Reports Stack News and Updates
On Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled a chatbot created to aid cybersecurity experts in comprehending essential concerns and discovering solutions to address them. The firm has been actively enhancing its software using artificial intelligence models from startup OpenAI since OpenAI’s ChatGPT bot received significant public attention following its debut in November.
Microsoft acknowledged earlier this month that the generative AI software created can sometimes be “usefully wrong,” as it highlighted new features in Word and other productivity applications. Despite this, Microsoft is continuing its efforts to expand its cybersecurity business, which generated over $20 billion in revenue in 2022.
Utilizing GPT-4, the newest large language model from OpenAI, in which Microsoft has invested billions, and a security-focused model developed by Microsoft that employs daily activity data collected, the Microsoft Security Copilot is designed to provide assistance. The system is also aware of a particular customer’s security ecosystem, but this information will not be utilized to train models.
When prompted by text input, the chatbot can create PowerPoint presentations that summarize security incidents, describe the extent of exposure to an active vulnerability, or identify the accounts involved in an exploit.
In an interview with CNBC, Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President of Security, Compliance, Identity, Management, and Privacy at Microsoft, explained that users can click a button to confirm a correct answer or select an “off-target” button to indicate an error, which will aid in the chatbot’s learning.
According to Vasu Jakkal, corporate vice president of security, compliance, identity, management, and privacy at Microsoft, engineers within the company have been using the Security Copilot in their work. Jakkal mentioned that the chatbot has the ability to process 1,000 alerts quickly and identify the two most significant incidents. Additionally, the tool helped an analyst reverse-engineer a malicious code, even though the analyst lacked experience in doing so.
This kind of support can be particularly beneficial for companies that struggle to recruit experienced experts and instead hire staff who lack expertise in certain areas. “Learning and gaining experience takes time,” said Jakkal. “However, with Security Copilot and its built-in skills, it can assist you, thus enabling you to achieve more with fewer resources.”
Microsoft has not disclosed the cost of Security Copilot as it prepares to make it available more broadly. According to Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President of Security, Compliance, Identity, Management, and Privacy at Microsoft, the goal is to have multiple employees within a company use the tool rather than just a select few executives. To achieve this, Microsoft plans to enhance the chatbot’s capabilities to engage in conversations across different domains.
According to Vasu Jakkal, the corporate vice president of security, compliance, identity, management and privacy at Microsoft, the Security Copilot will integrate with Microsoft security products like Sentinel to monitor threats. She added that Microsoft will consider adding support for third-party tools like Splunk based on feedback from initial users in the coming months.
Frank Dickson, group vice president for security and trust at technology industry researcher IDC, pointed out that if Microsoft were to make the use of Sentinel or other Microsoft products a requirement for accessing the Security Copilot, it could sway purchasing decisions.
Frank Dickson, the group vice president for security and trust at technology industry researcher IDC, called Microsoft’s announcement of the Security Copilot “the single biggest announcement in security this calendar year”. While there is nothing preventing Microsoft’s security competitors, like Palo Alto Networks, from creating their own chatbots, being the first to launch gives Microsoft an advantage, according to Dickson. Initially, the Security Copilot will be offered to a limited number of Microsoft clients in a private preview, with a wider release planned for a later date.
