard.
  • Learn from Microsoft Security experts on global threat intelligence.
  • Network with other like-minded security pros, learn best practices from your peers, and meet one-on-one with our experts.

Whatever your role, there’s an event for you and a path to successfully safeguarding your organization.

A close up of a logo

Microsoft Secure

Learn why AI innovation requires AI security at Microsoft Secure, April 9, 2025. Explore the latest solutions that can help your organization protect data, defend against cyber threats, and stay compliant.

Conferences to inspire and engage everyone

Large crowd of people attending Microsoft Ignite in Chicago, November 2024.

Security professionals of all levels can benefit from attending one of the biggest cybersecurity events, including RSAC, Black Hat, plus two premier Microsoft events—Microsoft Secure (virtual) and Microsoft Ignite (in-person and virtual). If you love being the first to hear about Microsoft product innovations, don’t miss these Microsoft events with insights every security professional can put to good use.

Microsoft Secure

Date: April 9, 2025
Location: Online only

Learn why AI innovation requires AI security at Microsoft Secure on April 9, 2025. Join Microsoft Security leaders at the one-hour showcase as they dive deep into our AI-first end-to-end security platform, share tangible insights about how to secure your AI investments, and explore demos. This is your opportunity to find solutions that can help your organization protect data, defend against cyberthreats, and stay compliant.

RSAC

Dates: April 27-May 1, 2025
Location: San Francisco, CA

RSAC 2025 Conference

Learn more

RSAC 2025 is a can’t-miss security conference, bringing together more than 40,000 security professionals to discuss the latest cybersecurity challenges and innovation with the best of the best. With the theme of “Many Voices. One Community,” RSAC will feature keynotes, track sessions, interactive sessions, networking opportunities, and an expo designed to foster advanced security strategies.

Throughout RSAC, Microsoft Security will showcase end-to-end security innovations and share world class threat and regulatory intelligence to give you the advantage you need in the era of AI. From our signature Pre-Day to hands-on demos and one-on-one meetings, discover how Microsoft Security can give you the advantage you need in the era of AI.​ Check out the full Microsoft at RSAC experience.

Black Hat

Dates: August 2-7, 2025
Location: Las Vegas, NV

The Black Hat Conference is a premier learning event in the cybersecurity industry, known for its in-depth technical sessions and cutting-edge research presentations on topics like critical infrastructure and information security research news.

Microsoft is a key sponsor of the conference each year, where we showcase our latest discoveries and AI research on real-world problems and solutions. Last year, our AI Red Teaming in Practice training sessions and our AI Summit roundtables were a hit. Black Hat is also known for its security community celebrations, including the Cybersecurity Woman of the Year Awards and the Researcher celebrations, which we take part in every year.

Microsoft Ignite

Dates: November 17-21, 2025
Location: San Francisco, CA, and online

Microsoft Ignite is Microsoft’s biggest annual conference for developers, IT professionals, business leaders, security professionals, and partners. Thousands of security professionals like you attend every year to hear the biggest security product announcements from Microsoft Security and gain training and skilling to prepare for future advancements in AI. Security professionals of all levels can join interactive labs, workshops, keynotes, technical breakout sessions, demos, and more, led by Microsoft Security leaders and experts.

Over the past few years, we’ve really boosted Microsoft Security experiences at Microsoft Ignite. Last year, we hosted the Microsoft Ignite Security Forum for security leaders and two workshops on AI red teaming and Microsoft 365 Copilot deployment. Plus, we hosted more than 30 sessions demoing new features to help you secure your environment, use your favorite Microsoft tools safely and securely, and make sure your organizational processes prioritize security first.

If you attend Microsoft Ignite in person this year, you won’t want to miss our Security Leaders Dinner or the security community party. If you’re not able to attend in person, you can register for our virtual event.​ Sign up to learn more.

Events for security leaders and decision-makers

A woman presenting during the Microsoft AI Tour.

Microsoft AI Tour

Dates: Through May 30, 2025
Location: Multiple worldwide

The Microsoft AI Tour is a free, one-day event for executives that explores the ways AI can drive growth and create lasting value in multiple cities around the globe. Whether you’re a functional decision-maker who evaluates investments, an IT team member charged with security, or a CISO revamping your security strategy, there will be valuable security content tailored to your needs.

Microsoft Security’s top business leaders attend AI tour locations worldwide to share with you how Microsoft Security Copilot lets you protect at the speed and scale of AI. They are also available to meet with you.

Event locationEvent date
Dubai, United Arab EmiratesFebruary 6, 2025
Singapore, Southeast AsiaFebruary 19, 2025
Tokyo, JapanFebruary 26-27, 2025
London, United KingdomMarch 5, 2025
Brussels, BelgiumMarch 25, 2025
Seoul, South KoreaMarch 26, 2025
Paris, FranceMarch 26, 2025
Madrid, SpainMarch 27, 2025
Tokyo, JapanMarch 27, 2025
Beijing, ChinaApril 23, 2025
Athens, GreeceMay 27-30, 2025

Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit

Dates: June 9-11, 2025
Location: National Harbor, MD

The Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit (Gartner SRM) explores trends in cybersecurity risk management, including the integration of generative AI, being an effective CISO, the importance of balancing response and recovery efforts with prevention, combating misinformation, and closing the cybersecurity skills gap to build a resilient workforce.

Microsoft Security executives host sessions at Gartner SRM to help you ensure the security of AI systems and adopt AI to drive innovation and efficiency. Our most popular topics center around securing and governing AI.

Events for technical and security practitioners

People attending the Microsoft booth at RSAC 2024.

Security teams look for conferences that provide specialized knowledge on the industry in which they work or on a narrow cybersecurity topic.

Legalweek

Dates: March 24-27, 2025
Location: New York, NY

Microsoft at Legalweek

Learn more

Legalweek is a weeklong conference where approximately 6,000 members of the legal community will gather to network with their peers, explore emerging trends, spotlight the latest tech, and offer a roadmap through industry shifts. Topics explored at past Legalweek conferences include the ethical and regulatory impact of using your data to train AI, litigation in the age of cybersecurity, and maximizing efficiency and legal automation.  

This year, we’ll be sponsoring three sessions on AI and one on collaboration in complex litigation. As in years past, Microsoft is hosting an Executive Breakfast at Legalweek from 7:30 AM ET-8:45 AM ET on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. RSVP today and stop by Booth #3103 in New York Hilton Midtown Americas Hall 2 to learn more about the latest Microsoft Purview innovations. If you’d like to meet with our team while at Legalweek, sign up for a one-on-one meeting.

Identiverse

Dates: June 3-6, 2025
Location: Las Vegas, NV

Limiting access to AI, apps, and resources to those with the proper permissions is a crucial part of security. The Identiverse conference provides education, collaboration, and insight into the future of identity security. More than 2,500 attendees will share insights, develop new ideas, and advance the state of modern digital identity and security.

The event features sessions on best practices, industry trends, and latest technologies; an exhibition hall to showcase the latest identity solution innovations; and networking opportunities. Microsoft will host a booth where attendees can connect with Microsoft Security experts and leaders.

Events for developers

The cybersecurity talent shortage is requiring many to step up even if cybersecurity isn’t in their official job description. If you are an IT professional being tasked with cybersecurity or someone with an eagerness to learn cybersecurity tactics, join our Microsoft events aimed at helping you uplevel your cybersecurity skills.

Microsoft Build

Dates: May 19-22, 2025
Location: Seattle, WA

Security is a team sport and developers are increasingly the first string team members who build security into the development of applications. Microsoft Build Conference 2025 is Microsoft’s developer-focused event. It will showcase exciting updates and innovations from Microsoft Security for developers to create AI-enabled security solutions for their organizations.

The event includes connection opportunities, demos, and security-focused sessions. Past topics have included using AI to accelerate development processes, tools for enhancing the developer experience, and strategies for building in the cloud. Stay up to date on Microsoft Build news and find out when registration is open.

Find your inspiration at an event this year

Cybersecurity events foster a culture of continuous learning and adaptation, empowering you to stay ahead of emerging cyberthreats and maintain a resilient security posture. The ideas will flow freely at these events. Whether you attend one of the biggest conferences of the year or a smaller event (or both), you’ll be in good company. Microsoft Security will be there be, too, excited to share and eager to learn.

Hope to see you at a future event!

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

The post Hear from Microsoft Security experts at these top cybersecurity events in 2025 appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

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Fast-track generative AI security with Microsoft Purview http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/security/blog/2025/01/27/fast-track-generative-ai-security-with-microsoft-purview/ Mon, 27 Jan 2025 17:00:00 +0000 Read how Microsoft Purview can secure and govern generative AI quickly, with minimal user impact, deployment resources, and change management.

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As a data security global black belt, I help organizations secure AI solutions. They are concerned about data oversharing, data leaks, compliance, and other potential risks. Microsoft Purview is Microsoft’s solution for securing and governing data in generative AI.

I’m often asked how long it takes to deploy Microsoft Purview. The answer depends on the specifics of the organization and what they want to achieve. Microsoft Purview should enable a comprehensive data governance program but it can provide risk mitigation for generative AI in the short term while the program is underway.

Microsoft Purview

Secure and govern your entire data estate.

Two colleagues collaborating at a desk.

Organizations need AI solutions to add value for their customers and to stay competitive. They can’t wait for years to secure and govern these systems.

For the organizations deploying generative AI, “how long does it take to deploy Microsoft Purview?” isn’t the right question.

The risk mitigation Microsoft Purview provides for AI can begin on day one. This includes Microsoft AI, like Microsoft 365 Copilot, AI that an organization builds in-house, and AI from third parties like Google Gemini or ChatGPT.

This post will discuss ways we can secure and govern data used or generated by AI quickly, with minimal user impact, change management, and resources required.

These Microsoft Purview solutions are:

  • Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management for AI
  • Microsoft Purview Information Protection
  • Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention
  • Microsoft Purview Communications Compliance
  • Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management
  • Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management
  • Microsoft Purview Audit and Microsoft Purview eDiscovery
  • Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager

Here are short term steps you can take while the comprehensive data governance program is underway.

Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management for AI

Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management for AI (DSPM for AI) provides visibility into data security risks. It reports on:

  • User’s interactions with AI.
  • Sensitive information in the prompts users share with the AI.
  • Whether the sensitive information users share is labeled and thus is protected by durable security policy controls.
  • Whether and how user interactions may be violating company policy including codes of conduct and attempts at jailbreak, where users manipulate the system to circumvent protections.
  • The risk level of users interacting with the system, such as inadvertent or malicious activities they may be involved in that put the organization at risk.

DSPM for AI reports on this for each AI application and can drill down from the reports to the individual user activities. DSPM for AI collects and surfaces insights from the other Microsoft Purview solutions around generative AI risks in a single screen.

Custom sensitive information types, sensitivity labels, and information protection rules are reasoned over by DSPM for AI, but if these are not available, more than 300 out-of-the-box sensitive information types are available from day one.  

DSPM for AI will use these to report on risk for the organization without additional configuration. The organization’s administrators can configure policy to mitigate these risks directly from the DSPM for AI tool.

Screenshot of Data Security Posture Management for AI overview page. It shows interactions with Microsoft 365 Copilot, Enterprise Generative AI  from other providers and AI developed in-house.

Figure 1. DSPM for AI shows interactions with Microsoft 365 Copilot, enterprise generative AI from other providers, and AI developed in-house.

Screenshot of Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) for AI reports showing user interactions with sensitive data for Microsoft 365 Copilot and other generative AI.  Admins can configure policy to mitigate risks from the DSPM solution.

Figure 2. DSPM for AI Reports on generative AI user interactions with sensitive data.

A big concern that organizations have in widely deploying generative AI is that it will return results that contain sensitive information that the user should not have access to. SharePoint sites have been created over the years, are unlabeled, and may be accessible to the entire organization through the AI. The “security by obscurity” that may have prevented the sensitive information from being inappropriately shared is now negated by the AI that reasons over and returns the data.

Data assessments, part of DSPM for AI, and currently in preview, identifies potential oversharing risks and allows the administrator to apply a sensitivity label to the SharePoint sites, the sensitive data, or initiate an Microsoft Entra ID user access review to manage group memberships.

The administrator can engage the business stakeholder who has knowledge of the risk posed by the data and invite them to mitigate the risk or apply the policy at scale from the Microsoft Purview administration portal.

Screenshot of Oversharing Assessment report, a feature of Data Security Posture Management for AI.  Shows the location of sensitive data and allows admins to configure policies to mitigate oversharing risks.

Figure 3. Data assessment—visualize risk, review access, and deploy policy.

Microsoft Purview Information Protection

The document access controls of Microsoft Purview Information Protection, including sensitivity labels, are enforced when the data is reasoned over by AI. The user is given visibility in context that they are working with sensitive information. This awareness empowers users to protect the organization. 

The sensitivity labels that enforce scoped encryption, watermarking, and other protections travel with the document as the user interacts with the AI. When the AI creates new content based on the document, the new content inherits the most restrictive label and policy.

Microsoft Purview can automatically apply sensitivity labels to AI interactions based on the organization’s existing policy for email, desktop applications, and Microsoft Teams, or new policy can be deployed for the AI.

These can be based on out-of-the-box sensitive information types for a quick start.

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

The Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention policies that the organization currently uses for email, desktop applications, and Teams can be extended to the AI or new policy for the AI can be created. Cut and paste of sensitive information or transfer of a labeled document into the AI can be prevented or only allowed with an auditable justification from the user.

A rule can be configured to prevent all documents bearing a specific label from being reasoned over by the AI. Out-of-the-box sensitive information types can be used for a quick start.

Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance

Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance provides the ability to detect regulatory compliance (for example, SEC or FINRA) and business conduct violations such as sensitive or confidential information, harassing or threatening language, and sharing of adult content.

Out-of-the-box policies can be used to monitor user prompts or AI-generated content. It provides policy enforcement in near real time and also audit logs and reporting.

Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management

Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management correlates signal to identify potential malicious or accidental behaviors from legitimate users. Pre-configured generative AI-specific risk detections and policy templates are now available in preview.

As the Insider Risk Management solution algorithms determine a user to be engaging in risky behavior, the data loss prevention (DLP) policies for that user can be made stricter using a feature called Adaptive Protection. It can be configured with out-of-the-box policies. This continuous monitoring and policy modulation mitigates risk while reducing administrator workload.

AI analytics can be activated from the Microsoft Purview portal to provide insights even before the Insider Risk Management solution is deployed to users. This quickly surfaces AI risks with minimal administrative workload.

Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

Microsoft Purview can enforce AI Data Lifecycle Management, with retention of AI prompts, prompt returns, and the documents AI creates for a specified time period. This can be done globally for every interaction with an AI solution. It can be done with out-of-the-box or custom policies. This will keep these interactions available for future investigations, for regulatory compliance, or to tune policies and inform the governance program.

A policy for deletion of AI interactions can be enforced so information is not over-retained.

Microsoft Purview Audit and Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

The organization will need to support internal investigations around the use of AI. Microsoft Purview Audit logs and retains these interactions. They also need to support their legal team should they have to produce AI interactions to support litigation.

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery can put a user’s interactions with the AI as well as their other Microsoft 365 documents and communications on hold so that their availability to support investigations is maintained. It allows them to be searched based metadata, enhancing relevancy, annotated, and produced.

Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager

Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager has pre-built assessments for AI regulations including:

  • EU Artificial Intelligence Act.
  • ISO/IEC 23894:2023.
  • ISO/IEC 42001:2023.
  • NIST AI Risk Management Framework (RMF) 1.0.

These assessments are available to benchmark compliance over time, report on control status, and maintain and produce evidence for both Microsoft and the organization’s activities that support the regulatory compliance program.

Microsoft Purview is an AI enabler

Without security, governance, and compliance bases being covered, the AI program puts the organization at risk. An AI program can be blocked before it deploys if the team can’t demonstrate how it is mitigating these risks.

The actions suggested here can all be taken quickly, and with limited effort, to set up a generative AI deployment for success.

Learn more

Learn more about Microsoft Purview.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and Twitter (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

The post Fast-track generative AI security with Microsoft Purview appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

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New Microsoft Purview features help protect and govern your data in the era of AI http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/security/blog/2024/12/10/new-microsoft-purview-features-help-protect-and-govern-your-data-in-the-era-of-ai/ Tue, 10 Dec 2024 17:00:00 +0000 Microsoft Purview delivers unified data security, governance, and compliance for the era of AI. Read about the new features.

The post New Microsoft Purview features help protect and govern your data in the era of AI appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

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In today’s evolving digital landscape, safeguarding data has become a challenge for organizations of all sizes. The ever-expanding data estate, the volume and complexity of cyberattacks, increasing global regulations, and the rapid adoption of AI are shifting how cybersecurity and data teams secure and govern their data. Today, more than 95% of organizations are implementing or developing an AI strategy, requiring data protection and governance strategies to be optimized for AI adoption.1 Microsoft Purview is designed to help you protect and govern all your data, regardless of where it lives and travels, for the era of AI.

Historically, organizations have relied on the traditional approach to data security and governance, largely involving stitching together fragmented solutions. According to Gartner®, “75% of security leaders are actively pursuing a security vendor consolidation strategy as of 2022.”2 Consolidation, however, is no easy feat. In a recent study, more than 95% of security leaders acknowledge that unifying the handling of data security, compliance, and privacy across teams and tools is both a priority and a challenge.3 These approaches often fall short because of duplicate data, redundant alerts, and siloed investigations, ultimately leading to increased data risks. Over time, this approach has been increasingly difficult for organizations to maintain.

Unify how you protect and govern your data with Microsoft Purview

Unlike traditional data security and governance strategies that require disparate solutions to achieve comprehensive data protection, Microsoft Purview is purpose-built to unify data security, governance, and compliance into a single platform experience. This integration aims to reduce complexity, simplify management, and mitigate risk, while helping enhance efficiency across teams to support a culture of collaboration. With Microsoft Purview you can:

  • Enable comprehensive data protection.
  • Support compliance and regulatory requirements.
  • Help safeguard AI Innovation.

What’s new in Microsoft Purview?

To meet our growing customer needs, the team has been delivering a lot of innovation at a rapid pace. In this blog, we’re excited to recap all the new capabilities we announced at Microsoft Ignite last month.

Enable comprehensive data protection

Microsoft data security solutions

Learn more

Microsoft Purview enables you to discover, secure, and govern data across Microsoft and third-party sources. Today, Microsoft Purview delivers rich data security capabilities through Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention, Microsoft Purview Information Protection, and Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management, enhanced with AI-powered Adaptive Protection. To drive AI transformation, you need to build and maintain a strong data foundation, categorized by data that is not just secured but also governed. Microsoft Purview also addresses your data governance needs with the newly reimagined Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog. These data security and data governance products leverage shared capabilities such as a common data catalog, connectors, classifications, and audit logs—helping reduce inconsistencies, inefficiencies, and exposure gaps, commonly experienced by using disparate tools.

Introducing Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management

Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) provides visibility into data security risks and recommends controls to protect that data. DSPM provides contextual insights, usage analysis, and continuous risk assessments of your data, helping you mitigate risks and enhance data security. With DSPM, you get a shared understanding of key risks through a series of reports that correlate insights across location and type of sensitive data, risky user activities, and common exfiltration channels. In addition, DSPM provides actionable, scenario-based recommendations for detection and protection policies. For example, DSPM can help you create an Insider Risk Management policy that identifies risky behavior such as downgrading labels in documents followed by exfiltration, and a data loss prevention (DLP) policy to block that exfiltration at the same time.

DSPM also brings a view of historical trends and insights based on sensitivity labels applied, sensitive assets covered by at least one DLP policy, and potentially risky users so show the effectiveness of your data security policies over time. And finally, DSPM leverages the power of generative AI through its deep integration with Microsoft Security Copilot. With this integration, you can easily uncover risks that might not be immediately apparent and drive efficient and richer investigations—all in natural language.

With DSPM, you can easily identify possible labeling and policy gaps such as unlabeled content and users that aren’t scoped in a DLP policy, unusual patterns and activities that might indicate potential risks, as well as opportunities to adapt and strengthen your data security program.

Screenshot of the Data Security Posture Management preview dashboard within the Microsoft Purview portal.

Figure 1. DSPM overview page provides centralized visibility across data, users, and activities, as well as access to reports.

Learn more about this announcement in the Data Security Posture Management blog.

Increasing data security and security operations center integration

Understanding data and user context is vital for improving security operations and prioritizing investigations, especially when sensitive data is at stake. By integrating insights such as data classification, access controls, and user activity into the security operations center (SOC) experience, organizations can better assess the impact of security incidents, reduce false alerts, and enhance containment efforts. In addition to the already present DLP alerts in the Microsoft Defender XDR incident investigation and data security remediation actions enabled directly from Defender XDR, we’ve also added Insider Risk Management context to the user entity page to provide a more comprehensive view of user activities.

With Microsoft Purview’s latest integration with Microsoft Defender, now in preview, you get insider risk alerts in Defender XDR and can correlate them with incidents. This gives you critical user context for your security investigations. SOC teams can now better distinguish internal incidents from external cyberattacks and refine their response strategies. For more complex analysis to identify risks such as attack patterns, we are integrating insider risk signals into Defender XDR’s Advanced Hunting, giving you deeper insights and allowing you to improve your policies in partnership with data security teams. Together, these advancements allow your organization to stay ahead of evolving cyberthreats, providing a collaborative and data-driven approach to security.

Learn more about this announcement in the Purview Insider Risk Management blog.

Protecting data and preventing sensitive data loss

As AI generates new data in unprecedented volumes, the need to secure that data and prevent the loss of sensitive information has become even more crucial. Our new DLP capabilities help you effectively investigate DLP incidents, fortify existing protections, and refine your overall DLP program. You can now customize Purview DLP to the established processes of your organization with the Microsoft Power Automate connector in preview. This lets you automate and customize your DLP policy actions through Power Automate workflows to integrate your DLP incidents into new or established IT, security, and business operations workflows, like stakeholder awareness or incident remediation.

DLP policy insights in Security Copilot, also in preview, summarize existing DLP policies in natural language and helps you understand any gaps in policy coverage across your environment. This makes it easier for you to quickly and easily understand the full breadth of DLP policy coverage across your organization and address gaps in protection. We are also enhancing DLP protections on endpoints by expanding our file type coverage from more than 40 to more than 110 file types. Users can also now store and view full files on Windows devices as evidence for forensic investigations using Microsoft-managed storage. With the Microsoft-managed option, your admins can save time otherwise spent configuring additional settings, assigning permissions, and selecting the storage in the policy workflow. Finally, you can now enforce blanket protections on file types that cannot currently be scanned or classified by endpoint DLP, such as blocking copy to removable media for all computer-aided design (CAD) files regardless of those files’ contents. This helps ensure that the diverse range of file types found in your environment are still protected even if they cannot currently be scanned and classified by Microsoft Purview endpoint DLP. 

Learn more about these announcements in our Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention blog.

Microsoft Purview Data Governance innovations to drive greater business value

Research indicates that data practitioners spend 80% of their time finding, cleaning, and organizing data, leaving only 20% of time to process and analyze it.4 To simplify the data governance practice in the age of AI, the Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog is a comprehensive enterprise catalog that automatically inventories and tags your organization’s critical data assets. This gives your business users the ability to search for specific business data when building analytics reports or AI models. The Unified Catalog gives you visibility and confidence in your data across your disparate data sources and local catalogs with built-in data quality management and end-to-end lineage. You can integrate metadata from diverse catalogs such as Fabric OneLake, Databricks Unity, and Snowflake Polaris, into a unified catalog for all your data stewards, data owners, and business users.

Now in preview, Unified Catalog provides deeper data quality through a new scan engine that supports open standard file and table formats for big data platforms, including Microsoft Fabric, Databricks Unity Catalog, Snowflake, Google Big Query, and Amazon S3. This new scan engine enables rich data quality management at the asset level for improved data quality management at the asset level for overall improved data quality health. Lastly, Microsoft Purview Analytics in OneLake (preview) allows you to extract tenant-specific metadata from the Unified Catalog and export it directly into OneLake. You can then use Microsoft Power BI to analyze the metadata to further understand and report on your data’s quality and lineage.

Learn more about these announcements in our Microsoft Purview Data Governance blog.

Support compliance and regulatory requirements

Microsoft compliance and Privacy solutions

Learn more

As regulatory requirements evolve with the proliferation of AI, it is more critical than ever for businesses to keep compliance and privacy top of mind. However, adhering to requirements is becoming increasingly complex, while consequences for non-compliance are growing more severe. Microsoft Purview empowers you to address regulatory demands and comply with corporate policies by offering compliance and privacy controls that are both scalable and adaptable to changing needs.

New templates in Compliance Manager to help simplify compliance

Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager provides insights into your organization’s compliance status through compliance templates and provides suggested actions and next steps to help you along your compliance journey. Compliance Manager continues to add new templates to help you address new and evolving regulations, including templates for the European Union AI Act (EUAI Act), NIST 2 AI, ISO 42001, ISO 23894, Digital Operations Resiliency Act (DORA), and additional industry and regional regulations. Compliance Manager now includes historical records that help track your organization’s compliance and provides actionable next steps to understand how new regulations or policies affect your compliance score over time. In addition, you can now leverage custom templates to address both regulatory and your organization’s specific policies and preferences.

Screenshot of the Compliance Manager assessment within the Microsoft Purview Portal.

Figure 2. EUAI Act Assessment in Compliance Manager.

Learn more about this announcement in the Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager blog.

New Microsoft Purview controls for ChatGPT Enterprise with integration with OpenAI for improved compliance

Microsoft Purview now integrates with ChatGPT Enterprise, allowing you to gain visibility and govern the prompts and responses of your ChatGPT Enterprise interactions. This integration, currently in preview, includes Microsoft Purview Audit for auditing ChatGPT Enterprise interactions, Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management for enabling retention and deletion policies, Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance to proactively detect regulatory and corporate policy violations, and Microsoft Purview eDiscovery to streamline legal investigations.

Learn more about all these announcements in our Security for AI blog.   

Microsoft Purview is built to help safeguard AI Innovation

With the rapid adoption of AI, new vulnerabilities have emerged, highlighting the need for strong data security and governance of AI workloads. Microsoft Purview is built to secure and govern data related to pre-built and custom-built AI apps.

Introducing Microsoft Data Security Posture Management for AI (DSPM for AI)

Security teams often find themselves in the dark when it comes to data security and compliance risks associated with AI usage. Without proper visibility, organizations often struggle to safeguard their AI assets effectively. DSPM for AI, now generally available, gives you visibility through a centralized dashboard and reports, enables you to proactively discover and manage your AI-related data risks, such as sensitive data in user prompts, and gives you actionable recommendations and real-time insights to respond effectively to security incidents.

Microsoft Purview controls for Microsoft 365 Copilot help prevent data oversharing

Data oversharing occurs when users have access to more data than necessary for their job duties. Organizations need effective data security controls to help mitigate this risk. At Microsoft Ignite we announced a number of new Microsoft Purview capabilities in preview to prevent data oversharing in Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Data oversharing assessments: Discover data that is at risk of oversharing by scanning files containing sensitive data, identifying risky data sources such as SharePoint sites with overly permissive user access, and by providing recommendations such as auto-labeling policies and default labels to prevent sensitive data from being overshared. The oversharing assessment report can identify unlabeled files accessed by users before deploying Copilot or can be run post-deployment to identify sensitive data referenced in Copilot responses. 

Label-based permissions: Microsoft 365 Copilot honors permissions based on sensitivity labels assigned by Microsoft Purview when referencing sensitive documents.

Purview DLP for Microsoft 365 Copilot: You can create DLP policies to exclude documents with specified sensitivity labels from being processed, summarized, or used in responses in Microsoft 365 Copilot, preventing sensitive data from being inadvertently overshared.

New Microsoft Purview capabilities to detect risky activities in Microsoft 365 Copilot

Security teams need ways to detect risky use of AI applications like deliberate or accidental access to sensitive data, jailbreaks, and copyright violations. Insider Risk Management and Communication Compliance now provide risky AI usage indicators, a policy template, and an analytics report in preview to help detect and investigate the risky use of AI. These new capabilities not only help detect risky activities and prompts but also integrate with Microsoft Defender XDR, enabling your security teams to investigate new AI-related risks holistically alongside other risks, such as identity risks through Microsoft Entra and data oversharing and data loss risks through Purview DLP.

New Microsoft Purview capabilities for agents built with Microsoft Copilot Studio

When new and citizen developers are building low code or no-code AI, they often lack security expertise and tools to enable security and compliance controls. Microsoft Purview now provides data controls for agents built in Copilot Studio to enable low code and no-code developers to build more secure agents. For example, when an agent built with Copilot Studio accesses sensitive data, it will recognize and honor the sensitivity labels of the data being accessed. Microsoft Purview will also protect sensitive data generated by the agent through label inheritance and will enforce label permissions, ensuring only authorized users have access.

Data security admins also get visibility into the sensitivity of data in user prompts and agent responses within DSPM for AI. Moreover, Microsoft Purview will enable you to detect anomalous user activity and risky or non-compliant AI use and apply retention or deletion policies on your agent prompts and responses. These new controls give you visibility and and insights into risks for your agents built with Copilot Studio, strengthening your data security posture.

Learn more about all these announcements in our Security for AI blog.   

Unified solutions that empower your organization

As you navigate the complexities of AI proliferation, regulatory requirements, and security threats, we are excited to innovate, invest in, and expand the capabilities of Microsoft Purview to address your most pressing data security, governance, and compliance challenges.

Get started with Microsoft Purview today

To get started, we invite you to try Microsoft Purview free and to learn more about Microsoft Purview today.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.


1Microsoft internal research, May 2023. 

2Gartner, Innovation Insight for Security Platforms, Peter Firstbrook, Craig Lawson. October 16, 2024. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

3Microsoft internal research, August 2024. 

4Overcoming the 80/20 Rule in Data Science, Pragmatic Institute.

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AI innovations for a more secure future unveiled at Microsoft Ignite http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/security/blog/2024/11/19/ai-innovations-for-a-more-secure-future-unveiled-at-microsoft-ignite/ Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:30:00 +0000 Company delivers advances in AI and posture management, unprecedented bug bounty program, and updates on its Secure Future Initiative.

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In today’s rapidly changing cyberthreat landscape, influenced by global events and AI advancements, security must be top of mind. Over the past three years, password cyberattacks have surged from 579 to more than 7,000 per second, nearly doubling in the last year alone.¹ New cyberattack methods challenge our security posture, pushing us to reimagine how the global security community defends organizations.  

At Microsoft, we remain steadfast in our commitment to security, which continues to be our top priority. Through our Secure Future Initiative (SFI), we’ve dedicated the equivalent of 34,000 full-time engineers to the effort, making it the largest cybersecurity engineering project in history—driving continuous improvement in our cyber resilience. In our latest update, we share insights into the work we are doing in culture, governance, and cybernorms to promote transparency and better support our customers in this new era of security. For each engineering pillar, we provide details on steps taken to reduce risk and provide guidance so customers can do the same.

Insights gained from SFI help us continue to harden our security posture and product development. At Microsoft Ignite 2024, we are pleased to unveil new security solutions, an industry-leading bug bounty program, and innovations in our AI platform. 

Transforming security with graph-based posture management 

Microsoft’s Security Fellow and Deputy Chief Information Security Office (CISO) John Lambert says, “Defenders think in lists, cyberattackers think in graphs. As long as this is true, attackers win,” referring to cyberattackers’ relentless focus on the relationships between things like identities, files, and devices. Exploiting these relationships helps criminals and spies do more extensive damage beyond the point of intrusion. Poor visibility and understanding of relationships and pathways between entities can limit traditional security solutions to defending in siloes, unable to detect or disrupt advanced persistent threats (APTs).

We are excited to announce the general availability of Microsoft Security Exposure Management. This innovative solution dynamically maps changing relationships between critical assets such as devices, data, identities, and other connections. Powered by our security graph, and now with third-party connectors for Rapid 7, ServiceNow, Qualys, and Tenable in preview, Exposure Management provides customers with a comprehensive, dynamic view of their IT assets and potential cyberattack paths. This empowers security teams to be more proactive with an end-to-end exposure management solution. In the constantly evolving cyberthreat landscape, defenders need tools that can quickly identify signal from noise and help prioritize critical tasks.  

Beyond seeing potential cyberattack paths, Exposure Management also helps security and IT teams measure the effectiveness of their cyber hygiene and security initiatives such as zero trust, cloud security, and more. Currently, customers are using Exposure Management in more than 70,000 cloud tenants to proactively protect critical entities and measure their cybersecurity effectiveness.

Announcing $4 million AI and cloud security bug bounty “Zero Day Quest” 

Born out of our Secure Future Initiative commitments and our belief that security is a team sport, we also announced Zero Day Quest, the industry’s largest public security research event. We have a long history of partnering across the industry to mitigate potential issues before they impact our customers, which also helps us build more secure products by default and by design.  

Every year our bug bounty program pays millions for high-quality security research with over $16 million awarded last year. Zero Day Quest will build on this work with an additional $4 million in potential rewards focused on cloud and AI—— which are areas of highest impact to our customers. We are also committed to collaborating with the security community by providing access to our engineers and AI red teams. The quest starts now and will culminate in an in-person hacking event in 2025.

As part of our ongoing commitment to transparency, we will share the details of the critical bugs once they are fixed so the whole industry can learn from them—after all, security is a team sport. 

New advances for securing AI and new skills for Security Copilot 

AI adoption is rapidly outpacing many other technologies in the digital era. Our generative AI solution, Microsoft Security Copilot, continues to be adopted by security teams to boost productivity and effectiveness. Organizations in every industry, including National Australia Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, Oregon State University, and Eastman are able to perform security tasks faster and more accurately.² A recent study found that three months after adopting Security Copilot, organizations saw a 30% reduction in their mean time to resolve security incidents. More than 100 partners have integrated with Security Copilot to enrich the insights with ecosystem data. New Copilot skills are now available for IT admins in Microsoft Entra and Microsoft Intune, data security and compliance teams in Microsoft Purview, and security operations teams in the Microsoft Defender product family.   

According to our Security for AI team’s new “Accelerate AI transformation with strong security” white paper, we found that over 95% of organizations surveyed are either already using or developing generative AI, or they plan to do so in the future, with two thirds (66%) choosing to develop multiple AI apps of their own. This fast-paced adoption has led to 37 new AI-related bills passed into law worldwide in 2023, reflecting a growing international effort to address the security, safety, compliance, and transparency challenges posed by AI technologies.³ This underscores the criticality of securing and governing the data that fuels AI. Through Microsoft Defender, our customers have discovered and secured more than 750,000 generative AI app instances and Microsoft Purview has audited more than a billion Copilot interactions.⁴  

Microsoft Purview is already helping thousands of organizations, such as Cummins, KPMG, and Auburn University, with their AI transformation by providing data security and compliance capabilities across Microsoft and third-party applications. Now, we’re announcing new capabilities in Microsoft Purview to discover, protect, and govern data in generative AI applications. Available for preview, new capabilities in Purview include Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for Microsoft 365 Copilot, prevention of data oversharing in AI apps, and detection of risky AI use such as malicious intent, prompt injections, and misuse of protected materials. Additionally, Microsoft Purview now includes Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) that gives customers a single pane of glass to proactively discover data risks, such as sensitive data in user prompts, and receive recommended actions and insights for quick responses during incidents. For more details, read the blog on Tech Community

Microsoft continues to innovate on our end-to-end security platform to help defenders make the complex simpler, while staying ahead of cyberthreats and enabling their AI transformation. At the same time, we are continuously improving the safety and security of our cloud services and other technologies, including these recent steps to make Windows 11 more secure

Next steps with Microsoft Security

From the advances announced to our daily defense of customers, and the steadfast dedication of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Satya Nadella and every employee, security remains our top priority at Microsoft as we deliver on our principles of secure by design, secure by default, and secure operations. To learn more about our vision for the future of security, tune in to the Microsoft Ignite keynote. 

Security practitioner at work in a security operations center

Microsoft Ignite 2024

Gain insights to keep your organizations safer with an AI-first, end-to-end cybersecurity approach.

Are you a regular user of Microsoft Security products? Review your experience on Gartner Peer Insights™ and get a $25 gift card. To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity. 


¹ Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2024.

² Microsoft customer stories:

³ How countries around the world are trying to regulate artificial intelligence, Theara Coleman, The Week US. July 4, 2023.

Earnings Release FY25 Q1, Microsoft. October 30, 2024.

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Microsoft Ignite: Sessions and demos to improve your security strategy http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/security/blog/2024/10/30/microsoft-ignite-sessions-and-demos-to-improve-your-security-strategy/ Wed, 30 Oct 2024 16:00:00 +0000 Join us at Microsoft Ignite 2024 for sessions, keynotes, and networking aimed at giving you tools and strategies to put security first in your organization.

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Now more than ever is the time for every organization to prioritize security. The use of AI by cyberattackers gives them an asymmetric advantage over defenders, as cyberattackers only have to be right once, while defenders have to be right 100% of the time. The way to win is with AI-first, end-to-end security—a key focus for Microsoft Security at Microsoft Ignite, November 18 to 22, 2024. Join thousands of security professionals at the event online to become part of a community focused on advancing defenders against ever-evolving cyberthreats.

Across many sessions and demos, we’ll address the top security pain points related to AI and empower you with practical, actionable strategies. Keep reading this blog for a guide of highlighted sessions for security professionals of all levels, whether you’re attending in-person or online.

And be sure to register for the digital experience to explore the Microsoft Security sessions at Microsoft Ignite.

Be among the first to hear top news

Microsoft is bringing together every part of the company in a collective mission to advance cybersecurity protection to help our customers and the security community. We have four powerful advantages to drive security innovation: large-scale data and threat intelligence; end-to-end protection; responsible AI; and tools to secure and govern the use of AI.

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said in May 2024 that security is the top priority for our company. At the Microsoft Ignite opening keynote on Tuesday, November 19, 2024, Microsoft Security Executive Vice President Charlie Bell and Corporate Vice President (CVP), Microsoft Security Business Vasu Jakkal will join Nadella to discuss Microsoft’s vision for the future of security. Other well-known cybersecurity speakers at Microsoft Ignite include Ann Johnson, CVP and Deputy Chief Information Security Officer (CISO); Joy Chik, President, Identity, and Network Access; Mark Russinovich, Chief Technology Officer and Deputy CISO; and Sherrod DeGrippo, Director of Threat Intelligence Strategy.

For a deeper dive into security product news and demos, join the security general session on Wednesday, November 20, 2024, at 11:00 AM CT. Hear from Vasu Jakkal; Joy Chik; Rob Lefferts, CVP, Microsoft Threat Protection; Herain Oberoi, General Manager, Microsoft Data Security, Privacy, and Compliance; and Michael Wallent, CVP; who will share exciting security innovations to empower you with AI tools designed to help you get ahead of attackers.

These news-breaking sessions are just the start of the value you can gain from attending online.

Benefit from insights designed for your role

While cybersecurity is a shared concern of security professionals, we realize the specific concerns are unique to role. Recognizing this, we developed sessions tailored to what matters most to you.

  • CISOs and senior security leaders: If you’ll be with us in Chicago, kick off the conference with the Microsoft Ignite Security Forum on November 18, 2024 from 1 PM CT to 5 PM CT. Join this exclusive pre-day event to hear from Microsoft security experts on threat intelligence insights, our Secure Future Initiative (SFI), and trends in security. Go back to your registration to add this experience on. Also for those in Chicago, be sure to join the Security Leaders Dinner, where you can engage with your peers and provide insights on your greatest challenges and successes. If you’re joining online, gain firsthand access to the latest Microsoft Security announcements. Whether you’re in person or online, don’t miss “Proactive security with continuous exposure management” (BRK324), which will explore how Microsoft Security Exposure Management unifies disparate data silos for visibility of end-to-end attack surface, and “Secure and govern data in Microsoft 365 Copilot and beyond” (BRK321), which will discuss the top concerns of security leaders when it comes to AI and how you can gain the confidence and tools to adopt AI. Plus, learn how to make your organization as diverse as the threats you are defending in “The Power of Diversity: Building a stronger workforce in the era of AI” (BRK330).
  • Security analysts and engineers: Join actionable sessions for information you can use immediately. Sessions designed for the security operations center (SOC) include “Microsoft cybersecurity architect lab—Infrastructure security” (LAB454), which will showcase how to best use the Microsoft Secure Score to improve your security posture, and “Simplify your SOC with the unified security operations platform” (BRK310), which will feature a fireside chat with security experts to discuss common security challenges and topics. Plus, learn to be a champion of safe AI adoption in “Scott and Mark learn responsible AI” (BRK329), which will explore the three top risks in large language models and the origins and potential impacts of each of these.
  • Developers and IT professionals: We get it—security isn’t your main focus, but it’s increasingly becoming part of your scope. Get answers to your most pressing questions at Microsoft Ignite. Sessions that may interest you include “Secure and govern custom AI built on Azure AI and Copilot Studio” (BRK322), which will dive into how Microsoft can enable data security and compliance controls for custom apps, detect and respond to AI threats, and managed your AI stack vulnerabilities, and “Making Zero Trust real: Top 10 security controls you can implement now” (BRK328), which offers technical guidance to make Zero Trust actionable with 10 top controls to help improve your organization’s security posture. Plus, join “Supercharge endpoint management with Microsoft Copilot in Intune” (THR656) for guidance on unlocking Microsoft Intune’s potential to streamline endpoint management.
  • Microsoft partners: We appreciate our partners and have developed sessions aimed at supporting you. These include “Security partner growth: The power of identity with Entra Suite” (BRK332) and “Security partner growth: Help customers modernize security operations” (BRK336).

Attend sessions tailored to addressing your top challenge

When exploring effective cybersecurity strategies, you likely have specific challenges that are motivating your actions, regardless of your role within your organization. We respect that our attendees want a Microsoft Ignite experience tailored to their specific objectives. We’re committed to maximizing your value from attending the event, with Microsoft Security sessions that address the most common cybersecurity challenges.

  • Managing complexity: Discover ways to simplify your infrastructure in sessions like “Simpler, smarter, and more secure endpoint management with Intune” (BRK319), which will explore new ways to strengthen your security with Microsoft Intune and AI, and “Break down risk silos and build up code-to-code security posture” (BRK312), which will focus on how defenders can overcome the expansive alphabet soup of security posture tools and gain a unified cloud security posture with Microsoft Defender for Cloud.   
  • Increasing efficiency:: Learn how AI can help you overcome talent shortage challenges in sessions like “Secure data across its lifecycle in the era of AI” (BRK318), which will explore Microsoft Purview leveraging Microsoft Security Copilot can help you detect hidden risks, mitigate them, and protect and prevent data loss, and “One goal, many roles: Microsoft Security Copilot: Real-world insights and expert advice” (BRK316), which will share best practices and insider tricks to maximize Copilot’s benefits so you can realize quick value and enhance your security and IT operations.  
  • Threat landscape: Navigate effectively through the modern cyberthreat landscape, guided by the insights shared in sessions like “AI-driven ransomware protection at machine speed: Defender for Endpoint” (BRK325), which will share a secret in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint success and how it uses machine learning and threat intelligence, and the theater session “Threat intelligence at machine speed with Microsoft Security Copilot” (THR555), which will showcase how Copilot can be used as a research assistant, analyst, and responder to simplify threat management.
  • Regulatory compliance: Increase your confidence in meeting regulatory requirements by attending sessions like “Secure and govern your data estate with Microsoft Purview” (BRK317), which will explore how to secure and govern your data with Microsoft Purview, and “Secure and govern your data with Microsoft Fabric and Purview” (BRK327), which will dive into how Microsoft Purview works together with Microsoft Fabric for a comprehensive approach to secure and govern data.
  • Maximizing value: Discover how to maximize the value of your cybersecurity investments during sessions like “Transform your security with GenAI innovations in Security Copilot” (BRK307), which will showcase how Microsoft Security Copilot’s automation capabilities and use cases can elevate your security organization-wide, and “AI-driven ransomware protection at machine speed: Defender for Endpoint” (BRK325), which will dive into the key secret to the success of Defender for Endpoint customers in reducing the risk of ransomware attacks as well maximizing the value of the product’s new features and user interfaces.

Explore cybersecurity tools with product showcases and hands-on training

Learning about Microsoft security capabilities is useful, but there’s nothing like trying out the solutions for yourself. Our in-depth showcases and hands-on trainings give you the chance to explore these capabilities for yourself. Bring a notepad and your laptop and let’s put these tools to work.

  • “Secure access at the speed of AI with Copilot in Microsoft Entra” (THR556): Learn how AI with Security Copilot and Microsoft Entra can help you accelerate tasks like troubleshooting, automate cybersecurity insights, and strengthen Zero Trust.  
  • “Mastering custom plugins in Microsoft Security Copliot” (THR653): Gain practical knowledge of using Security Copilot’s capabilities during a hands-on session aimed at security and IT professionals ready for advanced customization and integration with existing security tools. 
  • “Getting started with Microsoft Sentinel” (LAB452): Get hands-on experience on building detections and queries, configuring your Microsoft Sentinel environment, and performing investigations. 
  • “Secure Azure services and workloads with Microsoft Defender for Cloud” (LAB457): Explore how to mitigate security risks with endpoint security, network security, data protection, and posture and vulnerability management. 
  • “Evolving from DLP to data security with Microsoft Preview” (THR658): See for yourself how Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) integrates with insider risk management and information protection to optimize your end-to-end DLP program. 

Network with Microsoft and other industry professionals

While you’ll gain a wealth of insights and learn about our latest product innovations in sessions, our ancillary events offer opportunities to connect and socialize with Microsoft and other security professionals as committed to you to strengthening the industry’s defenses against cyberthreats. That’s worth celebrating!

  • Pre-day Forum: All Chicago Microsoft Ignite attendees are welcome to add on to the event with our pre-day sessions on November 18, 2024, from 1 PM CT to 5 PM CT. Topics covered will include threat intelligence, Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative, AI innovation, and AI security research, and the event will feature a fireside chat with Microsoft partners and customers. The pre-day event is designed for decision-makers from businesses of all sizes to advance your security strategy. If you’re already attending in person, log in to your Microsoft Ignite registration and add on the Microsoft Security Ignite Forum.
  • Security Leaders Dinner: We’re hosting an exclusive dinner with leaders of security teams, where you can engage with your peers and provide insights on your greatest challenges and successes. This intimate gathering is designed specifically for CISOs and other senior security leaders to network, share learnings, and discuss what’s happening in cybersecurity.   
  • Secure the Night Party: All security professionals are encouraged to celebrate the cybersecurity community with Microsoft from 6 PM CT to 10 PM CT on Wednesday, November 20, 2024. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with Microsoft Security subject matter experts and peers at our “Secure the Night” party during Microsoft Ignite in Chicago. Enjoy an engaging evening of conversations and experiences while sipping tasty drinks and noshing on heavy appetizers provided by Microsoft. We look forward to welcoming you. Reserve your spot today

Something that excites us the most about Microsoft Ignite is the opportunity to meet with cybersecurity professionals dedicated to modern defense. Stop by the Microsoft Security Expert Meetup space to say hello, learn more about capabilities you’ve been curious about, or ask questions about Microsoft’s cybersecurity efforts. 

Hear from our Microsoft Intelligent Security Association partners at Microsoft Ignite

The Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA), comprised of independent software vendors (ISV) and managed security service providers (MSSPs) that have integrated their solutions with Microsoft’s security technology, will be back at Microsoft Ignite 2024.

We kick things off by celebrating our Security Partner of the Year award winners BlueVoyant (Security), Cyclotron (Compliance), and Inspark (Identity) who will join Vasu Jakkal for a fireside chat on “How security strategy is adapting for AI,” during the Microsoft Ignite Security Pre-day Forum. This panel discussion includes insights into trends partners are seeing with customers relating to AI, a view on practical challenges, and scenarios that companies encounter when deploying AI, as well as the expert guidance and best practices that security partners can offer to ensure successful AI integration in security strategies.

MISA is thrilled to welcome small and medium business (SMB) verified solution status to its portfolio. This solution verification highlights technology solutions that are purpose built to meet the needs of small and medium businesses, and the MSSPs who often manage IT and security on behalf of SMBs. MISA members who meet the qualifying criteria and have gone through engineering review, will receive a specialized MISA member badge showcasing the verification and will be featured in the MISA partner catalog. We are excited to launch this status with Blackpoint Cyber and Huntress.

Join MISA members including Blackpoint Cyber and Huntress at the Microsoft Expert Meetup Security area where 14 members will showcase their solutions and Microsoft Security Technology. Review the full schedule below.

Graphic showing the MISA partner schedule at Microsoft Ignite 2024.

We are looking forward to connecting with our customers and partners at the Microsoft Secure the Night Party on Wednesday, November 20, from 6 to 10 PM CT.  This evening event offers a chance to connect with Microsoft Security subject matter experts and MISA partners while enjoying cocktails, great food, and entertainment. A special thank you to our MISA sponsors: Armor, Cayosoft, ContraForce, HID, Lighthouse, Ontinue, and Quorum Cyber.

Register today to attend Microsoft Ignite online

There’s still time to register to participate in Microsoft Ignite online from November 19 to 22, 2024, to catch security-focused breakout sessions, product demos, and participate in interactive Q&A sessions with our experts. No matter how you participate in Microsoft Ignite, you’ll gain insights on how to secure your future with an AI-first, end-to-end cybersecurity approach to keep your organizations safer.

Plus, you can take your security knowledge further at Tech Community Live: Microsoft Security edition on December 3, 2024, to ask all your follow-up questions from Microsoft Ignite. Microsoft Experts will be hosting live Ask Microsoft Anything sessions on topics from Security for AI to Copilot for Security.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

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Activate your data responsibly in the era of AI with Microsoft Purview http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/security/blog/2024/09/25/activate-your-data-responsibly-in-the-era-of-ai-with-microsoft-purview/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 16:00:00 +0000 We are announcing preview for Microsoft Purview Information Protection to restrict content in Microsoft Fabric with sensitivity labels and Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention policies for lakehouses, and spotlighting our recent general availability of Microsoft Purview Data Governance solution.

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This week, teams across Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft Purview are gathered in Stockholm, Sweden, for the inaugural European Microsoft Fabric Community Conference. Attendees are in for an immersive experience with 130 sessions, 4 keynotes, 10 workshops, an expo hall, and a vibrant community lounge.

The Microsoft Purview team and I are thrilled to showcase the latest innovations in Microsoft Purview and Microsoft Fabric, designed to help customers secure, govern, and manage their complex data estates in the AI era. We’re excited to announce the preview of Microsoft Purview Information Protection, which allows for content restriction in Fabric using sensitivity labels, and Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention policies for lakehouses. Additionally, we’re highlighting the recent general availability of the Microsoft Purview Data Governance solution.

Customers are asking for a seamless solution that turns data security, governance, and compliance into a team sport to effectively address the converging trends across 1. scale and sophistication of data threats; 2. increasing regulations; 3. ever-expanding data estate; and 4. acceleration of AI adoption within the business.

Microsoft Purview delivers a comprehensive set of solutions that can help your organization secure, govern, and manage data for compliance and regulatory needs, wherever it lives. As we engage with customers at the Fabric Conference this week, we underscore the pivotal role of security and governance in laying the groundwork for responsible analytics. For businesses all over the world, this comprehensive approach balances the need to secure and protect data from cyberthreats with the need to activate data for business insights and AI.

Chart image with blue background including a horizontal line with an icon of a shield and checkmark in the middle.

Integrated with Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Purview and Microsoft Fabric are committed to delivering a rich integrated experience so customers can seamlessly secure and govern their data estate efficiently to help meet regulatory, compliance, and privacy requirements while ensuring high-quality data for data activation. For Fabric customers, this means you can discover, secure, govern, and manage Fabric items from within Microsoft Purview as a single pane of glass across your heterogeneous data estate.

Microsoft Purview helps you seamlessly discover data assets in OneLake, extend the same Microsoft Purview data security sensitivity labels and policies from Microsoft 365 to Fabric items, and curate your Fabric data assets into a single enterprise data catalog along with other data sources like Azure Databricks, Snowflake, and Google Big Query. And this seamless integration doesn’t require any data movement or duplication, helping you reduce data sprawl and silos.

Seamlessly secure your data

Microsoft Purview Data Security capabilities are already loved and leveraged by customers around the world for their Microsoft 365 data, and with today’s announcements, we are extending this value further to Microsoft Fabric customers. These added investments enhance the Microsoft Purview Data Security capabilities already available for Fabric released in March.

Now in preview, Microsoft Purview Information Protection now includes the ability to restrict access to content based on sensitivity labels for Fabric data, which helps you discover, classify, and protect sensitive information, including the ability to apply sensitivity labels. By extending the sensitivity label support to Fabric data, security admins can now use sensitivity labels to manage who has access to Fabric items with certain labels. For example, a security admin could restrict access to data items with a “financial data” sensitivity label to only users in the finance department.

Image of Microsoft Purview Information Protection sensitivity label functionality, including restricting access.

We are also extending support for Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (Purview DLP) policies for your Fabric items. Purview DLP helps an organization protect sensitive data and reduce the risk of data oversharing by letting organizations define and apply policies. With these new integrations, security admins can now apply Purview DLP policies to Fabric data. As an example, a policy can be set to help detect the upload of sensitive data, like social security numbers to a lakehouse in Fabric. If detected, the policy will trigger an automatic audit activity, which can alert the security admin, and can also surface a custom policy tip to data owners to take action and remedy the non-compliance with the policy.

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention detecting the upload of sensitive data in Fabric.

Learn more about Microsoft Purview Data Security integrations in Fabric.

Confidently activate your data

Microsoft Purview’s new data governance experience was made generally available on September 1, 2024. This newly reimagined solution is purpose-built for federated data governance and offers a business-friendly experience, AI-powered experiences for dramatic efficiencies, and all the key ingredients you’d expect, including catalog curation, data quality management, actionable insights, rich user experiences, and integration with third-party data management solutions—helping organizations to confidently activate their data for analytics and AI.

Microsoft Fabric customers can complement the governance capabilities in Fabric for a single-pane-of-glass experience in Microsoft Purview for data catalog curation, data user access, data quality management, health controls, and actionable insights for Fabric items and for data assets across your heterogeneous data environment.

A complete solution for the modern data governance practice

Data Catalog management offers a business-friendly experience and terms, making it easy to logically build a data catalog for your unique business needs while built-in AI serves up recommendations based on your active metadata. Data owners and data stewards can easily participate across data curation and management, responsible data access, and impact analysis—easily combining data assets from the heterogenous data estate (for example: Fabric, Databricks, Snowflake, and Google). Data users can seamlessly and securely request access to data assets for use in insights, analysis, development, and AI.

The Microsoft Purview Dashboard Data Catalog dashboard view.

Data Health management offers a rich experience across data quality capabilities, actionable insights, and health reports, which help organizations to assess and action the quality of their governed data estate—making it easy and efficient to support a strong healthy data governance posture. With complete data quality capabilities, you can apply built-in rules and AI-generated rules that are applied and translate into data quality scores and actions across your data assets, data products, and governance domains, helping you to more effectively manage and improve your data governance posture. Data Health controls enable data stewards and chief data officers to assess the health of their data estate through the lens of industry-recognized standards and controls. While the control rules are established at a global level, execution is delegated to individual governance domains, allowing for the application of broad standards while meeting the specific needs of various groups within the organization.

Image of the Microsoft Purview Data Health Controls dashboard.

Purpose-built integration with industry-leading master data management and data modeling solutions extend the value of Microsoft Purview further and help customers maximize their existing data management investments.

  • CluedIn brings native master data management and Data Quality functionality to Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft Purview, and the Azure stack. Learn more about CluedIn
  • Profisee Master Data Management is a complimentary and necessary piece of your data governance strategy. Learn more about Profisee
  • Semarchy combines master data management, data intelligence, and data integration into a singular application in any environment. Learn more about Semarchy.  
  • RELTIO’s AI-powered data unification and management solutions unify data from disparate sources, delivering a single source of truth. Learn more about RELTIO.
  • ER/Studio (an Idera company) delivers advanced data modeling and metadata management to help organizations improve their data posture. Learn more about ER/Studio.

The general availability release also delivered new data governance capability not previously available during preview. Some of these new capabilities include: customers can now delete business concepts, more easily manage data access through the data catalog admin settings, view data product access request workflows, browse an enterprise glossary to better understand terms, and apply the Data Quality capabilities to Azure Synapse, Databricks Unity Catalog, Fabric Lakehouse, Google Big Query (preview), and Snowflake. Check out the complete list of new capabilities in Microsoft Purview Data Governance.

Learn more about Microsoft Purview

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