Protecting critical assets 

Traditional security solutions often operate in a one-size-fits-all alert model that treats every detection equally, regardless of how important the asset is. But not all assets are equal. Critical assets are systems governing access, identity, or sensitive data. They are essential to an organization’s operations and security, for example, domain controllers, cloud connectivity gateways, key management servers, and others. If attackers compromise these assets, business continuity suffers at great scale. As these systems typically have less routine activity, any alert on them is far more significant.  

Threat actors specifically target these high-value systems, meaning that even weaker signals need to be properly investigated. With short-staffed SOC teams, it has historically been a challenge to respond to these types of signals effectively. Given assets like domain controllers are the backbone to an organization’s daily operations, protecting critical infrastructure means proactively stopping adversaries before they inflict damage. So how do security solutions help SOC teams effectively protect critical assets while ensuring business continuity? 

To help security teams meet this challenge, Microsoft Defender developed automatic attack disruption: a built-in self-defense capability that identifies & disrupts multi-domain attacks in near real time to prevent further damage across the organization. We recently announced how we protect domain controllers against ransomware as the latest attack disruption innovation.  

Behind the scenes, attack disruption uses a critical asset framework to achieve this outcome. This framework is developed from the latest threat research and tested internally within Microsoft’s security infrastructure to provide the context needed to differentiate true threats from noise for critical assets, empowering organizations to act decisively when it matters most. Using the native integration between Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Microsoft Security Exposure Management, we can automatically identify critical assets in your environment and apply deep contextual insights based on each asset’s unique threat profile to disrupt attacks accordingly.  

This blog post dives into how this framework drives real impact, its core components, innovative methodology, and how it helps ensure that organizations are proactive and efficient in their defense strategy specifically for critical asset protection. 

Real world impact 

By applying the critical asset framework, Microsoft Defender was able to disrupt attacks targeting high-value assets several days earlier in the kill chain in 40% of triggered incidents. This early intervention significantly reduces attacker dwell time, helping prevent impact and limit damage. Additionally, in another 40% of incidents, risk-based contextual insights transformed weak signals into clear, actionable disruption opportunities. These were unique incidents, false negatives in the past, that are now being surfaced and mitigated for the first time. 

Neutralizing a human-operated attack on a global enterprise’s domain controller

In this scenario, a global enterprise was running multiple endpoint detection & response vendors in their environment, including Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. The organization was targeted by an advanced, human-operated attack on their domain controllers. Only Microsoft’s solution was able to stop the attack thanks to Defender’s early detection and disruption capabilities. The threat was neutralized before any damage could be inflicted, demonstrating the necessity of automatic attack disruption in the fight against ransomware. Meanwhile, critical assets onboarded to the other vendor were impacted.  

Attack story showing automatic attack disruption saving domain controllers onboarded to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint whereas those onboarded to a different EDR solution were encrypted.

Core principles for protecting critical assets 

Now that you’ve seen how effective attack disruption is for protecting critical assets, let’s take a look at the core principles shaping our framework:  

• Prioritization and classification: By classifying assets based on their criticality and role we ensure that disruption actions are triggered precisely where they matter most. With fewer benign events on critical systems, every detection is more likely to reflect a genuine threat, enabling faster, more targeted responses that directly enhance client security and operational confidence. 

• Proactive, real-time defense: Our context-driven approach enables early detection and disruption of threats, often stopping attacks days before they can cause significant harm. 

• Adaptive and scalable: Although our initial focus has been on domain controllers, the framework is designed to be flexible and protect a variety of other critical assets such as cloud connectivity solutions and publicly connected devices, based on each asset’s unique behavioral context. 

We take these principles and translate them into actionable detection and disruption actions tailored to protect critical assets from the sophisticated and persistent threats that they frequently face. 

Under the hood of critical asset protection 

1. Asset classification: Our process starts by analyzing each asset’s role and criticality using Microsoft Security Exposure Management to identify and prioritize critical assets, guiding every disruption decision along the way.
2. Detector integration and management:
   • Targeted detector selection: We have engineered a specialized set of detectors most relevant to high-value assets, guided by extensive asset-specific threat research. This ensures each critical asset is protected by detectors selected specifically for the threats it faces.
   • Automated quality evaluation: Our system continuously assesses each detector’s signal-to-noise ratio and overall impact, deploying only those that meet our strict standards.
   • Integrated security platform: A dedicated module orchestrates every step - from generating alerts and enriching them with context to automatically triggering the right containment or remediation action via one streamlined workflow.
3. Contextual disruption execution: When a detector triggers on a critical asset, our framework immediately enriches the alert with detailed contextual telemetry. This enriched data is leveraged in several powerful ways. For example, events are correlated to accurately identify any impacted users - even when initial detections lack clear user data (such as when a malicious payload runs under the SYSTEM account via a service, where our framework traces the creator of the service). The framework also assesses remote activity to capture additional related entities, applying tailored threat lists specific to each asset type. These examples demonstrate how our context-driven approach transforms raw detections into precise, actionable intelligence that enable targeted responses like user containment and soon, IP containment for critical assets.  

Where we’re heading 

As the threat landscape evolves, we continue investing in attack disruption’s ability to protect critical assets. Our roadmap includes: 

• Scaling through AI-driven behavioral coverage: We’re shifting from a detector-centric approach to an AI-driven model that continuously learns from vast volumes of telemetry and behavioral patterns. We’re shifting the framework to identify and disrupt threats dynamically, improving precision, expanding coverage, and adapting faster than static rules ever could.
• Extending asset coverage: Beyond domain controllers, upcoming iterations will include additional high-value assets such as Entra Connect Sync servers, internet-facing servers, SQLs servers, and more - providing comprehensive protection across your organization’s critical infrastructure.
• Deepening integration: This innovation has been made possible through the integration between Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Microsoft Security Exposure Management, which provides advanced asset classification. Our ongoing partnership ensures we continue to innovate and deliver tailored solutions that address unique client needs.

Conclusion 

The ability to protect critical assets represents a paradigm shift in cybersecurity, moving from reactive alerting to proactive, context-aware disruption that prioritizes not just alerts, but the assets themselves. By recognizing that not all assets carry the same risk, our approach ensures that protection efforts are focused where they matter most, enabling true end-to-end defense. By integrating advanced asset classification and context-driven intelligence into our security platform, we’re not only protecting critical systems like domain controllers but also empowering customers with decisive, actionable insights. 

As we continue to innovate, our commitment remains clear: to deliver intelligent, effective security solutions that safeguard your most vital assets against even the most advanced threats. 

Learn more 

Explore these resources to stay updated on the latest automatic attack disruption capabilities and how we protect critical assets: 

• Learn more about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. 

• Read our latest security blog on how we protect against ransomware attacks using domain controllers.

• Read about the new containment features.  

• Learn how attack disruption safeguards your domain controllers in this video. 

• Check out our latest infographic. 

• Read about automatic attack disruption. 

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 on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.