A Leader in multiple Zero Trust security categories: Industry analysts weigh in

The massive shift toward remote and hybrid work over the last two years has prompted many security professionals to reassess where siloed security may create vulnerabilities.¹ For that reason, Zero Trust has become the gold standard for enterprise security. An effective Zero Trust approach requires comprehensive security—a holistic solution that covers all users, devices, and endpoints with central visibility. And any security solution you entrust with protecting your organization should be vetted by trusted industry sources.

There’s a reason Microsoft Security generated more than USD15 billion in revenue during 2021 with 45 percent growth.² We’re a Leader in four Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ reports,³  eight Forrester Wave™ reports,⁴ and six IDC MarketScape reports.⁵ As we head into another year marked by rapid change, Microsoft Security continues to deliver industry-leading protection across Zero Trust pillars, including identity, endpoints, applications, infrastructure, and data. Read on to see how we can help you move forward fearlessly.

Strengthen identity verification

Zero Trust security starts with strong identity verification. That means determining that only those people, devices, and processes you’ve authorized can access resources on your systems. As the cornerstone of Microsoft’s identity solutions, Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) provides a single identity control plane with common authentication and authorization for all your apps and services, even many non-Microsoft apps. Built-in conditional access in Azure AD lets you set policies to assess the risk levels for a user, device, sign-in location, or app. Admins can also make point-of-logon decisions and enforce access policies in real-time—blocking access, requiring a password reset, or granting access with an additional authentication factor.

Gartner recognized Microsoft as a 2021 Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Access Management.⁶ Microsoft was also named as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Advanced Authentication for Identity Security 2021 Vendor Assessment. From the IDC MarketScape report: “As telemetry is the rocket fuel for AI- and machine learning-infused endpoint security solutions, Microsoft’s breadth and volume are unequaled geographically and across customer segments. With the support of macOS, iOS, and Android, Microsoft’s telemetry pool is expanding and diversifying.”

“The difference we’ve experienced in visibility and threat detection since deploying Microsoft Security solutions is like night and day.”—Raoul Van Der Voort, Global Service Owner, Rabobank.

Comprehensive endpoint management

Microsoft Endpoint Manager combines both Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Configuration Manager to enable all user devices and their installed apps (corporate and personal) to meet your security and compliance policies—whether connecting from inside the network perimeter, over a VPN, or from the public internet. We believe this comprehensive coverage led to Microsoft being named a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Endpoint Management Tools,⁷ including Microsoft 365 Defender with extended detection and response (XDR) capabilities and its easy integration with Microsoft 365 apps.

Endpoint Manager also ranked as a Leader in the 2021 Forrester Wave™: Unified Endpoint Management Q4 2021. As the Forrester report states: “Endpoint Manager excels at helping customers migrate to modern endpoint management, with differentiating features, such as policy analysis, to determine readiness for cloud management, templated group policy migration, and pre-canned reports for co-management eligibility.” In the 2021 IDC MarketScape Vendor Assessments, Microsoft was again named as a Leader in five categories, including Worldwide Modern Endpoint Security for Enterprises⁸ and Small and Midsize Businesses,⁹ as well as Worldwide Unified Endpoint Management Software,¹⁰ Worldwide Unified Endpoint Management Software for Ruggedized/Internet of Things Deployment,¹¹ and Worldwide Unified Endpoint Management Software for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses.¹²

“Our team are the enablers for Zero Trust prinicpals at Heineken, so by using the latest security technologies to provide a safe way for our business to innovate—like technology that helps reduce our carbon footprint and save water—we really can brew a better world.”—Marina Marceta, Security Incident Manager, Heineken.

Endpoint security and protection

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint was named Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms,¹³ as well as being recognized as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Endpoint Security Software as a Service, Q2 2021. In the Forrester report, Defender for Endpoint received the highest possible scores in the criteria of control, data security, and mobile security, as well as in the criteria for Zero Trust framework alignment. As Forrester reported: “Third-party labs and customer reference scores both point to continued improvement over antimalware and anti-exploit efficacy where Microsoft frequently outperforms third-party competitors.”

Microsoft 365 Defender again made the top ranks later in the same year, placing as a Leader in The Forrester New Wave™: Extended Detection and Response (XDR), Q4 2021. “[Microsoft 365 Defender] offers robust, native endpoint, identity, cloud, and O365 [Microsoft Office 365] correlation… singular and cross-telemetry detection, investigation, and response for Microsoft’s native offerings in one platform.”

Application usage and management

Knowing which apps are being accessed by the people in your organization is critical to mitigating threats. This is especially true for apps that might be acquired independently for use by individuals or teams, also known as shadow IT. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Email Security, Q2 2021, and received the highest possible score in the incident response, threat intelligence, and endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions integration criteria. Defender for Office 365 also received the highest possible scores in the product strategy, support and customer success, and performance and operations criteria.

Microsoft 365 Defender was again recognized by Forrester as a Leader in The Forrester New Wave™: Extended Detection and Response (XDR), Q4 2021. Forrester found that Defender “offers robust, native endpoint, identity, cloud, and Office 365 correlation… [and] provides singular and cross-telemetry detection, investigation, and response for Microsoft’s native offerings in one platform.” Forrester also stated that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint’s “rich native telemetry yields tailored detection, investigation, response, and mitigation capabilities.”

Microsoft is committed to helping you gain visibility of your cloud apps and protect sensitive information anywhere in the cloud, as well as assess compliance and discover shadow IT. We’re proud to report that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps ranked as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Security Gateways, Q2 2021, receiving the highest score in the strategy category.

Secure your network

Today’s modern architectures span on-premises systems, multiple cloud and hybrid services, VPNs, and more. Microsoft provides the scalable solutions needed to help secure any size network, including our cloud-native Microsoft Azure Firewall and Microsoft Azure DDoS Protection. Our XDR, security information and event management (SIEM), and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) solutions—Microsoft 365 Defender and Microsoft Sentinel—empower your security operations centers (SOCs) to hunt for threats and easily coordinate your response from a single dashboard. 

“The reason Microsoft provides such a powerful security solution is that it seeks to meet your needs holistically. Each security layer talks to everything else, including those data sources you might be using that are external to Microsoft.”—Martin Sloan, Security Director, Drax Group.

On-premises and cloud infrastructure

Accurate infrastructure monitoring is critical for detecting vulnerabilities, attacks, or any anomaly that could leave your organization vulnerable. Staying on top of configuration management and software updates is especially important to meet your security and policy requirements.

Because today’s SOC is tasked with protecting a decentralized digital estate, Microsoft Sentinel was created as a cloud-native SIEM and SOAR solution, designed to protect both on-premises and cloud infrastructure. Only a year after its introduction, Microsoft was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Security Analytics Platforms, Q4 2020. By using graph-based machine learning and a probabilistic kill chain to produce high-fidelity alerts, Microsoft Sentinel reduces alert fatigue by 90 percent. Forrester reported that customers “note the ease of integration across other Microsoft products like Azure, Microsoft 365, and Defender for Endpoint as a big benefit… [and] call out automation as another strength.”

Limit access to your data

Limiting access to your data means upholding the three pillars of Zero Trust security—verify explicitly, apply least privileged access, and assume breach—across all files, wherever they reside. With Microsoft Information Protection, built-in labeling helps you maintain accurate classification, and machine learning-based trainable classifiers help deliver an exact data match. Microsoft Information Governance provides capabilities to govern your data for compliance or regulatory requirements, and Microsoft Data Loss Prevention empowers you to apply a consistent set of policies across the cloud, on-premises environments, and endpoints to monitor, prevent, and remediate risky activity.

In the field of data protection, Microsoft was named a Leader in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Information Archiving,¹⁴ as well as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Unstructured Data Security Platforms, Q2 2021. Forrester gave Microsoft the highest score in the strategy category, as well as the highest score possible in APIs and integrations, data security execution roadmap, performance, planned enhancements, Zero Trust enabling partner ecosystem, and eight other criteria.

The comprehensive coverage you need with Microsoft Security

Competing in today’s business environment means being able to move forward without constantly looking over your shoulder for the latest cyber threat. An effective Zero Trust architecture helps make that possible through a combination of comprehensive coverage, easy integration, built-in intelligence, and simplified management. Microsoft Security does all four—integrating more than 40 disparate products for security, compliance, identity, and management across clouds, platforms, endpoints, and devices—so you can move forward—fearless.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

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¹Why Security Can’t Live In A Silo, Douglas Albert, Forbes Technology Council, Forbes. October 5, 2020.

²Microsoft beats on earnings and revenue, delivers upbeat forecast for fiscal third quarter, Jordan Novet, CNBC. January 25, 2022.

³Microsoft Security is a Leader in four Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ reports, Microsoft Security.

⁴Microsoft Security is a Leader in eight Forrester Wave™ categories, Microsoft Security.

⁵IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Advanced Authentication for Identity Security 2021 Vendor Assessment, Doc # US46178720. July 2021

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Modern Endpoint Security for Enterprises 2021 Vendor Assessment, Doc # US48306021. November 2021

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Modern Endpoint Security for Small and Midsize Businesses 2021 Vendor Assessment, Doc #48304721. November 2021.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Endpoint Management Software 2021 Vendor Assessment, Doc # US46957820. January 2021.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Endpoint Management Software for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses 2021 Vendor Assessment, Doc # US46965720. January 2021

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Endpoint Management Software for Ruggedized/Internet of Things Deployment 2021 Vendor Assessment, Doc # US46957920. January 2021

⁶Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Access Management, Henrique Teixeira, Abhyuday Data, Michael Kelley, 1 November 2021.

⁷Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Unified Endpoint Management Tools, Dan Wilson, Chris Silva, Tom Cipolla, 16 August 2021.

⁸IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Modern Endpoint Security for Enterprises 2021 Vendor Assessment, Michael Suby, IDC. November 2021.

⁹Microsoft named a Leader in IDC MarketScape for Modern Endpoint Security for Enterprise and Small and Midsize Businesses, Rob Lefferts, Microsoft Security Blog, Microsoft. November 18, 2021.

¹⁰IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Endpoint Management Software 2021 Vendor Assessment, Phil Hochmuth, IDC. January 2021.

¹¹IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Endpoint Management Software for Ruggedized/Internet of Things Deployment 2021 Vendor Assessment, Phil Hochmuth. January 2021.

¹²IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Endpoint Management Software for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses 2021 Vendor Assessment, Phil Hochmuth. January 2021.

¹³Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms, Paul Webber, Peter Firstbrook, Rob Smith, Mark Harris, Prateek Bhajanka, Updated 5 January 2022, Published 5 May 2021.

¹⁴Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving, Michael Hoeck, Jeff Vogel, Chandra Mukhyala, 24 January 2022.

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