Microsoft Corporation, on Monday, announced the general availability (GA) of the stand-alone version of Microsoft Defender for Business. Defender for Business, which provides enterprise-grade endpoint security to SMBs, includes endpoint detection and response capabilities to protect SMBs against ransomware and other sophisticated cyber threats.
To understand changing SMB security needs, Microsoft surveyed more than 150 small and medium businesses in the U.S. and found that more than 70% of SMBs consider cyber threats as a business risk. As per reports, one in four SMBs surveyed encountered a security breach in the previous year.
Many SMBs still rely on conventional security solutions and most of them do not have specialized cyber security personnel. Reports say that 93% SMBs continue to have concerns about the increasing and evolving cyberattacks.
Suggested reading: 2021 SMB Threat Landscape – An Infographic
SMBs can get multi-layered protection, detection and response, spanning the five phases of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework by using Defender for Business to protect and remediate against known and unknown threats.
“Microsoft believes in security for all,” said Vasu Jakkal, CVP, security, compliance & identity at Microsoft. “We are proud to further deliver on that vision today. With the GA of Defender for Business, SMBs will get greater protection with simplified security to help them better protect, detect and respond to threats.”
“Automated investigation and remediation are a huge part of the product,” said Adam Atwell, cloud solutions architect at consulting firm Kite Technology Group. “It’s just happening in the background. Defender for Business makes our security so simple.”
Features of Microsoft Defender for Business:
- Threat and vulnerability management – helps identify and prioritize vulnerabilities and proactively build a secure foundation remediating software vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.
- Attack surface reduction – helps minimize the attack surface and leaves the bad actors with few ways to attack the system.
- Next-generation protection – helps prevent threats using antimalware and antivirus protection on devices and in the cloud.
- Endpoint detection and response – helps identify and remove persistent threats by providing behavioral-based detection and response alerts.
- Auto-investigation and remediation – helps scale security operations by analysing and prioritizing alerts followed by taking immediate action to resolve the attacks. This way, security teams can focus on more sophisticated threats.
Microsoft has included the Defender for Business in Microsoft 365 Business Premium, its comprehensive security and productivity solution for businesses with up to 300 employees. Defender for Business can also be bought as stand-alone for $3 per user, per month. Microsoft is planning additional support for servers later in 2022 with an add-on solution.
Defender for Business and Microsoft 365 Business Premium can be integrated with Microsoft 365 Lighthouse, enabling to view security incidents across tenants in a unified portal. The standalone offering of Microsoft Defender for Business is an attractive feature for SMBs and with the announcement of the general availability of Defender for Business, partners have got an opportunity to acquire new customers.
Also read: 84% of IT leaders optimistic about their cybersecurity readiness: Confluera Cloud Research 2022
