Topics
Latest
AI
Amazon
Apps
Biotech & Health
Climate
Cloud Computing
Commerce
Crypto
Enterprise
EVs
Fintech
Fundraising
Gadgets
Gaming
Government & Policy
Hardware
Layoffs
Media & Entertainment
Meta
Microsoft
Privacy
Robotics
Security
Social
Space
Startups
TikTok
Transportation
Venture
More from TechCrunch
Staff
Events
Startup Battlefield
StrictlyVC
Newsletters
Podcasts
Videos
Partner Content
TechCrunch Brand Studio
Crunchboard
Contact Us
Microsoft launches its first cybersecurity model, plus a new agentic cybersecurity system
Microsoft on Monday launched its first cybersecurity-specialized model alongside a new AI cybersecurity platform at a small event in San Francisco, taking a big swipe at major players in the space — namely Anthropic, Google and OpenAI.
The company describes MAI-Cyber-1-Flash as a model that’s built “to find challenging vulnerabilities in complex codebases.” The model is built to animate MDASH, Microsoft’s harness dedicated to software vulnerability identification and remediation.
The new security platform is dubbed Perception, and it’s designed to deploy teams of agents to assist with and automate various security workflows, including identifying and remediating bugs. The platform can also integrate with MDASH.
The company claims MAI-Cyber-1-Flash is significantly more powerful (and more cost-effective) than competitor models, based on its performance on an established AI cybersecurity benchmark.
“We’re very very excited to announce our results,” said Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of DeepMind and current CEO of Microsoft AI. “We have MAI-1 Cyber Flash binded [sic] with GPT 5.4 inside of the MDASH harness — which beats out Gemini, GPT 5.5 Cyber, GPT 5.6 Sol, and Mythos 5 on Cyber Gym, which is the primary benchmark that we all use. The golden benchmark.”
“We’re shipping this into production immediately,” he added.
Noting that hackers are increasingly using AI in their cyberattacks, Hayete Gallot, Microsoft’s vice president for security, described Perception as a way for enterprise defenders to “defend against AI with AI at the scale and speed that the attackers have.”
Perception uses agentic red teams, blue teams, and green teams. The red teams can provide detailed simulations of potential attacks — providing context about potential threat actors and the likely vulnerabilities that they might exploit. Blue teams are dedicated to detecting and triaging existing bugs, while green teams take “corrective actions” against those bugs.
Dave Weston, the lead engineer for Perception, described the platform as a massive efficiency upgrade for corporate defenders. “We’ve gone from this taking hours and hours of manual work from multiple specialized folks across the security organization — appsec hunters, remediation engineers, you name it — and in minutes, we have a fix for all of this. Not only do we discover the issues and prioritize them, but we have detection, posture fixing, and even a code fix.”
Though AI has offered new defensive capabilities to companies, its availability to cybercriminals has given rise to a dazzling array of potential threats.
Microsoft’s new security tools, which the company said will be available in preview on November 3, will enter an increasingly crowded field of AI cybersecurity solutions. Earlier this year, Anthropic launched Mythos, a security platform that was released to a small coterie of partner organizations through a program called Glasswing. OpenAI has also launched its own security solution in May through a program called Day Break.
Topics
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
we may earn a small commission
Senior Writer, TechCrunch
Scale faster. Grow your portfolio. Gain practical expertise. No matter your goal, Disrupt can empower you.Save up to $330 today!
Most Popular
SpaceX launches new V3 Starlink satellites but suffers another booster failure
Sean O'Kane
SpaceX launches new V3 Starlink satellites but suffers another booster failure
SpaceX launches new V3 Starlink satellites but suffers another booster failure
SpaceX launches new V3 Starlink satellites but suffers another booster failure
Sean O'Kane
Prentis, new AI lab co-founded by Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus in talks to raise $100M
Marina Temkin
Prentis, new AI lab co-founded by Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus in talks to raise $100M
Prentis, new AI lab co-founded by Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus in talks to raise $100M
Prentis, new AI lab co-founded by Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus in talks to raise $100M
Marina Temkin
US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search
Zack Whittaker
US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search
US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search
US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search
Zack Whittaker
Anduril reportedly in talks to raise funding at $100B valuation, more than 3x last year’s mark
Ram Iyer
Anduril reportedly in talks to raise funding at $100B valuation, more than 3x last year’s mark
Anduril reportedly in talks to raise funding at $100B valuation, more than 3x last year’s mark
Anduril reportedly in talks to raise funding at $100B valuation, more than 3x last year’s mark
Ram Iyer
Tesla’s robotaxis are moving in reverse
Sean O'Kane
Tesla’s robotaxis are moving in reverse
Tesla’s robotaxis are moving in reverse
Tesla’s robotaxis are moving in reverse
Sean O'Kane
Light made a flip phone — it’s colorful and it’s cheap
Amanda Silberling
Light made a flip phone — it’s colorful and it’s cheap
Light made a flip phone — it’s colorful and it’s cheap
Light made a flip phone — it’s colorful and it’s cheap
Amanda Silberling
AI music generator Suno breach affects 55M users, per Have I Been Pwned
Zack Whittaker
AI music generator Suno breach affects 55M users, per Have I Been Pwned
AI music generator Suno breach affects 55M users, per Have I Been Pwned
AI music generator Suno breach affects 55M users, per Have I Been Pwned
Zack Whittaker