Implementation of Copilot in Cyber Security
Microsoft Security Copilot is a generative AI security product that empowers security and IT professionals to respond to cyber threats, process signals, and assess risk exposure at the speed and scale of AI.
It offers a natural language, assistive copilot experience that helps support security professionals in various end-to-end scenarios such as incident response, threat hunting, intelligence gathering, posture management, and more.
Security Copilot can be used in a wide variety of ways to enhance an organization’s cybersecurity posture. The core use cases can be grouped into three categories:
- Threat protection & cloud security
- Data security, compliance & privacy
- Identity & management.
Some highlights of Security Copilot include:
● Incident summarization: Security Copilot can quickly summarize complex security incidents, providing security professionals with a clear understanding of the situation at hand.
● Impact analysis: Security Copilot can analyze the impact of a security incident, helping security professionals to understand the scope of the problem and prioritize their response efforts.
● Reverse engineering of scripts: Security Copilot can reverse engineer malicious scripts, helping security professionals to understand how they work and develop effective countermeasures.
● Guided response: Security Copilot can provide security professionals with guidance on how to respond to a security incident, helping them to take the most effective actions to mitigate the threat. Security Copilot is designed with integration in mind, offering a standalone experience and seamlessly integrating with products in the Microsoft Security portfolio, such as Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Intune, and Microsoft Entra.
Let’s illustrate a practical example of how Microsoft Security Copilot could be used in a cybersecurity scenario:
Scenario: A security analyst at a company notices unusual network activity. Several endpoints are communicating with a known malicious IP address. Normally, this would require manual investigation across multiple security tools.
Using Security Copilot:
- Initial Query: The analyst starts by asking Security Copilot in natural language: “Investigate network connections to malicious IP address 192.168.1.100.”
- Data Aggregation: Copilot automatically queries connected security tools (like Microsoft Defender XDR, Sentinel, etc.) to gather relevant data, including:
○ Which endpoints are communicating with the malicious IP.
○ What processes on those endpoints are involved.
○ Any related alerts or incidents already raised.
○ Historical data about the malicious IP (e.g., known malware families associated with it).
3. Summarization and Context: Copilot presents a summarized view of the findings, saying something like: “Five endpoints are communicating with 192.168.1.100. The processes involved are powershell.exe and svchost.exe. Defender for Endpoint has flagged these connections as potentially malicious due to known associations with the ‘EvilCorp’ ransomware family. There are also related alerts about suspicious PowerShell scripts executing on these endpoints.”
4. Deep Dive and Analysis: The analyst can then ask follow-up questions: ○ “Show me the PowerShell scripts that were executed.” Copilot retrieves and displays the scripts, even attempting to deobfuscate them and explain their likely purpose.
○ “What is the potential impact of the ‘EvilCorp’ ransomware?”
> Copilot provides information about the ransomware, its typical attack vectors, and potential consequences for the organization.
○ “Are there any other affected systems?”
> Copilot searches for similar activity across the network.
5. Automated Response Recommendations: Based on the analysis, Copilot suggests response actions:
○ “Isolate the affected endpoints to prevent further spread.”
○ “Block the malicious IP address at the firewall.”
○ “Initiate a vulnerability scan on the affected systems.”
○ “Review and update firewall rules.”
6. Guided Response: The analyst can then execute these actions directly from within Copilot, or choose to manually implement them. Copilot can guide the analyst through the process, providing step-by-step instructions.
7. Documentation and Reporting: Copilot automatically logs all actions taken and generates a report of the incident, which can be used for further analysis and improvement.
Benefits Demonstrated:
● Faster Investigation: Instead of manually correlating data from multiple sources, Copilot automates this process, significantly speeding up investigations.
● Improved Accuracy: Copilot’s AI can identify subtle patterns and connections that might be missed by human analysts.
● Reduced Analyst Fatigue: Automating repetitive tasks frees up analysts to focus on more complex and strategic work.
● Consistent Response: Copilot can ensure that response actions are consistent and aligned with best practices.
● Enhanced Threat Intelligence: Copilot leverages threat intelligence data to provide context and insights into potential threats.
8. Phishing Email Analysis:
● Scenario: A security analyst receives a report of a suspicious email. They forward the email to Security Copilot for analysis.
● Copilot’s Actions: ○ Extracts key features of the email: sender address, subject line, links, attachments, language used.
○ Checks the sender address against known phishing lists and reputation databases.
○ Analyzes the links in the email, checking for malicious URLs or redirects. It may even sandbox the links briefly to observe their behavior.
○ Scans any attachments for malware using integrated antivirus and sandboxing services.
○ Analyzes the language used in the email, looking for common phishing tactics like urgency, threats, or unusual grammar.
○ Compares the email to previously reported phishing campaigns.
● Output: Copilot provides a risk assessment of the email, indicating the likelihood of it being a phishing attempt. It highlights any suspicious elements and provides recommendations, such as: “This email has a high probability of being a phishing attempt. The sender address is spoofed, the link points to a known malicious website, and the email uses language commonly associated with phishing campaigns. Block the sender address and delete the email from all mailboxes.”
9. Vulnerability Prioritization:
● Scenario: A vulnerability scanner has identified hundreds of vulnerabilities across the organization’s systems. The security team needs to prioritize which vulnerabilities to address first.
● Copilot’s Actions:
○ Integrates with the vulnerability scanning tool to retrieve the list of vulnerabilities.
○ Correlates vulnerability data with threat intelligence feeds to identify vulnerabilities that are actively being exploited in the wild.
○ Considers the potential impact of each vulnerability, based on the affected system’s criticality and the potential damage that could be caused.
○ Takes into account the exploitability of each vulnerability, considering factors like the availability of exploit code and the ease of exploitation.
● Output: Copilot provides a prioritized list of vulnerabilities, ranked by risk level. For each vulnerability, it provides detailed information, including: the affected system, the vulnerability description, the potential impact, the exploitability score, and recommended remediation steps. It might say, “The ‘Spring4Shell’ vulnerability on the web server should be addressed immediately as it is actively being exploited and poses a high risk to sensitive data.”
10. Threat Hunting:
● Scenario: The security team wants to proactively hunt for potential threats within the network.
● Copilot’s Actions:
○ The analyst provides Copilot with a hypothesis, such as “Look for any suspicious activity related to the ‘EvilCorp’ APT group.”
○ Copilot queries various security data sources (SIEM, endpoint detection and response, network traffic logs, etc.) to identify any indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with the ‘EvilCorp’ group.
○ It can also use machine learning to detect anomalous behavior that might be indicative of an attack.
● Output: Copilot presents any findings, such as: “Two endpoints have been observed communicating with known ‘EvilCorp’ C2 servers. These endpoints also have suspicious processes running that are consistent with ‘EvilCorp’ attack patterns.” It then provides further details and recommendations for investigation and response.
11. Security Posture Management:
● Scenario: The CISO wants to understand the organization’s overall security posture.
● Copilot’s Actions:
○ Integrates with various security tools to gather data on the organization’s security controls, vulnerabilities, and threat landscape.
○ Analyzes the data to identify any gaps or weaknesses in the security posture.
○ Benchmarks the organization’s security posture against industry best practices and regulatory requirements.
● Output: Copilot provides a comprehensive report on the organization’s security posture, highlighting key risks and areas for improvement. It might suggest, “The organization’s multi-factor authentication implementation is weak, as it does not cover all critical systems. This should be addressed to reduce the risk of unauthorized access.” These examples illustrate the potential of Security Copilot to enhance various aspects of cybersecurity. By automating tasks, providing insights, and guiding response actions, it can empower security teams to be more efficient and effective
Note — These are some possible sample test cases. Actual results for the similar cases will be different as the copilot is the tool which can respond differently in some cases for the similar queries.
