Research
Explore in-depth research on the latest cybersecurity threats, trends, and defense strategies. Get insights from Microsoft that’ll help you better understand and respond to today’s challenges.
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Since October 22, 2024, Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed Russian threat actor Midnight Blizzard sending a series of highly targeted spear-phishing emails to individuals in government, academia, defense, non-governmental organizations, and other sectors. -
Microsoft Threat Intelligence healthcare ransomware report highlights need for collective industry action
Healthcare organizations are an attractive target for ransomware attacks. -
New macOS vulnerability, “HM Surf”, could lead to unauthorized data access
Microsoft Threat Intelligence uncovered a macOS vulnerability that could potentially allow an attacker to bypass the operating system’s Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) technology and gain unauthorized access to a user’s protected data. -
Storm-0501: Ransomware attacks expanding to hybrid cloud environments
August 27, 2025 update: Storm-0501 has continuously evolved to achieve sharpened focus on cloud-based TTPs as their primary objective shifted from deploying on-premises endpoint ransomware to using cloud-based ransomware tactics. -
North Korean threat actor Citrine Sleet exploiting Chromium zero-day
Microsoft identified a North Korean threat actor exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Chromium (CVE-2024-7971) to gain remote code execution (RCE) in the Chromium renderer process. -
Peach Sandstorm deploys new custom Tickler malware in long-running intelligence gathering operations
Between April and July 2024, Microsoft observed Iranian state-sponsored threat actor Peach Sandstorm deploying a new custom multi-stage backdoor, which we named Tickler. -
Chained for attack: OpenVPN vulnerabilities discovered leading to RCE and LPE
Microsoft researchers found multiple vulnerabilities in OpenVPN that could lead to an attack chain allowing remote code execution and local privilege escalation. -
Ransomware operators exploit ESXi hypervisor vulnerability for mass encryption
Microsoft Security researchers have observed a vulnerability used by various ransomware operators to get full administrative access to domain-joined ESXi hypervisors and encrypt the virtual machines running on them. -
Onyx Sleet uses array of malware to gather intelligence for North Korea
On July 25, 2024, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted an individual linked to the North Korean threat actor that Microsoft tracks as Onyx Sleet. -
Vulnerabilities in PanelView Plus devices could lead to remote code execution
Microsoft discovered and responsibly disclosed two vulnerabilities in Rockwell’s PanelView Plus that could be remotely exploited by unauthenticated attackers, allowing them to perform remote code execution (RCE) and denial-of-service (DoS). -
Mitigating Skeleton Key, a new type of generative AI jailbreak technique
Microsoft recently discovered a new type of generative AI jailbreak method called Skeleton Key that could impact the implementations of some large and small language models.