Immediately marks an thrilling milestone in Microsoft’s AI journey. This morning, at an occasion in New York Metropolis, we made a number of main bulletins to empower individuals throughout work and life—you possibly can learn extra about Microsoft Bing and Edge with Copilot, what’s new from Microsoft 365 Copilot and Bing Chat Enterprise for work, Microsoft Designer and Copilot in Microsoft 365, Home windows 11, and new Floor units in Yusuf Medhi’s weblog.

These improvements will redefine how we reside and work with AI, and it’s so thrilling to see the progress we’re making to place AI and different capabilities into the palms of our prospects throughout each side of their entire lives.

As we quickly iterate and enhance expertise, it’s crucial that we achieve this with a security-first mindset. This implies each constructing merchandise which can be safe by default and guaranteeing that we’re adopting and deploying new applied sciences, like AI, in a safe and accountable approach.

Designing Home windows safety for the brand new period

Immediately, we shared the upcoming Home windows 11 replace that might be accessible on September 26, 2023. That replace contains a number of essential safety features and updates that assist make this essentially the most private and clever Home windows expertise but. I need to take a second to spotlight a number of the key safety features you’ll hear extra about subsequent week:

Constructing the passwordless future

We’ve talked for years concerning the passwordless future that we envision right here at Microsoft. We all know that passwords are one of the frequent entry factors for assaults—actually, there are greater than 4,000 password assaults each second—a virtually three-fold enhance since final yr.¹ That’s why it’s extra essential than ever for organizations and people to make use of passwordless choices each time doable. Within the Home windows 11 replace, we’re excited to introduce:

• Much more passwordless: IT groups will now have the ability to take away the choice to enter a password on day one for all Home windows 11 units with Home windows Howdy for Enterprise, prompting staff to make use of safer login choices.
• Extra with passkeys: For the previous a number of years we’ve got been dedicated to working with our trade companions and the FIDO Alliance to additional the passwordless future with passkeys. Passkeys are the cross-platform, cross-ecosystem way forward for accessing web sites and functions. Immediately we’re happy to share that Home windows 11 customers can higher benefit from passkeys. After making a passkey with Home windows Howdy, you possibly can entry an internet site or utility utilizing your face, fingerprint, or gadget PIN. You’ll be able to handle passkeys saved in your Home windows PC and check in utilizing passkeys saved in your cell phone for added comfort. You should utilize passkeys on quite a lot of providers equivalent to GitHub.com, DocuSign.com, and extra.  

Empowering IT with new safety instruments

The newest Home windows 11 will even embody highly effective new instruments that empower IT groups to maintain their organizations and staff safer, together with:

• Customized App Management for Enterprise insurance policies with Microsoft Intune: Purposes are the lifeblood of our digital experiences, however they will additionally turn out to be entry factors for threats. With utility management, apps should earn belief to run, guaranteeing solely authorised, safe, and trusted apps are allowed onto units. By stopping undesirable or malicious code from operating, utility management is a vital a part of a complete safety technique. Software management is usually cited as one of the efficient technique of defending towards malware. Prospects can now use App Management for Enterprise (previously referred to as Home windows Defender Software Management) and its next-generation capabilities to guard their digital property from malicious code. With App Management for Enterprise, IT groups can configure what runs in a enterprise setting via Microsoft Intune or different MDMs within the admin console, together with organising Intune as a managed installer.
• Config Refresh: We regularly uncover menace actors launching assaults designed to evade safety measures by altering settings and system configurations. Config Refresh permits settings within the Coverage Configuration Service Supplier (CSP) on a Home windows 11 gadget to be reset each 90 minutes by default, or each half-hour if desired. This protects towards configuration settings being unexpectedly modified via both malicious software program or registry edits and ensures that your settings are retained in the way in which IT configured them.

We are going to share extra particulars about these and different new Home windows 11 options subsequent week.

New superior safety for Microsoft 365 Private, Household, and Primary subscribers

As an organization, we’re additionally serious about how we equip people with instruments and data to raised shield themselves at dwelling. Immediately, we’re excited to announce new superior safety advantages for Microsoft 365 Private, Household, and Primary subscribers.

Microsoft Defender for people introduces credit score monitoring and privateness safety in america

Immediately, we shared two new additions to Microsoft Defender for people that may assist people and households shield their private information on-line:

• Credit score monitoring: The Defender id theft monitoring capabilities will now be expanded with new credit score monitoring performance. Customers will get an alert any time there’s exercise associated to their credit score that is likely to be malicious, enabling them to behave shortly and assist cease exercise whereas it’s occurring.
• Privateness safety: Privateness safety shields delicate information from threats when customers are linked to open and public Wi-Fi networks. It reduces on-line monitoring and protects towards dangerous actors on unsecured community and permits customers to cover their IP tackle and placement from web sites, apps, and advertisers that will try to trace on-line exercise to gather private information. Privateness safety additionally encrypts site visitors and information via a VPN.

Study extra about Microsoft Defender for people.

OneDrive superior safety in Microsoft 365 Primary

Earlier this yr, we launched our most inexpensive subscription plan, Microsoft 365 Primary. As promised, we’re now including the OneDrive superior safety features in our Microsoft 365 Private and Household plans to the Microsoft 365 Primary plan at no further value. Beginning October 12, 2023, Microsoft 365 Primary subscribers may have entry to OneDrive superior safety features like limitless information in your Private Vault, expiring sharing hyperlinks, password-protected sharing hyperlinks, information restore, and ransomware detection and restoration. Microsoft 365 Primary continues to supply 100 GB of cloud storage and unbelievable peace of thoughts advantages at an unbelievable worth.

Utilizing AI securely and responsibly

As we have a good time our developments throughout AI, it’s essential to reiterate our dedication to deploying these applied sciences securely and responsibly. I’ve been fortunate sufficient to have had a front-row seat as we constructed, examined, and iterated on these superb AI applied sciences. However as we’ve watched this evolve, we acknowledge that, as Spider-Man would say, “With nice energy, comes nice accountability.” That’s the reason we’re dedicated to constructing and deploying AI responsibly and ethically. You’ll be able to learn extra about our commitments on the Empowering Accountable AI practices hub.

We’ve heard from prospects and seen firsthand that staff are keen to make use of AI within the office. However many leaders have issues about the usage of AI of their organizations. They fear that it will possibly introduce pointless danger. That’s why we’re taking a secure and safe strategy for patrons, empowering them to really feel assured in utilizing AI at work. For instance, Bing Chat Enterprise helps staff faucet into the facility of AI whereas guaranteeing prompts and responses aren’t logged or used to coach the underlying mannequin. Our commitments to enterprise-grade safety, privateness, id, compliance, and accountable AI in Microsoft 365 Copilot stay unchanged. And lastly we’ll proceed to make use of AI to drive a paradigm shift in safety with Microsoft Safety Copilot. We empathize with safety and IT leaders attempting to navigate a difficult panorama and can proceed to construct safety into our merchandise to assist them harness the facility of AI confidently.

As a part of our time in New York right now, I’m happy to be part of a panel dialogue on this matter. Thanks for being a part of our journey and making safety forefront in your lives.

Keep tuned for extra thrilling particulars from Home windows subsequent week as we have a good time the supply of the brand new Home windows 11 on September 26, 2023. 

Study extra

To study extra about Microsoft Safety options, go to our web site. Bookmark the Safety weblog to maintain up with our knowledgeable protection on safety issues. Additionally, observe us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Safety) and Twitter (@MSFTSecurity) for the newest information and updates on cybersecurity.

¹Microsoft inside information.