Earlier this week, Microsoft held its BlueHat IL event in Tel Aviv, the first Israeli edition of its cyber security conference featuring some of the world’s top security experts. Microsoft already had some ties with the local cybersecurity ecosystem, having invested in Israeli companies Aqua Security and Team 8 over the past couple of months.
But according to a new report from Reuters, the company plans to continue to spend over $1 billion per year on cybersecurity research and development in the future. “As more and more people use cloud, that spending has to go up,” explained Microsoft vice president of security Bharat Shah to Reuters, adding that this $1 billion annual investment doesn’t include future acquistions.
Reuters also revealed that Microsoft Ventures invested this week an undisclosed amount in Illusive Networks , a Team 8 subsidiary developing deception technology to monitor attacks at banks, retail outlets and other critical infrastuctures.
“We look at lots of different technologies that might be of use in the future,” explained Shah, who declined to say if Microsoft was working on implemeting deception technology in its products. As the company pioneered new authentication methods with Windows Hello on Windows 10 devices, it’s clear that the company takes cybersecurity very seriously. According Microsoft’s data, the number of attempted cyber attacks rose from 20,000 a week two or three years ago to 600,000-700,000 a week.
