Reflecting on Cybersecurity Awareness Month: At its Core, Cybersecurity is all about People

As Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2022 comes to a close, I’m grateful for the impact it has had in bringing cybersecurity to the forefront since it began in 2004. Though the month may be over, our work in cybersecurity is never done. Often, we think about cybersecurity as a complex technology problem, but at its core, it’s really about people: the customers and communities we work to protect and defend, the current and future cybersecurity professionals on the front lines of the fight, and the larger security community coming together to strengthen cybersecurity for all.

“WITH EACH OF US PLAYING OUR PART, WE CAN MAKE IT SO THAT OUR ADVERSARIES WILL HAVE TO BEAT ALL OF US TO BEAT ONE OF US.”

CHRIS INGLIS, U.S. NATIONAL CYBER DIRECTOR

Our commitment to our customers means always improving how we protect and defend against threats to security and privacy. In MSRC, we work every day to innovate and strengthen our capabilities to safeguard customers and communities across the globe. For example, we’re leveraging AI/ML to help scale our solutions and increase incident response speed and efficiencies. But in addition to technological innovations, improving how we protect customers also means providing them with transparency and information to help manage security risks and keep their systems protected. To this end, we’re communicating more security research and defense information via the MSRC blog and improving our Security Update Guide (SUG) notification system. As the cybersecurity landscape changes and our customers’ needs evolve, so will we.

Our front-line cyber defenders in MSRC are leading the fight against cyber attacks each and every day. We focus on preventing harm, fast defense, and building trust. Our dedicated cybersecurity experts work 24/7 to protect customers, communities, and Microsoft from emerging and future threats. But the ever-growing cybersecurity challenges we face are compounded by a growing shortage of cybersecurity professionals—the very people we need to take up this fight. Microsoft is actively supporting a variety of initiatives to build the cybersecurity talent pool by investing in cybersecurity education programs and inspiring students to consider careers in cyber. While technology is critical in helping defend against threats, we know that people are the key.

Our commitment to collaboration is helping us raise the bar for security and get ahead of threats. We’re cultivating critical partnerships across government, academia, industry, and the security community because we are stronger together—and together we will find ways to better protect customers, communities, and the broader cybersecurity ecosystem. One area we have prioritized is building a strong partnership with the security research community. We have scaled our Bug Bounty Program and Researcher Recognition Program and connected personally with researchers at community events to share lessons learned, hear their feedback, and forge new partnerships. We strongly believe that security researchers play an integral role in helping us to better protect our customers across the globe.

As you can see, cybersecurity really is all about _people…_and we all have a role to play in helping to make our digital world safer and more secure.

Aanchal Gupta Corporate Vice President | Microsoft Security Response Center