Source URL: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2025/06/26/building-security-that-lasts-microsofts-journey-towards-durability-at-scale/
Source: Microsoft Security Blog
Title: Building security that lasts: Microsoft’s journey towards durability at scale
Feedly Summary: In late 2023, Microsoft launched its most ambitious security transformation to date, the Microsoft Secure Future Initiative (SFI). An initiative with the equivalent of 34,000 engineers working across 14 product divisions, supporting more than 20,000 cloud services on 1.2 million Azure subscriptions, the scope is massive. These services operate on 21 million compute nodes, protected by 46.7 million certificates, and developed across 134,000 code repositories.
The post Building security that lasts: Microsoft’s journey towards durability at scale appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.
AI Summary and Description: Yes
**Summary:** The text describes Microsoft’s ambitious Secure Future Initiative (SFI), focusing on operationalizing security durability at scale to protect cloud services and infrastructure. It highlights the need for proactive, automated enforcement of security measures to ensure sustainability and resilience against evolving threats.
**Detailed Description:**
The blog, authored by Microsoft’s Deputy Chief Information Security Officer, Mark Russinovich, presents a comprehensive overview of Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative (SFI), a major security transformation aimed at enhancing security durability within the company. Here are the major points encapsulated in the text:
– **Overview and Scale of Initiative:**
– SFI involves a significant workforce, with around 34,000 engineers dedicated to enhancing security across 20,000 cloud services linked to 1.2 million Azure subscriptions.
– The initiative is built to operate on 21 million compute nodes secured by 46.7 million certificates developed from 134,000 code repositories.
– **Proactive Security Measures:**
– A shift from a reactive security model to a more proactive approach is emphasized, with the development of systems designed to automatically apply security fixes and uphold standards over time.
– The “Secure by Default” principle is highlighted as essential, along with the development of the Security Durability Model to ensure long-term adherence to security best practices.
– **Challenges and Lessons Learned:**
– Despite initial successes, sustaining security gains proved to be challenging, especially in the face of legacy issues and baseline drifts in security coverage.
– Microsoft’s approach included defining explicit ownership of security fixes to ensure accountability and standardized enforcement design.
– **Key Strategies for Security Durability:**
– **Durability Architects:** Specific roles dedicated to maintaining persistent security standards within divisions.
– **Lifecycle Framework:** Inclusion of the “Start Green, Get Green, Stay Green, Validate Green” framework to ensure that security measures are effective throughout the lifecycle of features and systems.
– **Automation:** Heavy reliance on automation tools, like Azure Policy, to enforce practices, monitor compliance, and ensure operational efficiency.
– **Cultural Shift and Governance:**
– The initiative underlines the importance of creating a culture where security is part of the operational framework, emphasizing accountability through executive oversight and integrating durability into governance mechanisms.
– **Security Durability Maturity Framework:**
– The blog outlines stages of maturity in achieving security durability, from a reactive state to one where security practices are autonomously managed and self-sustaining with AI assistance. This framework highlights the transition through operational phases that reflect long-term effectiveness rather than temporary fixes.
– **Metrics for Success:**
– New metrics introduced to quantify progress in security durability, such as the percentage of automated versus manual controls, baseline drift rates, and the time taken to regress.
– **Adoption of Best Practices:**
– The text concludes with a call for organizations of all sizes to adopt principles of security durability, emphasizing that consistent leadership, programmed support, and shared accountability are required for enduring security success in an increasingly complex cyber threat landscape.
In summary, the SFI illustrates that durability in security practices is essential, especially for large-scale cloud operations. This comprehensive approach serves as a model for enterprises looking to stabilize their security frameworks and ensure resilience against future vulnerabilities. The principles and strategies shared are applicable beyond Microsoft, offering invaluable lessons to security and compliance professionals across various industries.