“Microsoft is doing the right thing to increase focus on security with new senior appointments,” noted Pareekh Jain, CEO of EIIRTrend & Pareekh Consulting, in an email to CSO. “Now not only do individuals or groups of hackers attack, but state-sponsored cybersecurity incidents also happen. Product companies like Microsoft, which have a large consumer, enterprise, and government footprint, need to be a few steps ahead.”
Microsoft also will be viewed as an example to other product-focused companies on how to respond to security challenges, so the moves it makes now are crucial for the overall industry security roadmap ahead, he noted.
“In a product business, the key metric is time-to-market for new features; [however,] it’s time that focus also shifts to time-to-security,” Jain observed. “The industry will be watching Microsoft moves, and in the future, more product companies will focus on time-to-security and bringing senior security talent in their product groups.”