The security landscape has become increasingly challenging and complex for customers. Threats have grown at an alarming rate over the last year, and cybercrime attacks continue to increase in scale. 

Last year, Microsoft Security blocked over 9.6 billion malware threats and more than 35.7 billion phishing and other malicious emails. With these issues showing no sign of slowing down, Microsoft has announced an expansion of its security services for organisations. Keep reading to find out more about the new offering.

The Microsoft Security Experts Offering

Microsoft has launched ‘Microsoft Security Experts,’ which includes support from Microsoft’s partners. There were also three new Microsoft managed services coming soon this year that have been announced to address specific security issues. With the security landscape becoming increasingly challenging, Microsoft hopes that ‘Security Experts’ will allow businesses to benefit from human-led security attention without having to create a security operations centre (SOC). 

The three new products are called Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting, Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR, and Microsoft Security Services for Enterprise – each offering varying degrees of threat hunting and proactive security monitoring for customers.

Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting

For businesses that already have a SOC but are looking for proactive help from Microsoft’s team of experts for security threats in their environments. Experts will scan data from Microsoft Defender, endpoints, Office 365, cloud applications, and identity solutions before investigating potential issues and providing instructions on how to combat the threat, along with contextual information to help improve overall security posture.  
 
This product will be generally available in summer 2022 with applications to join the preview program open now.

Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR

Entering its preview stage in autumn 2022, there is not a lot of information about Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR but here is what we have so far.  

Microsoft said the product is for organisations that, again, already have an established SOC but the detection and response from Microsoft experts will expand beyond endpoints. A mix of automation and human-led attention will be given to organisations looking for a managed extended detection and response (XDR) service while being able to “control and reduce costs, excess noise, and manual processes”. 

Microsoft Security Services for Enterprise

The next product is targeted towards larger businesses, bringing together threat hunting, managed XDR and security information and event management (SIEM) to protect businesses across all platforms and cloud environments. 

Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting and Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR are products designed for businesses looking for expert assistance in their security operations, while Microsoft Security Services for Enterprise is a product that sees Microsoft entirely manage security on behalf of the customer. 

The announcement of the new services marks an extension of Microsoft Industry Solutions, which already offers expert support for incident response or crisis scenarios, and for modernisation strategies for companies looking to apply industry best practices, such as zero trust, to their organisation. 

The two services under the Microsoft Industry Solutions umbrella, Microsoft Security Services for Modernisation and Microsoft Security Services for Incident Response, will also soon be grouped under the new Microsoft Security Experts branding. 

To find out more about these security services or to find out how to keep your organisation protected from cyberthreats, contact our team who can help.