Introducing Microsoft Copilot for Security

Microsoft Copilot for Security is a generative AI chatbot product that enables security professionals to quickly respond to cyberthreats, with customized guidance. It processes signals at machine speed and assessses risk exposure in minutes.

Released for customer purchase on April 1, 2024, Microsoft Copilot for Security is the newest offering in the Microsoft Copilot suite of products and the latest cybersecurity feature of Microsoft's Copilot AI.

Combined with large language models (LLMs), Microsoft's global threat intelligence and more than 65 trillion daily signals, Microsoft Copilot for Security's security-specific skills are constantly advancing with the help of machine learning. It works hand-in-hand with other Microsoft products, third-party security data, security tools, and a wide partner ecosystem. To start using it, its only prerequisite is having an Azure account.

Its capabilities are as follows:

1. A prompt is submitted by the user.
2. Microsoft Copilot for Security's orchestrator determines the context of the situation and builds a plan using Copilot's available skills.
3. The plan is executed and all the necessary data to answer the prompt is gathered.
4. Data and patterns are analyzed to provide intelligent insights.
5. All data and context is then combined to work out a response, and the data is formatted.
6. A response is received by the user.

This process can happen in just seconds. What does this look like from the perspective of the user, and what can it do?

What can Microsoft Copilot for Security do when a security incident is taking place? Here are its capabilities:

1. The user submits a prompt to Microsoft Copilot for Security about a security incident in natural language.

2. Copilot analyzes the incident and unearths specific details to thoroughly inform the user, creating summaries of complex security alerts for at-a-glance understanding. (Details provided can include: the type of threat being faced and other threat actors, malicious scripts and the actions they are performing, involved entities, non-compliant and non-encrypted devices with potential threat activity, and whether devices are compliant or not with company policies, and in what way they are noncompliant.)

3. Copilot is able to assess the impact of the security incident, such as if it has affected other users or devices, and how they are being affected.

4. Copilot recommends actionable steps to remediate the incident and additional steps to ensure device compliance. When integrated with other Microsoft products, Copilot can provide instant intuitive solutions (e.g. isolating devices to contain threats with one button click)

5. Copilot is able to generate comprehensive incident reports with all the collected information, providing threat assessments, supporting evidence and recommendations.

Microsoft Copilot for Security is able to complete the comprehensive end-to-end security defense experience in minutes, where it would normally take security staff hours to complete, increasing the efficiency of security investigations.

Microsoft Copilot for Security is at the heart of the Microsoft security portfolio, integrated with existing products and workflows to maximize their effectiveness, such as:

What are the other things Microsoft Copilot for Security can do? Related to a variety of functions, it can be used in:

Security operations

• Speed up security investigations by managing and resolving security incidents in minutes instead of hours.

• Easily configure and manage new security platforms.

• Design and build new policies, testing them to see their impact on users.

Device management

• Retrieve device information instantly.

• Configure devices with generated best practices.

• Proactively identify devices that are not up to date or compliant.

Identity management

• Generate or summarize access policies.

Data protection

• Identify and summarize data and user risks.

• Identify potential security risks users are unaware of, such as the reasons why MFA (Multi-factor authentication) was triggered by a user.

Personnel Training

• Instruct and train junior security staff across the entire cybersecurity process, from identifying details of security attacks, analyzing its impact, to remediation steps, bringing them up to speed on cybersecurity knowledge without requiring the time of senior staff to train them.

Accessibility

Due to Microsoft Copilot for Security's LLM capabilities, users can ask questions in natural language free of technical jargon, and receive a detailed response containing solutions to common security and IT tasks in seconds.

Adaptability

Microsoft Copilot for Security is embedded with other Microsoft products, but also works with plugins from independent software vendors (ISVs), third-party security data, and security tools. Its wide partner ecosystem, including notable and widely-used vendors such as HP and Cloudflare ensure Copilot for Security's wide applicability and quick adaptability to consumer business operations.

Speed

Microsoft Copilot for Security's main advantage is the speed it operates and allows it to achieve its main objective; enhancing the end-to-end process of dealing with cybersecurity incidents. It is able to instantly and intelligently summarize vast amounts of data signals into insights, detect cyberthreats before they cause harm and address cyberattacks as they happen within extremely short timeframes.

This saves valuable time for security teams, allowing them to respond in minutes to security incidents where they would usually require hours, outpacing adversaries and shutting down incidents before more damage can be caused to an organization's systems.

In a randomized controlled trial conducted with both security novices and security professionals for Copilot for Security, both groups were 26% faster across all tasks related to the cybersecurity process.

Team expertise and productivity

Microsoft Copilot for Security strengthens the expertise and productivity of security teams regardless of staff proficiency. In the same trial, both professionals and novices saw improvements in the accuracy of their investigations and quality of their reports, with novices seeing the biggest jump.

• Professions were 7% more accurate overall in all security-related tasks, while novices were 44% more accurate, particularly in identifying key facts, attacker scripts, and remediation steps.

• Professionals improved the quality of their content reports by 49% regarding their number of key facts, while novices improved by 80%.

Productivity increases across an entire security team as a result, since tedious tasks are taken off senior staff, allowing them to focus on more strategic priorities, and junior staff can be trained by Copilot for Security's step-by-step guidance to advance their security skills, making them more efficient at their work.

As a whole, both security novices and professionals expressed satisfaction after their experiences using Copilot for security, with more than 93% across all users who wanted to use it again in their security investigations.

The threat of a breach in cybersecurity is ever-present during the digital age. Safeguard your data and IT systems with Microsoft Copilot for Security, defend against malicious actors before they strike, and have the advantage of speed on your side with the machine speed of Copilot for Security. At Hi Cloud, we specialize in AI and cybersecurity in partnership with Microsoft Azure. Contact us for a free consultation to customize Copilot for Security to your needs and reinforce your security today.