Microsoft Security Copilot, the tech giant’s AI assistant for security teams, is now available in early access for qualified customers.

First announced in March 2023 as part of the broader reveal of Microsoft’s AI-powered productivity tool, Copilot, Security Copilot is a generative AI security solution enabling businesses’ protection with machine speed and scale.

The Early Access Programme includes new capabilities, including a Security Copilot experience residing within Microsoft’s extended detection and response (XDR) platform, Microsoft 365 Defender. This embedded offering guides analysts with actionable insights and recommendations through a single unified interface. Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence is also included with Security Copilot for no extra cost.

“Security Copilot is an AI assistant for security teams that builds on the latest in large language models and harnesses Microsoft’s security expertise and global threat intelligence to help security teams outpace their adversaries,” wrote Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President of Security, Compliance, Identity, and Management at Microsoft in an accompanying blog.

Security Copilot is already helping our preview customers save up to 40 percent of their time on core security operations tasks with capabilities such as writing complex queries based only on natural language questions and summarizing security incidents. Security Copilot can effectively up-skill a security team, regardless of its expertise, save them time, enable them to find what previously they might have missed, and free them to focus on the most impactful projects.”

Additionally, organisations collaborating with Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) and in the Early Access Programme can extend access to their Security Copilot environment. This empowers MSSPs to collaborate with them using Security Copilot.

XDR and Threat Intelligence Features in Greater Detail

The complementary integration of Microsoft 365 Defender and Security Copilot minimises the drudge work of security analysis and allows analysts to focus on essential tasks.

For example, an incident can be summarised into natural language to allow security operations teams to understand bad actors more quickly or to share with executives. To further streamline workflows, the integration can inform security analysts of any skill level through cyber threat remediation and response process, thanks to the support of generative AI within Microsoft 365 Defender. This feature critically reduces the time to respond to threats.

Users can also use natural language prompts to simplify hunting for cyber threats and attack techniques or extend existing incidents. Natural language queries can automatically generate Kusto Query Language (KQL) to be more time-efficient and help upskill an organisation’s security analysts. Security Copilot also means it’s simpler for security analysts to assess and understand complex PowerShell command line scripts and document the flow, producing more accessible real-time malware analysis.

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence and access to its API is also now available to every Security Copilot customer with no extra fee.

“Defender Threat Intelligence is a threat intelligence workbench with deep integrations across Microsoft Security products empowering security teams with knowledge of the cyber threat landscape, including actors, tools, vulnerabilities, and infrastructure,” wrote Jakkal.

Defender Threat Intelligence offers a mechanism to connect indicators of compromise to finished intelligence. These indicators encompass vulnerability articles, enriched open-source intelligence, and Microsoft’s own articles.

Given that Security Copilot makes security incidents and alerts more sophisticated because of Microsoft’s cyber threat expertise, customers can access Defender Threat Intelligence within the platform to expose and remove cyber threats and attacker infrastructure, identify cyber attackers and their tools, and advance cyber threat detection and remediation.

Where Are We At With Copilot?

The consumer-centric Windows Copilot is out now and is “seamlessly available across all the apps and experiences you use most”, as annotated by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, including Office 365, Bing and Windows. It can be accessed via the taskbar with the Win+C keyboard shortcut, providing critical assistance alongside every app. Copilot in Windows features the new Copilot icon, the new Copilot user experience, and Bing Chat. It is now available to commercial customers for free.

Business customers have just over a week to wait for 365 Copilot, which launches on November 1 for 365 Copilot and becomes available for customers on specific business and enterprise plans.

What 365 Copilot provides beyond Microsoft Copilot is commercial data protection, guaranteed security, privacy and compliance, the AI-powered Microsoft 365 Chat, and integration across the Microsoft 365 Apps. Copilot will cost $30 per user per month and will be available for users with Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard and Business Premium users when it becomes generally available.

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced the “next-generation” of OneDrive, which includes new file views, governance controls, creation tools, and Copilot. Copilot will be available from December for Microsoft 365 subscribers to search, organise, and retrieve information from their OneDrive files.

Last month, Microsoft promised Copilot customers legal protections around copyright.

As worries over the legal risks of how AI processes copyright-protected IP continue to mount, the Copilot Copyright Commitment intends to address questions around IP infringement among those aiming to sign up for Copilot.



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