Microsoft 365 E5 Security is now available as an add-on to Microsoft 365 Business Premium
The threat landscape continues to evolve creating ongoing challenges for small and medium businesses (SMBs) that are faced with increased regulations and cyberinsurance requirements. Today, Microsoft 365 Business Premium delivers core security solutions to SMBs that help safeguard data, defend against cyberthreats, and manage access and devices. With the growing volume of attacks and increased sophistication of threats, there are SMBs that want enhanced cybersecurity protection for their business. We are pleased to announce that Business Premium customers are now able to purchase Microsoft 365 E5 Security as an add-on to further enhance their security. E5 Security brings new security value on top of Business Premium with Microsoft Entra ID Plan 2, Microsoft Defender for Identity, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 2, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps. (ENHANCED) Identity and access controls Business Premium includes Microsoft Entra ID P1, which provides single sign-on, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and conditional access to help SMBs manage user identities and enable access to applications and resources from trusted users, devices, and locations. Microsoft Entra ID P2 offers advanced security and governance features including Microsoft Entra ID Protection and Microsoft Entra ID Governance. Microsoft Entra ID protection offers risk-based conditional access that helps block identity attacks in real time using behavioral analytics and signals from both user risk and sign-in risk. It also enables SMBs to detect, investigate, and remediate potential identity-based risks using sophisticated machine learning and anomaly detection capabilities. With detailed reports and alerts, your business is notified of suspicious user activities and sign-in attempts, including scenarios like a password-spray where attackers try to gain unauthorized access to company employee accounts by trying a small number of commonly used passwords across many different accounts. ID Governance capabilities are also included to help automate workflows and processes that give users access to resources. For example, IT admins historically manage the onboarding process manually and generate repetitive user access requests for Managers to review which is time consuming and inefficient. With ID Governance capabilities, pre-configured workflows facilitate the automation of employee onboarding, user access, and lifecycle management throughout their employment, streamlining the process and reducing onboarding time. (NEW) Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Microsoft Defender XDR delivers a unified and efficient approach to incident-level visibility across the attack lifecycle. Together XDR and exposure management (XSPM) consolidate multiple siloed security solutions to provide best-of-breed capabilities across identities, endpoints, apps, and email. (NEW) Identity threat detection and response (ITDR) Identities are one of the most common attack vectors making identity-specific threat detection and response a critical element to secure your business. Microsoft Defender for Identity includes dedicated sensors and connectors for common identity elements that offer visibility into your unique identity landscape and provide detailed posture recommendations, robust detections and response actions. These powerful detections are then automatically enriched and correlated with data from other domains across Defender XDR for true incident-level visibility. (ENHANCED) Device security Microsoft Defender for Business (MDB) already brings enterprise-grade device protection capabilities to Business Premium customers across Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android devices. It includes vulnerability management, next-generation antivirus protection, AI-powered endpoint detection and response with automatic attack disruption, and automated investigation and remediation. With streaming APIs, customers and partners can build Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services with Defender for Business. For customers who need advanced hunting, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P2 adds advanced hunting, and 6 months of data retention on the device, along with endpoint security for IoT devices. (ENHANCED) Email and Collaboration security Microsoft Defender for Office 365 P1 in Business Premium includes SafeLinks with time of click URL filtering, safe attachments with real-time attachment scanning in sandbox, and phishing and malware defense across email, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint. It also has AI-powered LLM-based threat protection with 99.995% attacker intent detection accuracy. With Defender for Office 365 P2, you gain access to cyber-attack simulation training, which provides SMBs with a safe and controlled environment to simulate real-world cyber-attacks, helping to train employees in recognizing phishing attempts. Additionally automated response capabilities and post-breach investigations help reduce the time and resources required to identify and remediate potential security breaches. Detailed reports are also available that capture information on employees’ URL clicks, internal and external email distribution, and more. (NEW) Software-as-a-service (SaaS) security Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a comprehensive, AI-powered software-as-a-service (SaaS) security solution that enables IT teams to identify and manage shadow IT and ensure that only approved applications are used. It protects against sophisticated SaaS-based attacks, OAuth attacks, and risky interactions with GenAI apps by combing SaaS app discovery, security posture management, app-to-app protection, and integrated threat protection. IT teams can gain full visibility into their SaaS app landscape, understand the risks and set up controls to manage the apps. SaaS security posture management quickly identifies app misconfigurations and provides remediation actions to reduce the attack surface. E5 Security delivers added protection to meet the growing needs of SMBs in a package that is cost-effective. Purchasing E5 Security has 57% savings when compared to the cost of separately purchasing the individual products that are included. FAQ When will E5 Security be available for purchase? E5 Security is available for purchase as an add-on to Business Premium starting today, 3/6. How can I purchase E5 Security? You can purchase E5 Security as an add-on to Business Premium through Microsoft Security for SMBs website or through your Partner. Does Microsoft 365 Business Premium plus Microsoft 365 E5 Security allow mixed licensing for endpoint security solutions? Microsoft Defender for Business does not support mixed licensing so a tenant with Defender for Business (included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium) along with Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 (included in Microsoft 365 Security) will default to Defender for Business. For example, if you have 80 users licensed for Microsoft 365 Business Premium and you’ve added Microsoft 365 E5 Security for 30 of those users, the experience for all users will default to Defender for Business. If you would like to change that to the Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 experience, you should license all users for Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 (either through standalone or Microsoft 365 E5 Security) and then contact Microsoft Support to request the switch for your tenant. You can learn more here. What are the differences between Microsoft Defender for Business and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P2? MDB includes many of the same features as MDE P2, including enterprise-grade device protection for Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android devices, vulnerability management, next-generation antivirus protection, AI-powered endpoint detection and response with automatic attack disruption, and automated investigation and remediation. MDE P2 adds endpoint security for IoT devices, threat hunting, and 6 months of data retention on the device. A detailed comparison is available here. As a Partner, how do I build Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services with MDB? For partners or customers looking to build their own security operations center (SOC) with MDR, Defender for Business supports the streaming of device events (device file, registry, network, logon events and more) to Azure Event Hub, Azure Storage, and Microsoft Sentinel to support advanced hunting and attack detection. If you are using the streaming API for the first time, you can find step-by-step instructions in the Microsoft 365 Streaming API Guide on configuring the Microsoft 365 Streaming API to stream events to your Azure Event Hubs or to your Azure Storage Account. To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions for SMBs you can visit our website. Partners can access training resources, customer decks and deployment checklists from our Business Premium Partner Playbook and find additional resources for Microsoft Security for Partners.
Defending Container Runtime from Malware with Microsoft Defender for Containers
In cloud-native environments, malware protection is no longer traditional antivirus — it is runtime workload security, ensuring containerized applications remain safe throughout their lifecycle. Many organizations focus on scanning container images before deployment. While image scanning is important, this does not stop runtime attacks. Image scanning protects before deployment, but malware detection protects during execution. Malware can enter cloud environments through container images, compromised CI/CD pipelines, exposed services, or misuse of legitimate administrative tools, making runtime malware detection an essential security control rather than an optional enhancement. Runtime Malware detection and Prevention acts as the last line of defence when preventive controls fail. If malware executes successfully inside a container, it may attempt Privilege escalation, Container escape and Host compromise. Antimalware in Defender for Containers Defender for Containers antimalware, powered by Microsoft Defender Antivirus cloud protection, near-real-time malware detection directly into container environments. The antimalware feature is available via Helm with sensor version 0.10.2 for AKS, GKE, and EKS. Defender for Containers Sensor Defender for Containers Antimalware provides: Runtime monitoring of container activity Malware detection on Container Workloads Malware detection for Kubernetes nodes Alerts integrated into Defender XDR Anti-malware detection and blocking - Microsoft Defender for Cloud | Microsoft Learn Container antimalware protection in Defender for Containers is powered by three main components: 1) Defender Sensor - version 0.10.2 installed via Helm or arc-extension The Defender sensor runs inside the Kubernetes cluster and monitors workload activity in real time. It provides: Runtime visibility into container processes Binary execution monitoring Behavioral inspection Alert and Block Malware execution Multicloud Support (Azure Kubernetes Service, AWS EKS, GCP GKE) Prerequisites: Ensure the following components of the Defender for containers plan are enabled: Defender sensor Security findings Registry access Kubernetes API access To Install Defender Sensor for Antimalware, ensure there are sufficient resources on your Kubernetes Cluster and outbound connectivity. In addition to the core sensor memory and CPU requirements, you need: Component Request Limit CPU 50m 300m Memory 128Mi 500Mi All sensor components use outbound-only connectivity (no inbound access required). To install Defender for Containers sensor follow the guidance here To Verify the sensor deployed successfully on all nodes, use the commands as screenshot below: You should see the collectors pods in Running state with 3/3 containers. 2) Antimalware Policy Engine Policies define what happens when malware is detected: Alert only Block execution Ignore (allowlisted cases) Policies can be scoped to Azure subscriptions, AWS Accounts and GCP Projects and also to Specific clusters, Namespaces, Pods, Images, Labels or workloads. This allows organizations to reduce false positives while enforcing strict security where needed. Host vs Workload Protection — How Sensor Covers Both Antimalware Rules can be applied to Resource scopes: Scope What Is Protected Workload (Container) Processes inside containers Host (Node) Kubernetes node OS and runtime Default rules include: Default antimalware workload rule Default antimalware host rule This matters because attackers often escape containers and target kubelet, container runtime, and node filesystem. Blocking malware at both workload and host layers prevents cluster takeover. To configure the Antimalware policy follow the guidance here To verify the antimalware policy is deployed to the cluster, login to your K8s cluster and use the commands as screenshot below: 3) Cloud Protection (Microsoft Defender Antivirus Cloud) Defender for Containers Sensor integrates with Microsoft Defender Antivirus cloud protection, which provides Global threat intelligence, Machine learning classification, Reputation scoring, Zero-day detection. When suspicious binaries appear, cloud analysis determines whether they should be allowed or blocked. To test Malware detection and blocking, upload an EICAR file to a running Container on your cluster. If policy action = Block Malware, the sensor performs enforcement. Blocking actions include, Killing malicious process and Generates Defender for Cloud alert as below: The malware is detected and execution is blocked. Defender for Cloud Alerts are also available in Defender XDR portal. Security Operations teams can further investigate the infected file by navigating to the Incidents and Alerts section in the Defender portal. When a container or pod is determined to be compromised, Defender XDR enables Security Operations Team to take response actions. For more details : Investigate and respond to container threats in the Microsoft Defender portal Binary Drift Detection and Prevention : Containers are expected to be immutable. Running containers should only execute binaries that came from the original container image. This is extremely important because most container attacks involve Curl/wget downloading malware, Crypto miners dropped post-compromise, Attack tools installed dynamically. For more details refer Binary drift detection and blocking Defender detects runtime drift, such as New binaries downloaded after deployment Files written into container filesystem Tools installed via reverse shell Payloads dropped by attackers To Configure drift detection and prevention policy follow the guidance here . When a drift is detected on a container workload, Defender for Container sensor detects drift and prevents it from being drifted. To test drift prevention, deploy a container and introduce a drift in the running container. The drift will be detected by the sensor and prevents drift, and alert is generated as shown in the screenshot below: References: Anti-malware detection and blocking Install Defender for Containers sensor using Helm Binary drift detection and blocking Investigate and respond to container threats in the Microsoft Defender portal Reviewed by: Eyal Gur, Principal Product Manager, Microsoft Defender for CloudHyperscale ML threat intelligence for early detection & disruption
Co-author: Amir Gharib In today's rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape, the ability to swiftly identify and mitigate threats is more critical than ever. Attackers are increasingly well-resourced, enabling them to keep adding new components to their toolkits that keep their infrastructure fresh and hard to detect. Traditional labeling methods used to identify and block malicious infrastructure are struggling to keep up. At Microsoft, we recognize the pressing need for innovative solutions that not only keep pace with these threats but stay ahead of them. This past Ignite, we announced Threat Intelligence Tracking via Dynamic Networks (TITAN)—a groundbreaking approach that uses the power of machine learning to transform threat intelligence and attack disruption by automatically neutralizing malicious activity at scale. By leveraging real-time ML-driven analytics, TITAN uncovers previously hidden threat actor infrastructure, enabling the disruption capabilities built into our unified security operations platform to detect and stop attacks significantly earlier in the attack chain (Figure 1). The power of machine-scale threat intelligence TITAN represents a new wave of innovation built on Microsoft threat intelligence capabilities, introducing a real-time, adaptive threat intelligence (TI) graph that integrates first and third-party telemetry from the unified security operations platform, Microsoft Defender for Threat Intelligence, Microsoft Defender for Experts, and customer feedback. This graph employs guilt-by-association techniques to propagate known TI labels to unknown neighboring entities (e.g., IP, file, email) at machine scale. By analyzing relationships between entities, TITAN can identify attacker infrastructure before they are leveraged in attacks, providing an invaluable window of opportunity to prevent harm. Figure 1. Architectural overview of TITAN, comprising four key steps: (1) constructing a graph using telemetry from 1 st and 3 rd party detectors in the Unified Security Operations Platform, (2) integrating known threat intelligence from across Microsoft, (3) applying reputation propagation algorithms to classify previously unknown entities as either benign or malicious, and (4) updating the reputation score for each entity in the graph. By leveraging guilt-by-association methods, TITAN can swiftly identify hidden threat actor infrastructure through cross-organizational associations with known malicious entities within the TI graph. Specifically, we employ a semi-supervised label propagation technique that iteratively assigns reputation scores to nodes based on their neighbors’ scores, refining the graph’s score distribution until convergence. These high-confidence entity reputation scores empower the unified security operations platform to implement proactive containment and remediation actions via attack disruption. A key advantage of our constantly evolving threat intelligence is that we can provide clear and explainable reputation scores for each entity by examining the neighboring entities that contribute to the overall score. Preventing attacks before they happen Consider a scenario where TITAN detects unusual activity from a seemingly benign IP address that has connections to known malicious domains. Traditional systems might not flag this IP until after malicious activity is confirmed. However, TITAN's guilt-by-association techniques elevate the reputation score of the IP address, immediately triggering detection and disruption rules that block the threat before any damage occurs. With an impressive average macro-F1 score of 0.89 and a precision-recall AUC of 0.94, TITAN identifies millions of high-risk entities each week, enabling a 6x increase in non-file threat intelligence. Since its deployment, TITAN has reduced the time to disrupt by a factor of 1.9x while maintaining 99% precision, as confirmed by customer feedback and thorough manual evaluation by security experts—ultimately saving customers from costly security breaches. Dynamic threat intelligence graph construction At the heart of TITAN is a dynamic, time-evolving threat intelligence graph that captures complex relationships between millions of interlinked entities, alerts, and incidents. By combining telemetry across both 1 st and 3 rd party sources in the unified security operations platform, TITAN is uniquely positioned for comprehensive view of the threat landscape, essential for early detection and disruption. Key features include: Real-time updates – In cybersecurity, speed is critical. TITAN operates in real-time, with graph creation and reputation propagation algorithms running every hour. This frequency ensures that security teams receive fresh and active threat intelligence, enabling swift and effective responses to emerging threats. The ability to act quickly can mean the difference between thwarting an attack and being breached. Infusing security domain knowledge via edge weights – Edges in the TI graph carry weights that signify the strength or relevance of the relationships between entities. We introduce edge weight decay functions that automatically reduce edge weights based on the time elapsed since the edge was formed. This ensures that newer and more relevant relationships have a greater impact on reputation assessments, aligning the dynamic graph with the real-time nature of security incidents. Pruning outdated nodes and edges – To maintain the relevance and efficiency of the TI graph, we implement pruning mechanisms that remove nodes and edges when their weights fall below certain thresholds. This approach keeps the graph focused on the most current and meaningful connections, ensuring optimal performance. Evolving cybersecurity defense with TI TITAN represents a monumental step forward in the mission to protect organizations from cyber threats. By infusing the power of AI with advanced threat intelligence, we are equipping security teams with the tools they need to stay ahead of the attackers. This is only possible with a unified platform that consolidates threat intelligence across 1 st and 3 rd party workloads and products, organizations benefit not only from streamlining their security operations but also gain deeper insights into potential threats and vulnerabilities. TITAN is just one of the many examples of how powerful bringing together the full capabilities of an industry-leading cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM), comprehensive extended detection and response (XDR), and generative AI built specifically for cybersecurity. Integrating all of this data, advanced analysis, threat intel and automation enables an entirely new era of defense for security teams and we’re so energized by the potential. TITAN is just the start – look forward to new capabilities announced in the coming months. Learn More Check out our resources to learn more about our new approach to AI-driven threat intelligence, and our recent security announcements: See TITAN in action in the session delivered at Ignite Read the full paper on the TITAN architecture Read the Copilot for Security Guided Response paper & blog Read the unified security operations platform GA announcementOnboarding MDE with Defender for Cloud (Problem)
Hello Community, In our Customer i have a strange problem. We onboarded with Azure Arc server and activate a Defender for Cloud servises only for Endpoint protection. Some of this device onboarded into Microsoft Defender portale, but not appears as a device, infact i don't have opportunity to put them into a group to apply policy. I have check sensor of Azure Arc and all works fine (device are in Azure Arc, are in the defender portal and see them on Intune (managed by MDE)). From Intune portal From Defender portal But in difference from other device into entra ID exists only the enterprise application and not device I show the example of device that works correctly (the same onboarding method) Is there anyone who has or has had this problem? Thanks and Regards, GuidoFrom signal to strategy: Closing attack paths with identity intelligence
Compromised credentials remain one of the most common entry points for attackers. In the first half of 2025 alone, identity-based attacks surged more than 32% and its estimated that 97% of them are password focused. While that scale is overwhelming, it only takes a single exposed account to give an attacker a foothold from which they can move laterally towards the critical assets they are after. At today’s attack scale, identity signals need to be connected with broader context to stop attacks earlier in the kill chain. Today we are excited to share more about how Microsoft Defender can help security professionals proactively understand how identity-related risks, like leaked credentials, relate back to critical assets, helping security professionals proactively close potential entry points before they can be exploited. Understanding leaked credentials and attack paths: Leaked credentials refer to valid usernames and passwords that have been exposed beyond their intended scope. Whether this exposure occurs as part of a data breach, phishing attack, or postings on dark web forums, the result is the same: an attacker may be using legitimate credentials to access your organization. Similarly, attack paths describe the sequence of misconfigurations, permissions, and trust relationships that an attacker can chain together to move from an initial foothold to high‑value resources. Rather than relying on a single vulnerability, attackers tend to think in graphs, following paths of least resistance to systematically escalate privileges and expand access. This makes identities the primary control plane they target and leaked credentials as an extremely common entry point. The recent Microsoft digital defense report put this into focus, stating that more than 61% of attack paths lead to a sensitive user. These user accounts have elevated privileges or access to critical resources meaning that if they were to be attacked or misused it would significantly impact the organization. Microsoft’s differentiated approach Most solutions stop at the alert and can only tell you that a password was exposed, found, or leaked. That information matters, but it is incomplete, it describes an event, not the risk. The real differentiation starts with the next question: what does this exposure mean for my environment right now. Not every exposed password creates the same level of risk. Context is what determines impact. Which identity does the password belong to? What assets can that identity access? Does that access still exists? And are those assets truly sensitive? That is why exposed password detection is a starting point, not an end state. Effective protection begins when organizations move beyond technical alerts and toward an identity-aware understanding. This shift from detection to context is where better decisions are made and where meaningful security value is created. This is why we took our identity alerts a step further, connecting these risks with broader security context to reveal how an initial identity signal can lead to sensitive users, critical assets, and core business operations. This perspective moves security beyond isolated alerts to prioritized, actionable insight that shows not just if risk exists, but how identity‑based threats could unfold and where to intervene to stop them before they have impact. In the case of leaked credentials, Microsoft continuously scans for exposed accounts across public and private breach sources. If a match is found, Microsoft’s Advanced Correlation Engine (MACE) automatically identifies the affected user within your organization and surfaces the exposure with clear severity and context. By bringing this powerful detection into Defender, teams can investigate and respond with better context, allowing leaked credentials to be evaluated alongside endpoint, email, and app activity, giving teams additional context needed to prioritize response. Additionally, for Microsoft Entra ID accounts we can go a step further validating whether the discovered credentials actually corresponds to a real, usable password for an identity in the tenant. This confirmation further reduces unnecessary noise and gives defenders an early signal - often before any malicious activity begins. Next, Microsoft Defender steps in to correlate these signals with your organization’s unique security context. Connecting the alert and associated account with other signals and like unusual authentications, lateral movement attempts, or privilege escalations, elevating the isolated alert into a complete story about any potential incidents related to that vulnerability. At the same time, Microsoft Exposure management is analyzing the same data to create a potential attack path related to the exposed credentials. By tracing permissions, consents, and access relationships, Attack Paths show exactly which routes an attacker could take and what controls will break that path. When these capabilities work together, visibility becomes action. MACE identifies who is exposed, Defender connects other signals into an incident level view and Attack Paths reveal where the attacker could go next. The result is a single, connected workflow that transforms early exposure data into prioritized, measurable risk reduction. Conclusion Leaked credentials should be treated as the beginning of a story, not an isolated event. Microsoft Defender is uniquely able to enrich security teams visibility and understanding of Identity-related threats from initial exposure to detection, risk prioritization, and remediation. This connected visibility fundamentally changes how defenders manage identity risk, shifting the focus from reacting to individual alerts to continuously reducing exposure and limiting blast radius. One leaked password doesn’t have to become a breach. With Microsoft’s identity security capabilities, it becomes a closed path, and a measurable step toward greater resilience. Learn more about attack paths and the new leaked credentials capabilities in Defender.Microsoft Defender for Cloud Customer Newsletter
What's new in Defender for Cloud? Now in public preview, Microsoft Security Private Link allows for private connectivity between Defender for Cloud and your workloads. For more information, see our public documentation. Blogs of the month In January, our team published the following blog posts we would like to share: Guarding Kubernetes Deployments: Runtime gating for vulnerable images now GA Architecting Trust: A NIST-Based Security Governance Framework for AI Agents Defender for Cloud in the field Revisit the announcement on the CloudStorageAggregatedEvents table in XDR’s Advanced Hunting experience. Storage aggregated logs in XDR’s advanced hunting Visit our YouTube page GitHub Community Update your Defender for SQL on machines extension at scale Update Defender for SQL extension at scale Visit our GitHub page Customer journey Discover how other organizations successfully use Microsoft Defender for Cloud to protect their cloud workloads. This month we are featuring Toyota Leasing Thailand. Toyota Leasing Thailand, a financial services subsidiary of Toyota, provides financing, insurance and mobility services and is entrusted with sensitive personal data. Integrating with Defender, Entra and Purview, Security Copilot provided the SOC and the IT team a unified view, streamlined operations and reporting to reduce response times on phishing attacks from hours to minutes. Join our community! We offer several customer connection programs within our private communities. By signing up, you can help us shape our products through activities such as reviewing product roadmaps, participating in co-design, previewing features, and staying up-to-date with announcements. Sign up at aka.ms/JoinCCP. We greatly value your input on the types of content that enhance your understanding of our security products. Your insights are crucial in guiding the development of our future public content. We aim to deliver material that not only educates but also resonates with your daily security challenges. Whether it’s through in-depth live webinars, real-world case studies, comprehensive best practice guides through blogs, or the latest product updates, we want to ensure our content meets your needs. Please submit your feedback on which of these formats do you find most beneficial and are there any specific topics you’re interested in https://aka.ms/PublicContentFeedback. Note: If you want to stay current with Defender for Cloud and receive updates in your inbox, please consider subscribing to our monthly newsletter: https://aka.ms/MDCNewsSubscribeMonthly news - January 2026
Microsoft Defender Monthly news - January 2026 Edition This is our monthly "What's new" blog post, summarizing product updates and various new assets we released over the past month across our Defender products. In this edition, we are looking at all the goodness from December 2025. Defender for Cloud has its own Monthly News post, have a look at their blog space. 🚀 New Virtual Ninja Show episode: Advancements in Attack Disruption Vulnerability Remediation Agent in Microsoft Intune Microsoft Defender (Public Preview) The following advanced hunting schema tables are now available for preview: The CampaignInfo table contains contains information about email campaigns identified by Microsoft Defender for Office 365 The FileMaliciousContentInfo table contains information about files that were processed by Microsoft Defender for Office 365 in SharePoint Online, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams General Availability of the Phishing Triage Agent: this agent autonomously analyzes user‑reported phishing emails to determine whether they’re true threats or false positives, dramatically reducing manual triage workload. It continuously learns from analyst feedback and provides clear, natural‑language explanations for every verdict, giving SOC teams both speed and transparency. We're excited to share it is now generally available and, very soon, will expand to also triage cloud and identity alerts! Learn more on our docs. Public Preview of Dynamic Threat Detection Agent: Announced at Ignite, this always‑on agent hunts for unseen threats by continuously correlating telemetry and creating new, context‑aware detections on the fly—closing gaps traditional rules can’t see. We're excited to share it is now in Public Preview! Learn more on our docs. Public Preview of Threat Hunting Agent: Announced at Ignite, this agent gives every analyst the power to investigate like an expert by turning natural‑language questions into guided, real‑time hunts that surface hidden patterns, reveal meaningful pivots, and eliminate the need to write complex queries. We're excited to share it is now in Public Preview! Learn more on our docs. General Availability of the Threat Intelligence Briefing Agent: this agent delivers daily, tailored intelligence briefings directly in Microsoft Defender—automatically synthesizing Microsoft’s global threat insights with your organization’s context to surface prioritized risks, clear recommendations, and relevant assets so teams can shift from reactive research to proactive defense in minutes. We're excited to share it is now generally available! Learn more on our docs. (General Availability) The hunting graph in advanced hunting is now generally available. It also now has two new predefined threat scenarios that you can use to render your hunts as interactive graphs. (General Availability) Advanced hunting now supports custom functions that use tabular parameters. With tabular parameters, you can pass entire tables as inputs. This approach lets you build more modular, reusable, and expressive logic across your hunting queries. Learn more Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (Public Preview) Triage collection: Use triage collection to prioritize incidents and hunt threats with the Sentinel Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. Microsoft Defender for Identity New ADWS LDAP search activity is now available in the 'IdentityQueryEvents' table in Advanced Hunting. This can provides visibility into directory queries performed through ADWS, helping customers track these operations and create custom detection based on this data. (Public Preview) New properties for 'sensorCandidate' resource type in Graph-API. Learn more here. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Integration of Defender for Cloud Apps permissions with Microsoft Defender XDR Unified RBAC is now available worldwide. For more information, see Map Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps permissions to the Microsoft Defender XDR Unified RBAC permissions. To activate the Defender for Cloud Apps workload, see Activate Microsoft Defender XDR Unified RBAC. (Public Preview) The Defender for Cloud Apps app governance unused app insights feature helps administrators identify and manage unused Microsoft 365-connected OAuth apps, enforce policy-based governance, and use advanced hunting queries for better security. This feature is now available for most commercial cloud customers. For more information, see Secure apps with app hygiene features.Turn Complexity into Clarity: Introducing the New UEBA Behaviors Layer in Microsoft Sentinel
Security teams today face an overwhelming challenge: every data point is now a potential security signal, and SOCs are drowning in fragmented, high-volume logs from countless sources - firewalls, cloud platforms, identity systems, and more. Analysts spend precious time translating between schemas, manually correlating events, and piecing together timelines across disparate data sources. For custom detections, it’s no different. What if you could transform this noisy complexity into clear, actionable security intelligence? Today, we're thrilled to announce the release of the UEBA Behaviors layer - a breakthrough AI-based UEBA capability in Microsoft Sentinel that fundamentally changes how SOC teams understand and respond to security events. The Behaviors layer translates low-level, noisy telemetry into human-readable behavioral insights that answer the critical question: "Who did what to whom, and why does it matter?" Instead of sifting through thousands of raw CloudTrail events or firewall logs, you get enriched, normalized behaviors - each one mapped to MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques, tagged with entity roles, and presented with a clear, natural-language explanation. All behaviors are aggregated and sequenced within a time window or specific trigger, to give you the security story that resides in the logs. What Makes the Behaviors Layer Different? Unlike alerts - which signal potential threats - or anomalies - which flag unusual activity - behaviors are neutral, descriptive observations. They don't decide if something is malicious; they simply describe meaningful actions in a consistent, security-focused way. The Behaviors layer bridges the gap between alerts (work items for the SOC, indicating a breach) and raw logs, providing an abstraction layer that makes sense of what happened without requiring deep familiarity with every log source. While existing UEBA capabilities provide insights and anomalies for a specific event (raw log), behaviors turn clusters of related events – based on time windows or triggers – into security data. The technology behind it: Generative AI powers the Behaviors layer to create and scale the insights it provides. AI is used to develop behavior logic, map entities, perform MITRE mapping, and ensure explainability - all while maintaining quality guardrails. Each behavior is mapped back to raw logs, so you can always trace which events contributed to it. Real-World Impact: We've been working closely with enterprise customers during private preview, and their feedback speaks volumes about the transformative potential of the Behaviors layer: "We're constantly exploring innovative ways to detect anomalous behavior for our detection engineering and incident enrichment. Behaviors adds a powerful new layer that also covers third-party data sources in a multi-cloud environment - seamlessly integrable and packed with rich insights, including MITRE mapping and detailed context for deeper correlation and context-driven investigation." (Glueckkanja) "Microsoft's new AI-powered extension for UEBA enhances behavioral capabilities for PaloAlto logs. By intelligently aggregating and sequencing low-level security events, it elevates them into high-fidelity 'behaviors' - powerful, actionable signals. This enhanced behavioral intelligence significantly can improve your security operations. During investigations, these behaviors are immediately pointing to unusual or suspicious activities and providing a rich, contextual understanding of an entity's actions. They serve as a stable starting point for the analysts, instead of sifting through millions of logs." (BlueVoyant) How It Works: Aggregation and Sequencing The Behaviors layer operates using two powerful patterns: Aggregation Behaviors detect volume-based patterns. For example: "User accessed 50+ AWS resources in 1 hour." These are invaluable for spotting unusual activity levels and turning high-volume logs into actionable security insights. Sequencing Behaviors detect multi-step patterns that surface complex chains invisible in individual events. For example: "Access key created → used from new IP → privileged API calls." This helps you spot sophisticated tactics and procedures across sources. Once enabled, behaviors are aggregated and sequenced based on time windows and triggers tailored to each logic. When the time window closes or a pattern is identified, the behavior log is created immediately - providing near real-time availability. The behaviors are stored as records in Log Analytics. This means each behavior record contributes to your data volume and will be billed according to your Sentinel/Log Analytics data ingestion rates. Use Cases: Empowering Every SOC Persona The new Behaviors layer in Microsoft Sentinel enhances the daily workflows of SOC analysts, threat hunters, and detection engineers by providing a unified, contextual view of security activity across diverse data sources. SOC analysts can now investigate incidents faster by querying behaviors tied to the entities involved in an incident. For example, instead of reviewing 20 separate AWS API calls, a single behavior like “Suspicious mass secret access via AWS IAM” provides immediate clarity and context, with or without filtering on specific MITRE ATT&CK mapping. Simply use the following query (choose the entity you’re investigating): let targetTechniques = dynamic ("Password Guessing (T1110.001)"); // to filter on MITRE ATT&CK let behaviorInfoFiltered = BehaviorInfo | where TimeGenerated > ago(1d) | where AttackTechniques has_any (targetTechniques) | project BehaviorId, AttackTechniques; BehaviorEntities | where TimeGenerated > ago(1d) | where AccountUpn == ("user@domain.com") | join kind=inner (behaviorInfoFiltered) on BehaviorId Threat hunters benefit from the ability to proactively search for behaviors mapped to MITRE tactics or specific patterns, uncovering stealthy activity such as credential enumeration or lateral movement without complex queries. Another use case, is looking for specific entities that move across the MITRE ATT&CK chain within a specific time window, for example: let behaviorInfo = BehaviorInfo | where TimeGenerated > ago(12h) | where Categories has "Persistance" or Categories has "Discovery" // Replace with actual tactics | project BehaviorId, Categories, Title, TimeGenerated; BehaviorEntities | where TimeGenerated > ago(12h) | extend EntityName = coalesce(AccountUpn, DeviceName, CloudResourceId) // Replace with actual entity types | join kind=inner (behaviorInfo) on BehaviorId | summarize BehaviorTypes = make_set(Title), AffectedEntities = dcount(EntityName) by bin(TimeGenerated, 5m) | where AffectedEntities > 5 Detection engineers can build simpler, more explainable rules using normalized, high-fidelity behaviors as building blocks. This enables faster deployment of detections and more reliable automation triggers, such as correlating a new AWS access key creation with privilege escalation within a defined time window. Another example is joining the rarest behaviors with other signals that include the organization’s highest value assets: BehaviorInfo | where TimeGenerated > ago(5d) | summarize Occurrences = dcount(behaviorId), FirstSeen = min(TimeGenerated), LastSeen = max(TimeGenerated) by Title | order by Occurrences asc Supported Data Sources & Coverage This release focuses on most common non-Microsoft data sources that traditionally lack easy behavioral context in Sentinel. Coverage of more behaviors will expand over time - both within each data source and across new sources. Initial supported sources include: CommonSecurityLog - Specific vendors and logs: o Cyber Ark Vault o Palo Alto Threats AWS CloudTrail - Coverage for several AWS services like EC2, IAM, S3, EKS, Secrets Manager (common AWS management activities) GCPAuditLogs Once enabled, two new tables (BehaviorInfo and BehaviorEntities) will populate in your Log Analytics workspace. You can query these tables in Advanced Hunting, use them in detection rules, or view them alongside incidents - just like any other Sentinel data. If you already benefit from Defender behaviors (such as Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps), the same query will show results for all sources. Ready to Experience the Power of Behaviors? The future of security operations is here. Don't wait to modernize your SOC workflows. Enable the Behaviors layer in Microsoft Sentinel today and start transforming raw telemetry into clear, contextual insights that accelerate detection, investigation, and response. Get started now: Understand pre-requisites, limitations, pricing, and use of AI in Documentation. Navigate to your Sentinel workspace settings, enable the Behaviors layer (a new tab under the UEBA settings) and connect the data sources. This is currently supported for a single workspace per tenant (best chosen by the ingestion of the supported data sources). Once enabled, explore the BehaviorInfo and BehaviorEntities tables in Advanced Hunting. If you already benefit from behaviors in XDR, querying the tables will show results from both XDR and UEBA. Start building detection rules, hunting queries, and automation workflows using the behaviors as building blocks. Share your feedback to help us improve and expand coverage.Monthly news - December 2025
Microsoft Defender Monthly news - December 2025 Edition This is our monthly "What's new" blog post, summarizing product updates and various new assets we released over the past month across our Defender products. In this edition, we are looking at all the goodness from November 2025. Defender for Cloud has its own Monthly News post, have a look at their blog space. 😎 Microsoft Ignite 2025 - now on-demand! 🚀 New Virtual Ninja Show episode: Advancements in Attack Disruption Vulnerability Remediation Agent in Microsoft Intune Microsoft Defender Ignite 2025: What's new in Microsoft Defender? This blog summarizes our big announcements we made at Ignite. (Public Preview) Defender XDR now includes the predictive shielding capability, which uses predictive analytics and real-time insights to dynamically infer risk, anticipate attacker progression, and harden your environment before threats materialize. Learn more about predictive shielding. Security Copilot for SOC: bringing agentic AI to every defender. This blog post gives a great overview of the various agents supporting SOC teams. Account correlation links related accounts and corresponding insights to provide identity-level visibility and insights to the SOC. Coordinated response allows Defenders to take action comprehensively across connected accounts, accelerating response and minimizing the potential for lateral movement. Enhancing visibility into your identity fabric with Microsoft Defender. This blog describes new enhancements to the identity security experience within Defender that will help enrich your security team’s visibility and understanding into your unique identity fabric. (Public Preview) The IdentityAccountInfo table in advanced hunting is now available for preview. This table contains information about account information from various sources, including Microsoft Entra ID. It also includes information and link to the identity that owns the account. Microsoft Sentinel customers using the Defender portal, or the Azure portal with the Microsoft Sentinel Defender XDR data connector, now also benefit from Microsoft Threat Intelligence alerts that highlight activity from nation-state actors, major ransomware campaigns, and fraudulent operations. For more information, see Incidents and alerts in the Microsoft Defender portal. (Public Preview) New Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) experiences in the Defender portal! Microsoft Sentinel introduces new UEBA experiences in the Defender portal, bringing behavioral insights directly into key analyst workflows. These enhancements help analysts prioritize investigations and apply UEBA context more effectively. Learn more on our docs. (Public Preview) A new Restrict pod access response action is now available when investigating container threats in the Defender portal. This response action blocks sensitive interfaces that allow lateral movement and privilege escalation. (Public Preview) Threat analytics now has an Indicators tab that provides a list of all indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with a threat. Microsoft researchers update these IOCs in real time as they find new evidence related to the threat. This information helps your security operations center (SOC) and threat intelligence analysts with remediation and proactive hunting. Learn more. In addition the overview section of threat analytics now includes additional details about a threat, such as alias, origin, and related intelligence, providing you with more insights on what the threat is and how it might impact your organization. Microsoft Defender for Identity (Public Preview) In addition to the GA release of scoping by Active Directory domains a few months ago, you can now scope by Organizational Units (OUs) as part of XDR User Role-Based Access Control. This enhancement provides even more granular control over which entities and resources are included in security analysis. For more information, see Configure scoped access for Microsoft Defender for Identity. (Public Preview). New security posture assessment: Change password for on-prem account with potentially leaked credentials. The new security posture assessment lists users whose valid credentials have been leaked. For more information, see: Change password for on-prem account with potentially leaked credentials. Defender for Identity is slowly rolling out automatic Windows event auditing for sensors v3.x, streamlining deployment by applying required auditing settings to new sensors and fixing misconfigurations on existing ones. As it becomes available, you will be able to enable automatic Windows event-auditing in the Advanced settings section in the Defender portal, or using the Graph API. Identity Inventory enhancements: Accounts tab, manual account linking and unlinking, and expanded remediation actions are now available. Learn more in our docs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (Public Preview) Defender for Cloud Apps automatically discovers AI agents created in Microsoft Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry, collects audit logs, continuously monitors for suspicious activity, and integrates detections and alerts into the XDR Incidents and Alerts experience with a dedicated Agent entity. For more information, see Protect your AI agents. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Ignite 2025: Microsoft Defender now prevents threats on endpoints during an attack. This year at Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft Defender is announcing exciting innovations for endpoint protection that help security teams deploy faster, gain more visibility, and proactively block attackers during active attacks. (Public Preview) Defender for Endpoint now includes the GPO hardening and Safeboot hardening response actions. These actions are part of the predictive shielding feature, which anticipates and mitigates potential threats before they materialize. (Public Preview) Custom data collection enables organizations to expand and customize telemetry collection beyond default configurations to support specialized threat hunting and security monitoring needs. (Public Preview) Native root detection support for Microsoft Defender on Android. This enables proactive detection of rooted devices without requiring Intune policies, ensuring stronger security and validating that Defender is running on an uncompromised device, ensuring more reliable telemetry that is not vulnerable to attacker manipulation. (Public Preview) The new Defender deployment tool is a lightweight, self-updating application that streamlines onboarding devices to the Defender endpoint security solution. The tool takes care of prerequisites, automates migrations from older solutions, and removes the need for complex onboarding scripts, separate downloads, and manual installations. It currently supports Windows and Linux devices. Defender deployment tool: for Windows devices for Linux devices (Public Preview) Defender endpoint security solution for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. A Defender for endpoint security solution is now available for legacy Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 devices. The solution provides advanced protection capabilities and improved functionality for these devices compared to other solutions. The new solution is available using the new Defender deployment tool. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management (Public Preview) The Vulnerability Management section in the Microsoft Defender portal is now located under Exposure management. This change is part of the vulnerability management integration to Microsoft Security Exposure Management, which significantly expands the scope and capabilities of the platform. Learn more. (General Availability) Microsoft Secure Score now includes new recommendations to help organizations proactively prevent common endpoint attack techniques. Require LDAP client signing and Require LDAP server signing - help ensure integrity of directory requests so attackers can't tamper with or manipulate group memberships or permissions in transit. Encrypt LDAP client traffic - prevents exposure of credentials and sensitive user information by enforcing encrypted communication instead of clear-text LDAP. Enforce LDAP channel binding - prevents man-in-the-middle relay attacks by ensuring the authentication is cryptographically tied to the TLS session. If the TLS channel changes, the bind fails, stopping credential replay. (General Availability) These Microsoft Secure Score recommendations are now generally available: Block web shell creation on servers Block use of copied or impersonated system tools Block rebooting a machine in Safe Mode Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Microsoft Ignite 2025: Transforming Phishing Response with Agentic Innovation. This blog post summarizes the following announcements: General Availability of the Security Copilot Phishing Triage Agent Agentic Email Grading System in Microsoft Defender Cisco and VIPRE Security Group join the Microsoft Defender ICES ecosystem. A separate blog explains these best practices in more detail and outline three other routing techniques commonly used across ICES vendors. Blog series: Best practices from the Microsoft Community Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Fine-Tuning: This blog covers our top recommendations for fine-tuning Microsoft Defender for Office 365 configuration from hundreds of deployments and recovery engagements, by Microsoft MVP Joe Stocker. You may be right after all! Disputing Submission Responses in Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Microsoft MVP Mona Ghadiri spotlights a new place AI has been inserted into a workflow to make it better… a feature that elevates the transparency and responsiveness of threat management: the ability to dispute a submission response directly within Microsoft Defender for Office 365. Blog post: Strengthening calendar security through enhanced remediation.
