Microsoft Security Copilot: The Ultimate Guide For Businesses

Have you heard about Microsoft's latest product, Microsoft Security Copilot? Did you know that you can now use natural language powered by GPT to investigate and respond to security incidents, threats, and vulnerabilities currently affecting your organisation?

Microsoft has developed the first security product called Security Copilot, a new security AI assistant which uses generative AI to help perform common security-specific tasks quickly, drawing on Microsoft's expert cybersecurity knowledge.

Microsoft Copilot for Security is set to be released on the 1st of April 2024. This security-specific model is designed to help cybersecurity professionals at machine speed and scale enhance their skills, collaborate more effectively, have better visibility, and respond more quickly to threats.

In this blog post, we'll explore what Microsoft Copilot for security is, with its features, benefits, cost, licence requirements, use cases and integration with other Microsoft products.

What is Microsoft Security Copilot?

Microsoft Security Copilot is an AI-enabled cybersecurity solution that processes signals at machine speed and scale of AI and assesses risk exposure within minutes, helping security professionals respond swiftly to cyber threats.

Copilot for Security leverages GPT-4, which is one of the most advanced large language models (LLMs) developed by OpenAI along with Microsoft's security-specific model with threat intelligence that includes over 78 trillion daily security signals. And in fact, it is protected with the power of comprehensive enterprise compliance and security controls.

Microsoft Security Copilot provides a coaching system for junior analysts to help them improve their skills. At the same time, security experts have entry to a generative AI assistant that is always available to assist them. This allows your team to focus on innovation, creativity, and strategic work.

By integrating Microsoft Copilot for security into your team, you can transform the way your organisation is protected with compliance and security controls.

How does Microsoft Copilot for Security work?

The user enters a question or command into the prompt.

The Copilot for security enhances the user's plugin with its security-specific skills, which have a unique global threat intelligence and an ever-growing set of cyber skills. This system is based on deep Microsoft security knowledge and constantly learns and adapts to security operations.

Then, using techniques such as fine-tuning, the Copilot further augments an analyst's work. It also grounds the prompt with up-to-date threat intelligence, informed by Microsoft's 78 trillion signals and human intelligence.

The Copilot for security connects directly to insights and the end-to-end Microsoft security products, which helps strengthen data and reduce errors, completing the learning loop.

Finally, Copilot for security translates the response according to your prompt instructions, using Microsoft's sophisticated system and data proficiency to move at the speed and scale of AI. This can take the form of text, code, or a visual that helps analysts see the full context of an incident, its impact, and the next steps to take to deepen the understanding or act directly for remediation and defence hardening.

Features and Capabilities of Copilot for Security

Here are the features of Microsoft Security Copilot which include:

1. Incident Response

Security Copilot enables security professionals to quickly assess any incident and provide tailored remediation guidance based on proven strategies.

2. Security Posture Management

Security professionals can identify vulnerabilities in their organisation and detect potential data breaches in the environment.

3. Security Reports

Your security team can quickly summarise investigations, perform incident response, vulnerabilities, and threats and generate reports to share.

What are the Benefits of Microsoft Security Copilot?

Here are the advantages of Copilot for Security for businesses which include:

1. It makes complex tasks easier

Security Copilot helps to enable defenders to respond to a security incident within the speed and scale of AI. It provides step-by-step guidance and context through AI-based investigation experiences, accelerating incident investigations and responses.

Also, defenders can quickly summarise any process or event and tailor reports to suit specific audiences, freeing senior staff to focus on their most pressing tasks.

2. Spot and prioritise what others missed

Security Copilot helps to enable defenders to move at the speed of AI to detect and prioritise vulnerabilities in real-time using Microsoft's global threat intelligence environment.

This AI-powered system ensures continuous reasoning and anticipates the next move of a threat actor. It also offers expert skills for compliance, threat hunting, incident response, and vulnerability management.

3. Fills the skill gap

Security Copilot enhances the ability of security teams by answering security questions, learning from user interactions, and advising on the best course of action to protect the system and data.

Also, it supports learning for new team members, enabling teams to do more with less and operate with the potential of a larger organisation.

Microsoft Copilot for Security Use Cases

Security Copilot services are interoperable and tailored to meet top cybersecurity needs in the future such as device management, identity management, data security, and cloud security.

1. Device management

The constantly evolving world of devices is leading to increased complexity in IT, which in turn increases the risk of application and policy misconfigurations.

To help secure this, Security Copilot has integrated with Microsoft Intune. This integration allows for the creation of policies, analysis of drafts before deployment, and "what-if" analysis that identifies any potential security risks.

2. Identity management

In the past year, there has been a significant rise in password-based attacks, and hackers are now using new methods to bypass multifactor authentication systems.

To enhance your security measures and protect your identity, Security Copilot has integrated with Microsoft Entra. This integration helps in identifying and investigating potential identity breaches, as well as resolving daily identity management issues.

3. Data security

Data security and compliance teams face the daunting task of reviewing a vast amount of complex and diverse alerts spread across multiple security tools.

To make managing data protection secure, Security Copilot integrates with Microsoft Purview. This integration offers a summary of capabilities for:

• Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention
• Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management
• Microsoft Purview eDiscovery
• Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance workflows

It helps to make sense of the profuse and diverse data, accelerates investigation and responses, and enables analysts at all levels to complete complex assignments with AI intelligence.

4. Cloud security

Maintaining a strong security posture in the cloud has become a challenge for cybersecurity teams. Due to the rise of cloud-native development and multi-cloud environments, cybersecurity teams face siloed visibility into risks and vulnerabilities across the application lifecycle.

By integrating Security Copilot and Microsoft Defender for Cloud, security professionals can identify critical risks to resources faster.

Also, guided risk exploration summarises risks and enriches investigations with contextual insights. These insights include critical vulnerabilities, sensitive data, and lateral movement, which provide security teams with the necessary information to make informed decisions.

5. External attack surface management

Managing the security of assets and identifying their vulnerabilities can be a time-consuming task for security teams.

However, with the new capabilities integrated with Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management, security teams can now gain valuable insights into their external attack surface, no matter where the assets are hosted.

Also, this enhanced visibility gives them the confidence they need to make informed decisions about potential risks to the organisation.

Standalone vs Embedded Experiences for Security Copilot

Copilot for Security offers a range of capabilities to new members of security and IT teams. Also, it provides diverse organisations with different ways to summarise insights, troubleshoot investigations, and remediate threat intelligence.

You can use Copilot for security in two ways: as a standalone portal or embedded into existing security products.

If you want to pull data from multiple tools into one place, the standalone portal is ideal. If you prefer working with the product experience you already know, then embedding Security Copilot plugins into existing security products is the way to go.

Standalone

The Standalone feature in Microsoft Security Copilot is a robust security AI tool that empowers teams to efficiently troubleshoot and remediate incidents within the system.

With its advanced cross-product guidance, security teams can easily identify the root cause of any issue and take appropriate action to resolve it quickly.

By leveraging standalone AI Copilot for security, staff get the ability to work collaboratively to ensure incident responses are addressed promptly, minimising any potential impact on the organisation.

Embedded

The Embedded feature allows you to seamlessly integrate Security Copilot plugins within the products that your team members are already using.

With Embedded, your team can receive intuitive and personalised security guidance without having to leave their familiar work environment.

Also, embedded AI Copilot for security streamlines the process and helps to ensure that your team is always up-to-date with the latest security best practices.

Microsoft Security Copilot Integration with Other Products

Copilot for Security in Microsoft Defender XDR

1. Examine and address vulnerabilities within a directed environment

With Copilot for security-guided experience, defenders can effectively investigate and address potential risks. Security Copilot provides a comprehensive summary of any incident, assesses its impact, and provides actionable recommendations to ensure faster and more secure remediation.

After the incident response, it generates a detailed report that outlines all the activities that were performed, giving defenders a clear understanding of the steps taken to address the issue.

2. Upskill your security team with advance hunting

To enhance the effectiveness of your security team, it is crucial to provide them with the necessary skills and knowledge to complete complex assignments like threat hunting and reverse engineering of malware.

By upskilling your security analysts, you can unlock their potential to investigate security with greater proficiency. This involves training in areas of advanced threat detection, network analysis, and digital forensics.

3. Assess risks with AI-driven threat intelligence

Security professionals can leverage the power of AI-driven threat intelligence to inquire in NLP about emerging vulnerabilities and identify the organisation's exposure.

Copilot for Security in Unified SOC Platform

1. Intelligent context for alerts and incidents

Leverage the power of AI to gain intelligent context for alerts and incidents, enabling you to efficiently evaluate and address emerging threats and assess the potential risks to your organisation.

2. Rapid investigation and response

Security Copilot offers a wide range of features, including detailed summaries of incidents, thorough assessments of their impact, and actionable recommendations for faster and more effective remediation.

With Security Copilot, analysts can rest assured that they have all the information they need to make informed decisions and address any security threats quickly.

3. Unlock advanced SOC skills

Analysts of all levels can gain access to advanced SOC (Security Operations Centre) skills to tackle complex assignments with ease.

With these new skills, analysts can efficiently translate the natural language to KQL (Kusto Query Language) or analyse malicious scripts to quickly identify potential security threats.

Copilot for Security in Microsoft Purview

1. Scaled visibility

Professionals can achieve a thorough and cohesive understanding of the solutions with scaled visibility, allowing them to gain valuable insight into the pertinent regulatory requirements for compliance.

2. Summarisation for speed

When dealing with alerts that contain a wide range of signals and extensive content, it can be time-consuming and challenging to review them while keeping data security and compliance policies in mind.

To help overcome this challenge, it is useful to have a process that quickly summarises the alerts, highlighting the most important information in a way that is easy to comprehend.

By doing so, analysts can efficiently review the alerts, identify potential security threats or policy violations, and take appropriate action to mitigate any risks.

3. Unlock expert skills

Security Copilot offers step-by-step guidance to help you navigate complex tasks, conduct advanced investigations, and search for information from NLP to KQL. With these advanced skills, senior staff can perform strategic work, and achieve their goals more efficiently.

Copilot for Security in Microsoft Entra

1. Rapid Identity Risk Investigation

With the rapid identity risk investigation AI tool, you can easily explore sign-ins and identify any potentially risky users.

Copilot for Security provides comprehensive insights on the 'why' behind any concerning activity, enabling you to make informed decisions on how to best protect your data and accounts.

2. Faster Troubleshooting

With Copilot for Security's advanced AI system, you can now troubleshoot issues at the speed of AI. The generative AI technology provides you with all the necessary context to identify gaps in access policies and generate identity workflows.

3. New Levels of Efficiency

With guided recommendations, IT admins can now streamline their workflow and navigate through the investigative process with ease.

Additionally, the new sign-in log analysis AI tool eliminates the need for tedious manual inspection, allowing admins to focus on more important tasks at hand.

Copilot for Security in Microsoft Intune

1. Faster response

To enhance your security measures, it is important to address swiftly any potential threats, incidents, or vulnerabilities. With the assistance of AI, you can gain valuable insights and take appropriate actions to address any potential issues that may arise.

2. More informed outcomes

It's important to have a proactive approach when it comes to endpoint issues. Using what-if analysis and a deep understanding of device, user and app status makes it easier to apply targeted policies and remediate issues before they become bigger problems. Additionally, actionable guidance can help ensure that the right steps are taken to achieve more informed outcomes.

3. Simplified posture management

The posture management solution simplifies the process of creating recommended and compliant configurations and policies based on your business intent. With natural language processing capabilities, you can easily communicate your requirements and receive customised recommendations that meet industry standards and regulations.

What license is required for Microsoft Security Copilot?

To get Security Copilot, you need the following licenses deployed in your environment:

Microsoft Enterprise ID P1 or P2 license (previously known as Azure Active Directory Premium P1 or P2) for assigning roles to users.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P2 license.

Microsoft Security Copilot Early Access Program pass gives you access to Security Copilot for six months from the purchase date.

How much is Microsoft Security Copilot?

Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Copilot for Security are two different services that offer distinct pricing models. Copilot for Microsoft 365 charges a fixed monthly fee, whereas Copilot for Security uses a consumption-based pricing, pay-as-you-go model. This means that businesses will be charged £3.18 for every hour of usage via a new Security Compute Unit (SCU).

Final Verdict

In conclusion, Microsoft Security Copilot marks the beginning of a new era first security product in security solutions. As of March 2024, the Copilot version includes Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Pro and Microsoft Security Copilot (future release on 1st April 2024).

Also, Microsoft Copilot for Security integrates with non-Microsoft products, offering plugins and promptbooks to enhance customers' insights.

With Copilot for Security, security professionals can perform threat hunting, resolve incidents, gain device information, view access policies, identify user risks and perform SOC tasks, all in a faster and more efficient way.

If you're interested in learning more about Microsoft Security Copilot, please get in touch with Aztech. Our security experts will be delighted to assist you with any questions you may have.