Microsoft inaugurates Cyber Signals, a new quarterly column on its blog on the state of the cybersecurity sector, with a rather impressive figure: namely that in 2021 the company has blocked nearly 71 billion cyberattacks, merging data from Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, and Azure Active Directory. More in detail:
- EndpointThese are the Defender instances installed on both private and corporate “client” devices, such as Windows PCs. 9.6 billion malware attacks were blocked.
- Office 365: concretely, it is the protection of one’s email account, which is the favorite target of scammers, at least in terms of quantity. As many as 35.7 billion were emails that contained phishing attempts and other attacks. Also, in this case, both private (“consumer”) and corporate / enterprise users are considered in the calculation.
- Azure Active DirectoryThese is attempting to compromise corporate accounts, mostly through brute force attacks using leaked online password databases.
Microsoft is pleased with the results, but also notes that the volume, speed, and sophistication of cyber-attacks are growing rapidly. The problem is that there would also be measures to mitigate them, such as two (or more) factor authentication, but few use them. The company’s internal data notes for example that the adoption rate among Azure Active Directory customers is just 22%.
Remember, this is only part of Microsoft’s cybersecurity efforts. There are other types of attacks against which the company defends its customers: among these, it is worth mentioning the DDoS, which this year alone recorded three new intensity records, up to 3.47 Tbps.
