In cybercrime war, Microsoft extends helping hand to gov’t

Software giant Microsoft Corp. hopes to collaborate with Philippine government agencies to further secure the country from cybercriminals.

On the sidelines of a forum Friday, Microsoft digital crimes unit chief David Finn said he recently met with officials of various government agencies as part of the company’s long-standing commitment to protect the people from cybercrime threat.

“The bad news is that cybercriminals are getting more sophisticated, savvy, crafty. But the good news is that we have better people, teams, tools and technology to combat cybercriminals. One of the things that we at Microsoft is doing, is using big data capabilities and cloud service technologies … to track and trace, detect and dismantle criminal organizations,” Finn said.

Microsoft has taken a comprehensive approach to security issues as its team “plays offense against cybercriminals around the world,” he said.

Finn’s team is made up of more than 100 people—former prosecutors, police officials, software engineers, technical specialists, intelligence analysts, lawyers and other business professionals—based in more than 30 countries.

“What we do is to go after (cybercriminals), understand what it is they’re doing as we examine their malicious codes. This we do at the Microsoft Cybercrime Center, which was put up in November 2013. It is located within our global headquarters in Redmond, Washington. This is a symbol of Microsoft’s commitment to playing offense against cybercriminals,” he said.

“The kind of intelligence and learning [we get] from these cases, we build right into our products. We share [that information] to customers around the world, including the Philippines.”

Finn cited the Citadel botnet case, where Microsoft and its partners were able to stop cybercriminals from “hijacking” private data and information from Internet users across the globe.

Botnet, short for “robot networks,” refers to computers “hijacked” by criminal organizations and are used to retrieve critical information, such as financial data.

The Citadel botnet case, Finn said, involved over 5 million computers in 91 countries, including the Philippines, where cybercriminals took some $500 million from various bank accounts.

“What we’re doing now is we provide customers a comprehensive suite of security capabilities—the intelligence we learned from how the cybercriminals operate,” Finn said.

“Microsoft is a company that has a tremendous, long-standing commitment. We have a team of 100 people, who are focused everyday on fighting cybercrime, working with law enforcement, working with our partners and customers. We invite customers, banks, governments, law enforcers, and academic experts to sit with us and work on the cases.”