We’re excited to launch Microsoft Safe Future Initiative (SFI) patterns and practices: a brand new library of actionable steerage designed to assist organizations implement safety measures at scale.
This launch marks the following step in our journey to make our SFI learnings sensible for our clients, companions, and broader safety ecosystem. These patterns and practices draw from a spread of confirmed safety architectures and greatest practices—together with, however not restricted to, Zero Belief—operationalized to guard Microsoft’s infrastructure and now shared that will help you do the identical.
Why SFI patterns and practices matter
Since launching the Safe Future Initiative (SFI) in November 2023, we’ve mobilized the equal of greater than 34,000 engineers to mitigate danger and enhance safety for Microsoft and our clients.¹ Guided by three safety ideas—safe by design, by default, and in operations—we now have made measurable progress within the areas of tradition, governance, and our six engineering pillars. Nonetheless there may be extra to do and groups throughout the corporate are working to enhance safety of each product, handle learnings from each incident, and repeatedly enhance our strategies and practices.
Moreover, we now have heard suggestions from clients and companions that need us to share how we’re enhancing safety at Microsoft, not simply on the strategic structure degree but additionally on the implementation and sensible degree. That’s the place SFI patterns and practices library comes into play.
What’s within the first wave of SFI patterns and practices?
We’re launching the primary wave of eight sample and apply articles that assist resolve probably the most asked-for, pressing, and sophisticated challenges confronted by safety practitioners at this time:
| Sample identify | SFI pillar | What it helps you do |
| Phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA) | Defending identities and secrets and techniques | Conventional MFA is now not sufficient. This sample helps organizations shift to cryptographic, phishing-resistant authentication utilizing FIDO2, passkeys, and certificate-based strategies—lowering publicity to credential-based cyberattacks. Change weak MFA with cryptographic, phishing-resistant strategies. |
| Get rid of id lateral motion | Isolating tenants and manufacturing techniques | Cyberattackers typically exploit id pivot paths to escalate privileges. This sample outlines find out how to section entry, implement Conditional Entry, and block dangerous visitor authentication to stop silent intrusions. Forestall cyberattackers from pivoting throughout tenants and roles. |
| Take away legacy techniques that danger safety | Isolating tenants and manufacturing techniques | Unmanaged tenants and legacy infrastructure introduce configuration drift and assault floor. Microsoft eliminated greater than 5.75 million inactive tenants—this sample exhibits how you are able to do the identical. Decommission unmanaged tenants and legacy infrastructure. |
| Standardize safe growth pipelines | Defending engineering techniques | CI/CD pipelines are sometimes fragmented and inconsistent. This sample helps you implement ruled templates that implement safety gates, encourages creation of Software program Invoice of Supplies (SBOMs) and streamline compliance. Use ruled CI/CD templates to implement safety and compliance. |
| Full manufacturing infrastructure stock | Monitoring and detecting threats | You’ll be able to’t shield what you possibly can’t see. This sample guides organizations in constructing real-time asset inventories, centralizing telemetry, and eradicating unused functions to cut back danger. Preserve real-time visibility into all belongings and telemetry. |
| Fast anomaly detection and response | Monitoring and detecting threats | Trendy cyberattackers transfer quick. This sample exhibits find out how to use AI, person entity and conduct analytics (UEBA), and centralized logging to detect suspicious conduct and automate response—lowering dwell time and enhancing safety operations middle (SOC) effectivity. Use AI and behavioral analytics to detect and reply to cyberthreats sooner. |
| Safety log retention requirements | Monitoring and detecting threats | Logs are the spine of detection and forensics. This sample helps you standardize codecs, centralize entry, and lengthen retention to assist long-term investigations and compliance. Standardize, centralize, and lengthen log retention for higher detection and forensics. |
| Speed up vulnerability mitigation | Accelerating response and remediation | Efficient vulnerability administration is essential to lowering danger in advanced digital environments by enabling sooner, systematic responses to safety threats. Automation, built-in workflows, and enriched communications can considerably speed up mitigation timelines and enhance organizational resilience. Automate detection, triage, and patching to cut back time-to-mitigate. |
Introducing SFI patterns and practices taxonomy
Simply as software program design patterns present reusable options to widespread engineering issues, SFI patterns and practices provide repeatable, confirmed approaches to fixing advanced cybersecurity challenges. Every sample is crafted to handle a selected safety danger—whether or not it’s id lateral motion, legacy infrastructure, or inconsistent steady integration and steady supply (CI/CD) pipelines—and is grounded in Microsoft’s personal expertise. Like design patterns in software program structure, these safety patterns are modular, extensible, and constructed for reuse throughout various environments.
Moreover, every sample within the SFI patterns and practices library follows a constant and purposeful construction. Each article begins with a sample identify—a concise deal with that captures the essence of the cybersecurity problem. The downside part outlines the safety danger and its real-world context, serving to readers perceive why it issues. The resolution describes how Microsoft addressed the difficulty internally. The steerage part gives sensible suggestions that clients can think about making use of in their very own environments. Lastly, the implications part outlines the outcomes and trade-offs of implementing the sample, serving to organizations anticipate each the advantages and the operational issues.
This construction affords a framework for understanding, making use of, and evolving safety practices.
Becoming a member of the SFI patterns and practices journey
SFI patterns and practices is your information to turning structure into motion. By adopting these patterns, organizations can speed up their safety maturity, cut back implementation friction, and construct techniques which can be safer by design, default, and in operation.
What’s coming subsequent?
That is only the start. Within the coming months, we’ll launch extra patterns to share extra steerage aligned to SFI pillars. Every new sample can be revealed on the Microsoft Safety weblog and on Microsoft’s Safe Future Initiative homepage.
Get began
Discover the primary set of patterns:
Let’s construct a safe future, collectively
Speak to your Microsoft account crew to combine these practices into your roadmap.
To be taught extra about Microsoft Safety options, go to our web site. Bookmark the Safety weblog to maintain up with our knowledgeable protection on safety issues. Additionally, observe us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Safety) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the newest information and updates on cybersecurity.
