Microsoft has built a $15 billion business—and one of the world’s largest private cyber armies—to counter cyberattacks, but threats are looming large. US banks flagged off nearly $600 million in ransomware payments during the first six months of 2021, and cybersecurity experts put the cost as high. Corporate and public networks are also looking to steal their money with scammers and government-backed hackers looking to steal their secrets.
“It’s like the mother of all problems,” Bell said in his first interview since joining Microsoft from Amazon.com Inc last year. “If you don’t solve it, all the other technical stuff just doesn’t happen.”
Mr. Bell said Microsoft finds itself uniquely positioned at the center of all this activity. Its email and office-productivity products dominate corporate and government networks, and it is the nation’s No. 2 provider of cloud-computing services.
Mr Bell, who helped build the world’s largest cloud business at Amazon, said Microsoft is taking center stage in tackling cybercrime. Some of its customers have said that the company still has a lot to do.
Microsoft has been affected by a series of high-profile cyber intrusions in recent years. In December 2020, the company said that the hackers behind the cyberattack on SolarWinds Corp. had been compromised – a group that US officials have linked to the Russian government. Months later, Microsoft’s widely used email product, Exchange, was targeted by a cyberattack that eventually linked to the Chinese government.
Analysts said Mr Bell’s success or failure is determined to determine the growth of the company’s cyber business to protect Microsoft’s customers from a growing array of bad actors, and how the tech industry can protect itself and the global community. Helps determine the conditions for how the fuel can continue. innovation.
Since Mr. Bell took office four months ago, he has attempted to centralize all of Microsoft’s security efforts, previously silent, under one organization. Now 10,000 people report to him, and he has a budget to spend billions of dollars manufacturing security products.
On Wednesday, Microsoft said it would introduce an easier way to use its security products on Google’s cloud, a major competitor to its own Azure cloud. Microsoft previously made a version of its security product compatible with Amazon’s cloud, so now its popular security software will be available in the three companies that account for more than 65% of all cloud infrastructure services.
Bringing Microsoft’s security solutions to different companies’ clouds is critical to addressing cybersecurity issues, Mr Bell said, as companies today often rely on too many small security products to protect only parts of their data. We do.
Customers get “a one-of-a-kind Frankenstein solution,” said Mr. Bell. “The problem is that everywhere you glue things together, there are seams and those seams become places where people attack.”
Microsoft’s cybersecurity business is solidifying its lead in a highly fragmented industry. Last month, the company said its cybersecurity business surpassed $15 billion in sales last year, up 45% from a year ago.
“Their security surface is massive,” said Corey Quinn, chief cloud economist at Duckbill Group LLC, a cloud computing consulting service. “This stuff is hard. You only have to be wrong once, and everyone thinks you’re an idiot.”
In addition to the SolarWinds and Exchange cyberattacks, in August the company had to repair a flaw in Azure cloud — strategically Microsoft’s most important business — after a cybersecurity company found a bug that exposed customer data. The Azure bug, which cyber security company Wiz Inc. , shocked some Microsoft customers as it revealed how hackers could steal the data of thousands of customers by targeting a portion of Microsoft’s cloud.
The growing prevalence of cyber security problems has hit close to home for Mr. Bell. Last month, his mother called him because he was in dire need of technical support. He had clicked on an offer and his screen was captured by a stranger claiming to have fixed his computer. “I said, ‘Mom, pull the plug.'”
The threats have created an opportunity for Microsoft. But the company finds itself in the awkward position of being a prime target of cyberattacks, as well as rapidly profiting from the tools it sells to customers to deal with these problems, analysts said.
“Old joke, why pay for a filter from someone who sells dirty water?” Jefferies analyst Brent Thiel said.
Mr. Bell came to Microsoft after 23 years at Amazon, where he helped build Amazon’s cloud as it originally invented the cloud-services business starting in 2006. Mr Bell has been credited by former colleagues for his ability to scale and tackle complex. engineering problems.
Mr Bell was once considered a contender for a successor to Amazon Web Services chief Andy Jesse, who took over as chief executive from Jeff Bezos. Mr. Bell left a few months after former AWS executive Adam Selipsky returned to the company from business software vendor Salesforce.com Inc. to take the job. After weeks of talks between Microsoft and Amazon, Mr. Bell was able to begin his new role in October.
Mr Bell said he started talking to Microsoft because he was looking to tackle the next big engineering challenge, and security became something he couldn’t get out of his head.
He consulted his wife, Nadia Shorabura, a former Amazon vice president, and she suggested he chat with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, whom she had known since their days when they were trying to recruit each other. Were. His wife introduced the two. During the meeting, Mr. Nadella raised the issue of security before being raised by Mr. Bell himself, he said.
In August, the same month it was announced that Mr. Bell would join Microsoft, the company would invest $20 billion over the next five years to advance its security, at a summit on national cybersecurity hosted by President Biden. Promised.
Microsoft is the best place to build better walls to stop cybercriminals, Mr Bell said, because no other company has the capital, vision or talent pool to face the threat. He says that’s how companies defend “digital medievalism” today, where each can rely only on the strength of their own castle and bad actors can disappear into their own stronghold after attacks.
“We all want digital civilization,” where companies help protect each other, he said in a LinkedIn post after accepting the job.
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