Microsoft unveils Microsoft Security Experts as a new service category

Microsoft is offering new and expanded services for security under a new service category, Microsoft Security Experts. Security Experts includes three new managed services—Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting, Microsoft Defender Experts for extended detection and response (XDR), Microsoft Security Services for Enterprise—as well as two existing services, Microsoft Security Experts for Modernization, and Microsoft Security Experts for Incident Response.

Last year, Microsoft Security blocked over 9.6 billion malware threats and more than 35.7 billion phishing and other malicious emails. Microsoft Security is actively tracking more than 35 ransomware families and 250 unique threat actors across observed nation-state, ransomware, and criminal activities, and its technology has blocked more than 900 brute force password theft attempts every second.

Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President, Security, Compliance and Identity at Microsoft, said, “As attacks increase in scale, so must our defenses. It’s getting harder every day for organizations to build and maintain a full security team, let alone one with the ever-expanding skill set required to meet the range of today’s security demands. This is why we are launching Microsoft Security Experts, which combines expert-trained technology with human-led services to help organizations achieve more secure, compliant, and productive outcomes. It is our vision of delivering this category of services end-to-end, across security, compliance, identity, management, and privacy.”

Microsoft has designed three new managed services that will help partners and customers scale their team of experts to fit their needs, without having to face hiring and training challenges.

Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting - It is for customers who have a robust security operations center but want Microsoft to help them proactively hunt for threats across Microsoft Defender data, including endpoints, Office 365, cloud applications, and identity.

Microsoft’s experts will investigate anything they find and hand off the contextual alert information and remediation instructions to the business for it to quickly respond. The ‘Experts on Demand’ offering will also provide businesses access to consultations with a Microsoft expert about a specific incident, nation-state actor, or attack vector. Businesses will also receive specific recommendations to help them understand and improve their security posture.

Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR - Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR is available for customers who need to extend the capacity of their security operations center. It is a managed XDR service that extends beyond endpoints to provide detection and response across Microsoft 365 Defender, investigating alerts, and using automation and human expertise to respond to incidents alongside the business’ security team. This service allows the business to stay in control and reduce costs, excess noise, and manual processes.

Defender Experts for XDR will move into preview in late 2022.

Microsoft Security Services for Enterprise It is available for large enterprises looking for more comprehensive, high-touch managed services from Microsoft experts. This comprehensive, expert-led service combines proactive threat hunting and managed XDR, leveraging Microsoft’s complete security information and event management (SIEM) and XDR stack to protect all cloud environments and all platforms. Dedicated Microsoft security experts will manage onboarding, daily interaction, practice modernization, and incident response for businesses.

Microsoft Security currently already offers a broad set of services for incident response and advisory through its Microsoft Industry Solutions group. These service offerings are designed to support customers in times of crisis and to help them modernize their security practices. They will become part of the Microsoft Security Experts portfolio moving forward and will be delivered by Microsoft’s global team of professional services experts.