In an exclusive interview with MintJoy Chik, president of identity and network access at Microsoft, said that the implementation of machine learning and other subsets of artificial intelligence is gradually helping the company meet the huge challenge of securing more than 1.5 billion desktops and laptops that uses the company’s Windows operating system. .

“We use AI to analyze the ‘signals’ we receive from around the world and evaluate them using machine learning (ML) algorithms for real-time risk assessment. Identifying behavior patterns for real-time cybersecurity tracking is only possible thanks to artificial intelligence. Over time, advanced AI algorithms built into software platforms will be able to make autonomous decisions to protect people around the world,” Chik said.

For Microsoft, consumer cybersecurity is a key challenge to address. Windows, according to estimates by market researcher Statista, is the world’s second largest operating system and the largest on desktops, laptops and tablets (collectively classified as personal computers or PCs) – powering 27% of all devices and 71% of PCs worldwide as of June this year. Google’s Android is the world’s largest operating system, powering 45% of all devices globally.

Additionally, many Windows devices aren’t running the latest versions of the operating system — last year, Microsoft estimated that its latest platform, Windows 11, would power 500 million devices globally by the end of this calendar year. In comparison, the company’s operating system is estimated to be present on more than 1.6 billion PCs globally, making the adoption of the latest platform around 30%.

To enable security mechanisms, Chik said “a seamless, frictionless experience for the end customer” is mandatory. “One way to do this is to get rid of passwords entirely – not just for consumers, but with business services as well. Thus, we are developing an authentication process between services that does not need passwords, so that there is no risk of password breaches,” she said.

Collaborations between companies, Chik added, are essential. “The creation of an authentication mechanism with access keys, within the Fido alliance, emerged as a result of a collaboration between Microsoft, Google and Apple, which shows the potential to build common standards.”

The Fido (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance is a cross-industry alliance that was founded in 2013 by technology companies including Microsoft, Apple and Google to explore ways to reduce reliance on passwords and find new, more secure solutions for businesses and consumers.

Industry stakeholders agreed with Chik, adding that integrating cybersecurity as a default service is key to wider enterprise adoption. Ipsita Dasgupta, US-based PC brand HP’s managing director for India business, said enabling secure devices by leveraging the work of Big Tech firms “has a lot to do with adopting cutting-edge AI tools built into devices by default. “

“While AI has amplified the risk of devices being threatened in both the consumer and enterprise realms, built-in cyber defense features that use AI help track these risk vectors to make devices more secure than before , from the beginning,” she said. .

Sandip Panda, chief executive of Delhi-headquartered managed cyber security provider Instasafe, said a key challenge for Microsoft is managing multiple tiers of service providers within an enterprise, as well as enterprises that don’t. subscribe to only one hardware or software vendor.

“Over the past 15 years, Linux and MacOS have gained ground in Indian enterprises. Today, most key executives in companies use Apple Mac devices. Given the increasing proliferation of other platforms, it is difficult for Microsoft to implement a comprehensive enterprise software security approach across organizations. This complicates security issues,” he said.

While Panda argued that Microsoft’s Windows remains the “mother of all platforms for cybersecurity service providers,” the cost aspect is a key factor why even businesses that use Windows heavily at work are looking for other ways to less expensive security options.

“Small businesses in particular are sensitive to cost management – ​​and for most businesses with large employee bases, cybersecurity costs are an overhead, just as health insurance is an HR overhead. Reasonable pricing is therefore a key piece of the security puzzle here, which is why enterprises are looking to managed cybersecurity providers outside of Microsoft’s own services, which is a premium offering even today,” he added.

Chik, however, said that for better security control in both user and enterprise devices, fundamental innovation is a critical path forward. To that end, Microsoft has 34,000 employees globally working on cybersecurity engineering.

“Over 4,000 password cracking attempts are made every second – four times what it used to be. Every day, we see 600 million attacks. In such an environment, the use of artificial intelligence is essential to enable a zero-trust model to help enterprises secure their devices. We also use artificial intelligence to identify signals and track attackers across nation states to map attack graphs – which in turn can help us anticipate future cyber attackers. In this way, AI helps us gain ground on attackers and thus design tools that can better protect identities in the workplace,” said Chik.

“The use of artificial intelligence in cyber security is indeed a race, but it is about using artificial intelligence to detect attack patterns, which will help protect us even against future threats that have not yet been developed,” he she added.