Microsoft continues cyber security spending spree with Miburo buy

Brains to be added to the Customer Security and Trust in defense against 'foreign adversaries'

Microsoft has opened its wallet once more to pick up New York-based cyber-threat analyst Miburo.

Founded by Clint Watts in 2011, Miburo is all about the detection of and response to foreign (in the context of the US) information operations. The team is to be folded into Microsoft's Customer Security and Trust organization and the work of its analysts is to be fed into the Windows giants' threat detection and analysis capabilities.

"Miburo," said Microsoft, "has become a leading expert in identification of foreign information operations." Its research teams have hunted out some nasty influence campaigns over 16 languages.

Miburo recently released a series of reports concerning what it claimed was disinformation aligned with the Chinese government present on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube throughout 2021 and documented rehashes of old conspiracy theories, "this time with a Ukraine angle."

The shopping spree at Microsoft has resulted in a number of companies being added to its security portfolio in recent years. In 2021 alone it picked up RiskIQ as well as ReFirm Labs and CyberX.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed. "The new analysts from Miburo," wrote Tom Burt, corporate vice president for Customer Security and Trust at Microsoft, "will enable Microsoft to expand its threat detection and analysis capabilities to address new cyberattacks and shed light on the ways in which foreign actors use information operations in conjunction with other cyber-attacks to achieve their objectives."

One can but hope those same analysts might also advise Microsoft on how best to more rapidly plug some of the holes in its own products, theoretically ripe for exploitation by miscreants seeking a way to distribute their disinformation.

"With the acquisition of Miburo," said Burt, "we will continue our mission to take action, and to partner with others in the public and private sectors to find long-term solutions that will stop foreign adversaries from threatening public and private sector customers and, in fact, the very foundations of our democracy." ®