Redmond announces investment of $1bn each year

Jan 26, 2017 12:54 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has announced that it would invest approximately $1 billion every year in cyber security, as it’s working to introduce new protection systems that would make its products harder to break into.

Bharat Shah, Microsoft vice president of security, has confirmed for Reuters that the software giant wants to continue focusing on cyber security research and development in the coming years, and the $1 billion budget does not include companies that would be purchased in the short term.

“As more and more people use cloud, that spending has to go up,” Shah was quoted as saying at the BlueHat cyber security conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, the home of several important security companies.

Microsoft itself has already purchased several Israeli companies that developed new solutions in the cybersecurity field, and the firm looks keen on going after other big names should it consider that they have more efficient methods of boosting security of its products.

Enterprise security startup Aorato, cloud security firm Adallom, and Secure Islands, have all been purchased by Microsoft, while more recently, the company announced investments in Team8, an Israeli-based organization that contributed to the creation of several advanced security technologies for a wide variety of markets, including banks.

Increased security for essential products

Microsoft is making security a really big deal for all of its products, including Windows 10 and Office, with the firm implementing new technologies with every large update.

Windows 10, for example, comes with biometric authentication, but also with zero-day mitigation technologies that have already proved to be very efficient in blocking exploits of vulnerabilities not yet patched in the operating system.

With the upcoming Creators Update for Windows 10, Microsoft is also working on overhauling Windows Defender, the company’s in-house antivirus solution that comes pre-installed on all systems.

Windows Defender will become Windows Defender Security Center, grouping not only malware detection and removal tools but also other features that can help boost system performance and address problems with other system components, such as drivers.