Inside Microsoft Threat Intelligence: Where research powers resilience

A man in a black shirt is shown with a text overlay displaying Jonathan Bar Or (JBO) Principal Security Researcher | Defender.

Where security begins

Security doesn’t begin at the moment of attack, it starts far earlier, in the quiet work of researchers who hunt for the vulnerabilities that could one day become weaponized.

Every time a zero-day is uncovered, an incident is contained, or a threat actor’s supply chain is dismantled is the result of an end-to-end intelligence loop. At Microsoft, that loop moves from signal to insight, from detection to disruption.

In our first three episodes of Inside Microsoft Threat Intelligence, we explored how each part of that loop comes to life:

Disruption: Sherrod DeGrippo shared how our threat intelligence led to the disruption of Storm-1152, a threat actor group representing one of the many ways cybercrime operates at global scale and is becoming commercialized. We also covered how attribution and enforcement can stop it in its tracks.
Response: Microsoft Incident Response revealed what happens when calm leadership and collaboration turn crisis into containment. Adrian Hill offered his unvarnished perspective on the role resilience plays during incident response.
Hunting: The Modern Threat Hunter showed how curiosity and data-driven detection connect faint signals into early warning systems. Thomas Ball shared how he uses AI to form hypothesis and gets into the mindset of a threat actor.

Now we turn to the foundation that fuels it all, security research, through the lens of Principal Security Researcher Jonathan Bar Or (JBO).

JBO represents the proactive protection pillar of Microsoft’s end-to-end threat intelligence. His work demonstrates how finding flaws before attackers exploit them leads to protections not just in Windows, but across every platform our customers rely on.

Chasing exploits before attackers do

JBO recalls uncovering a Safari vulnerability, HM Surf, that allowed spying through the browser. Apple patched Safari, but the question remained: what about Chrome, or other browsers? That’s where Defender stepped in, layering protection external to those browsers and catching real attackers attempting to abuse the flaw on Chrome.

This is a defining example of how research translates into proactive defense. By discovering the logic bug, responsibly disclosing it, and then writing durable detections, Microsoft Threat Intelligence was able to protect customers before a patch existed, closing a critical gap that attackers had already begun to exploit.

For JBO, the real challenge isn’t chasing exploits; it’s understanding the logic behind them. His focus is on how systems trust each other, and where that trust can quietly break.

“Logic bugs are hard to fix. You have to understand how different parts of the system trust each other.”

Defender became the layer capable of shielding users system-wide, proving that research doesn’t just find flaws; it redefines defense.

Cross-platform mindset

Attackers don’t care which platform you use. That’s why Microsoft Threat Intelligence research doesn’t stop at Windows. JBO and his peers actively explore vulnerabilities in Linux, Mac, Android, and Chrome OS. Each platform has its own quirks and potential attack surfaces, and researchers deliberately go where customers go to ensure Defender protections follow.

This cross-platform work results in generalized detections: coverage not only for the vulnerability at hand, but for its future variants. That durability means Defender is often prepared to stop attacks no one has yet discovered.

A vulnerability isn’t a headline; it’s a handoff. Once a flaw is confirmed, JBO’s process moves fast: responsible disclosure, internal red-team validation, then collaboration with blue-team engineers to harden detections before attackers can act.

That closed-loop approach: research > detection > response > protection; is how Microsoft Threat Intelligence turns insight into prevention. It’s not theoretical. It’s operational.

The scale of impact, multiplied by AI

The true power of proactive protection is scale. A single researcher finding a single flaw can protect millions of users worldwide. For JBO, that’s the motivation: “With one mind, you can affect millions of people. That’s a superpower.”

This work embodies the proactive protection stage of Microsoft’s end-to-end intelligence loop. Threat insights lead to detections, detections feed back into research, and protections are shared responsibly across the global ecosystem.

And modern security research demands scale. Codebases grow daily; attacker automation moves faster still. That’s why JBO uses Microsoft Security Copilot to augment his analysis surfacing anomalies, mapping code relationships, and focusing effort where it matters most.

“Copilot helps me know where to look — and more importantly, where not to look.”

AI doesn’t replace intuition or experience; it amplifies both. It lets researchers ask better questions and reach durable conclusions faster — without losing the human judgment that defines great defense.

JBO’s story highlights a simple truth: resilience doesn’t start with responding to breaches, it starts with finding and fixing what attackers might exploit tomorrow. That’s proactive protection, and it’s central to how Microsoft Threat Intelligence stays ahead of shifting threats.

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