In my work life, I am a Technology Officer for Cisilion (a leading UK Microsoft and Cisco technology and service integrator and enabler), but beyond work, I love technology and more importantly, I love to find ways in incorporate new and emerging (or just plain cool) technology into the everyday lives of myself and my family. I’m also a Microsoft MVP, which means I have even more reasons to be a fan and supporter of some of the best and Microsoft – these include Microsoft Designer, Microsoft Clipchamp and of course Microsoft Copilot!
In this blog (with some videos along the way), I’ll show you some of the ways we incorporate the latest Microsoft products into our family activities, routine, and life.
This blog will focus around the recently released Microsoft Designer – which we have been using throughout its development – you’ll see just what a simple to use, yet powerful tool this is and how it has allowed me to blend my professional expertise with my role as a parent and cub leader.
For those new to Designer – you can access it on the web https://designer.microsoft.com or via the mobile app on iOS and Android.
Setting the Scene – About our Family!
I’m married, we have a cat and two young boys (currently nine and seven), the youngest is autistic and the eldest is ADHD (though not officially diagnosed). This means attention to detail is really high, yet patience is low, and they both hate waiting for things or things that take too long and are “boring” are a no no! One loves trains and the other planes (and trains). We created this design in Designer for Christmas Cards in December 2023 🙂
In my work life, I am a Technology Officer, my wife is a teacher that specialises in Special Educational Needs, and in my “spare” time I am a Cub Scout Assistant Leader in my hometown of West Wickham in Kent. My kids love trains, and everything related to them and much of our family time is spend satisfying their craving for train related activities…
Work / Technology Blogs
In my line of work, personal (technical life as a Microsoft MVP) and side-blogger, I use Designer to create inspiring, original and personalised images for blog covers and articles.
The example below is an image design I asked Microsoft Designer to create introducing the new Cyber Security bill announced at the recent Kings Speech in July 2024.
Image Created with Microsoft Designer for a recent Blog
Inspiring Young Minds – Scouting
Consistently looking for ways to ensure young people are ready for the world and life ahead of them, scouting is great. The children learn about working together, solving problems, critical thinking, empathy, the role of people in a community as well some great “life” skills such as exploring the great outside, camping, orienteering, first aid and safety and caring and supporting others.
Technology is a given in schools (well many), the workplace and in the home, but less so in scouting. In the past year, we have been looking at more ways to integrate technology into what we do in simple, yet inclusive ways.
This past year we have been using technology subtly within the “curriculum” without impacting the practical and outdoor nature of the groups purpose. We have digital badges and creative projects and decided early last year (2023) to blend AI design creation into the Cub Scout Group.
After some simple interactive design sessions, we soon had the Cub Scouts designing custom badges, event posters (for a gang show), and promotional advertising (shared over parent social media groups, which not only added a digital touch to what we did, but sparked curiosity and awareness.
Then, last Christmas, the Cubs raised some money for Crisis at Christmas (which fund Christmas dinner and shelter for homeless people) and they together in in groups, created some banner/posters. This was the “winning” one which we used to share the donation to Crisis with
Winning Designer Image from 1st West Wickham Cubs
New Business Ideas
In May 2024, my wife, marketing manager, turned mother, then childminder and now Deputy Pre School manager is looking to venture out and start her our Pre-School aimed at children with Special Education Needs. She had contacted a couple of small graphic design companies to get quotes for a logo design, but then turned to Microsoft Designer Image Creator to see what it could produce. Once she overcame the DALLE-3 “wording and spelling challenges”, she very quickly has a design she loved which she then polished off in Designer Editor. This took minutes and saved her at least £100!
Logo for a new “coming soon” Pre-School
Educating Young People – Showcasing AI Design to Year 2 and Year 4
Towards the end of the summer term, parents were invited to come into my children’s school and talk a bit out their job and an what they do. I had 30 minutes with two classes of year 4 children, followed by a the same with two classes in year 2.
Part of my “talk” involved an interactive session with the children, where we talked about how AI would impact every part of their lives and jobs and used a combination of Microsoft Designer and Microsoft Copilot to create a class mascot and a story to go with it.
End of School Year – Thank you gifts
As the school year ended for my children at the end of July, we bought small teacher gifts and my eldest (nine), took to Designer to create some stickers we could print on sticker paper and attach to the gifts to give them a personalised touch.
Microsoft Designer sticker creation handled the task nicely. We took the images, dropped into PowerPoint to duplicate, and size them, and printed out the stickers to add to plants and chocolates we’d bought/grown for the teaching staff and assistants.
Supporting my children’s passion for Trains
My wider blog on Designer’s capability, is focussed heavily on how we use Designer to add some flair into my son’s hobby around trains and travel. We spend most weekends riding trains, visiting train museums and doing videos about different trains, train lines and doing little challenges.
As we aim to “promote” his videos a little more, we have taken to Microsoft Designer to advertise his work.
Using Microsoft Designer to promote upcoming videos….Endless fun creating different train related images on Microsoft Designer.
Improving our promoting skills
Finally, working with Gen AI tools is a skill in its’ own and takes practice and experimenting to get the “perfect image”. There is a great community of people on social media, including some of the @MSFT365Designer team and users. It’s great to get inspiration from others, share your prompts and take on the challenges of creating new and exciting images.
Why not get involved… Don’t forget to #MicrosoftDesigner.
Get involved in the AI Design Promoting Community
Thanks for Reading
Thanks for reading – I hope this gives some inspiration around how you could use Microsoft Designer for work, personal life, hobbies and more.
I have written a wider blog with video guides about how to use Microsoft Designer, which goes into examples of different ways to use it.⬇️
Microsoft is yet again at the forefront of an AI powered design revolution with formal launch of their AI-powered Designer app which is available on web, and mobile (iOS and Android) after being in preview for a year.
Designer is built all around speed and simplicity, empowering users of any level to quickly create custom images, stickers, greeting cards, and invitations with a professional touch using a wide array of tools, simplified editing tools, a fresh and clean UI and rich AI editing capabilities.
Designer is also free though it does require sign-in with a Microsoft MSA app or Microsoft 365 Personal or Family account. Designer features are also popping up on Commercial apps and services such as Teams. More on this later in the blog.
To do this, simply add square brackets round the elements you want to be “custom” and share the prompt… You can also try many of the pre curated prompts that Microsoft provides in the examples in app.
One of the newest things which was introduced at launch was the concept of design prompt templates. These make help #DesignerCreators with ideas, along with editable prompts to help creative minds get to work quickly. You can simply make any prompt you love (or that people share) with you in a sharable and editable prompt.
To do this, simply add square brackets round the elements you want to be “custom” and copy the prompt to share it with others… You can also try many of the pre curated prompts that Microsoft provides in the examples in app.
Let’s dive into some of the key features. For those that know me, my children love London trains, so the theme of my feature explanation and examples will be very “train centered“.
Firstly, Designer has a rich set of starter apps and templates to help you achive a particular design related task – these range from AI image creation, to greeting cards, social media posts and much much more. You also get some great starter prompts too or creations you can use to get you started if you are having a bit of mind blur! You can access these visually or from the <create> menu at the top of the home page.
Powerful integrated or standalone apps and tools
Designer comes with a full design canvas (this was actually the first part of Designer that was built when the beta debuted about a year ago) along with a growing number of mini apps which make doing simple AI assisted tasks easy and quick. Many of these can also be accessed via the main Designer Canvas (which I highlighted above).
Creating a design from scratch with Microsoft Designer.
The video above is aimed to be a simple whistle-stop tour of the Microsoft Designer Interface. I have used a blank canvas to show just how easy and intuitive it is to create a design from scratch – which in this example is a new design that we will use to promotes my son’s next Train Themed YouTube video.
The sections that follow focus on some of the standalone apps and features that Designer brings in its AI Image Treasure Trove – keep reading!
Using the Designer (mini-apps)
The mobile app – Bringing AI Editing on the Go
The Designer mobile app brings the power of AI editing into the palm of your hand.
It’s a modern, clean app and provides most of the features you get in the browser version with a few things missing – more on that later. In short, you can use the mobile app to easily create images, cards, collages, invitations, drawings and generate decorative borders. The app is also slick and fast – a well-designed and written app.
Since our boys are really into trains, the theme of this and most of the examples will be around trains, as most of our weekends involve trips to train stations and journeys on different trains!!
Starting off, here’s how we used designer to create some inspiring images around the London Underground – using the Designer Mobile App.
The app’s intuitive interface makes it simple for anyone to enhance their creations with a professional touch.
The image below was created with a simple prompt. Designer will even suggest tweaks as you type to help make the image more vibrant and exciting.
Example: Image Restyling
Imagine you’ve taken a photo that’s perfect except for one detail. With Designer, you can easily edit that detail without affecting the rest of the image. The AI-powered tools can recognize and isolate different elements in your photo, allowing you to make precise edits.
Again, this is so quick and easy to use – simple open the tool, select a picture from your gallery (if you have pictures you want to use from your mobile, then you can either use the Phone Link or app, or the QR Code which you can scan with your phone that opens on your phone and lets you simply choose images from your mobile).
You then just choose the restyle image type you would like such as drawing or Claymation, add an optional element and off you go.
Now my only critique with this service/tool is that is not yet available on the mobile app – which to me seems an obvious one to include in mobile – shoot ➡️restyle ➡️post on social.
Example: Collage Creation
Creating a collage is usually quite a time-consuming task and tricky, but not with Designers Collage Creator. Here you can choose/select the photos you want to use, and the Collage app will automatically arrange them into a stylish collage. You can then adjust the layout, add text, and apply filters to perfect your collage.
When you open the Collages app, Designer gives you a set of example designs to give you inspiration or you can start from scratch. You can upload images from your device (or mobile using the QR Code), select background frame design you want and let Designer do its thing. Let’s see in action below…. again, sticking to the train theme!!
Greeting Cards
So, following a trip to London Charing Cross, where my boys got to have a tour of the station (behind the scenes, we used Designer to quickly create a thank you card. For this, we used one of the sample cards and simply modified the prompt. Let’s see this in action.
Create your own ClipArt (and Stickers)
One of the other cool features in Designer is the ability to create Stickers and Clipart. These are quite similar and create process is the same. The main difference being that Stickers have a nice cut-out-able border round them whereas Clipart does not. The main reason for separating them out (I think) is that it’s easier to distinguish between the two types of images – as in, it helps spark imagination.
Designer Clipart (and sticker) creation with a simple prompt.
Here’s another “Train” themed image we created – this was ClipArt using Designer. In the screen shot above, you can see the simple prompt we used and the options it gave us.
Wait there is more – Integration across your Microsoft Apps
The standalone Microsoft Designer app, whilst super intuitive and packed full of features is just the beginning – yet this is just the beginning of the Designer journey. Whilst much of the roadmap is under NDA still, what I can tell you is that Microsoft has already (just) seamlessly integrated Designer into Copilot (both in Copilot Pro for consumer and in the corporate Copilot for Microsoft Space). This has the effect of enhancing capability in apps like Word and PowerPoint, whereby users can now ask Copilot to generate images and designs directly within their documents, streamlining the creative process and making content more personalised and unique.
We have also seen Designer get native integration into Teams Channels and Chat and you’ll start to see it make more appearances across the other Microsoft apps and services.
Designer Document Integration in PowerPoint and Word
Imagine you’re working on a report in Word, or PowerPoint and you need an AI generated graphic to illustrate your point. Instead of switching apps and copying and pasting, you can now use Designer right within Word and PowerPoint to create a custom graphics that fits perfectly with your document’s style and content.
To do this, you can simply ask Copilot in Word or PowerPoint to create an image for you.
Why You Should Try Designer
The Designer app is more than just a tool; it’s a gateway to unleashing your creativity. With its user-friendly interface, AI-powered editing tools, and seamless integration with other Microsoft apps, Designer simplifies the design process, making it accessible to everyone, regardless of their design experience.
Whether you’re a professional designer looking for a convenient way to work on the go, a marketeer who needs some new ideas, a student needing to create presentations for school, or someone who enjoys creating personalised greeting cards for friends and family, Designer has something for you.
Moreover, with the daily boosts offered by Microsoft, you can explore the full potential of the app without any cost. And if you find yourself needing more, the Copilot Pro subscription is a worthwhile investment for the additional benefits it provides.
Conclusion
Microsoft’s Designer app is a game-changer for creators of all levels. With its user-friendly AI tools and cross-platform availability, the possibilities are endless. Embrace the future of design with Microsoft Designer. Try it and use it for free today and see how it can transform your creative process.
We have seen social media frenzy this morning following a triple whammy of issues impacting Azure Virtual Machines (running Windows 10 and Server 2016) and Windows devices across hundreds of organisations where devices are rebooting to the Windows Recovery Screen issue on Windows 10 devices and Server running older versions.
19/7/24 11:00am: The impacts of the issue are still on-going although the root cause is known and CrowdStrike and working with Microsoft on getting a patch out…
19/7/24: 15:00: CrowdStrike have updated their sites to take accountability of the issue (Microsoft still helping) that has impacted devices due to a “bug” in their software update which caused the BSOD. They have pulled and fixed the update and are working with their customers to remediate the impact. Microsoft have also offered guidance on what can be done to reverse the issue – links to this below.
29/7/2024: 18.00: this is not a Microsoft problem (yet I imagine they will be blamed) but it affected millions of Windows systems… Read to the bottom to see why.
Summary
Since the early hours of the morning, several media companies, airlines, transport companies, tech companies, and schools / universities are reporting a Blue Screen (actually a safetyrecovery screen) issue Windows 10.
The issue is impacting Windows 10 devices that are using CrowdStrike Falcon agent – their flagship Extended Detect and Response (XDR) Security platform.
Impacted devices are crashing following this Falcon Client update and then getting stuck at the “Recovery” screen due to a critical system driver failure that is preventing the device from starting back up.
CrowdStrike and Microsoft are actively working on this to drive a permanent fix, workarounds are available which require manually preventing this service from starting on affected devices.
The issue is not known to be affecting devices running Windows 11 and Server 2019 and beyond.
What is CrowdStrike?
CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm based in the US, assists organisations in securing their IT environments, which encompasses all internet-connected resources.
Their mission is to “safeguard businesses from data breaches, ransomware, and cyberattacks” and they position themselves as having leading offerings that compete with other vendors including Microsoft themselves, SentinelOne, and Palo Alto Networks. Their client base is extensive and includes legal, banking, finance, travel firms, airlines, educational institutions, and retail customers.
A key offering from CrowdStrike is their Falcon XDR tool, touted on their website for delivering “real-time indicators of attack, hyper-accurate detection, and automated protection” against cybersecurity threats.
Root Cause
Information available from CrowdStrike and Microsoft state that the issue is caused by a “faulty” version of the csagent.sys file which is key system start-up file needed by CrowdStrike’s new sensors update for their Falcon Sensor agent. It is this file that has been responsible for the BSOD errors on Windows 11 and many servers running older Windows Server OS running in private and public data centres such as Microsoft Azure. .
George Kurtz, the CEO of the global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, stated that the issues were due to a “defect” in a “content update” for Microsoft Windows devices.
“The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed.” he said as he clarified that the problems did not impact operating systems other than Windows 10 and WIndows Server 2016 and older and also emphasized, “This is not a security incident or cyber-attack.”
Impact
Windows 10 devices are primarily affected.
Devices running Windows Server 2016 and older in Azure are also impacted if they run the CrowdStrike Falcon agent.
Limited/less impact on devices running Windows 11 or Windows 2019 and later.
Note: Windows 10 enters end of support in October 2025.
Is there a fix?
Updated: 21/7/2024: Microsoft have updated their guidance and provided additional support for fixing these issues using managed devices via Intune. This can be found here.
The formal advice if this issue is affecting your organisation is to contact your CrowdStrike Support representative – CrowdStrike and Microsoft are actively working to address the issue both as a response to the issue and preventative to ensure more devices are not impacted.
Since the issue is known to be caused by the csagent.sys file, there are ways to manually prevent this file being loaded, allowing the device to load. There are a couple of ways to do this.
Use Safe Mode and delete the affected file:
Boot the device to Safe Mode
Open Command Prompt and navigate to the CrowdStrike directory which should be C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike
Locate and delete the file matching the pattern C-00000291.sys* – you can do this using the by using a wildcard dir C-00000291*.sys.
Remove or rename the file.
Use Registry Editor to block the CrowdStrike CSAgent service:
Boot to Safe Mode
Open Windows Registry Editor.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSAgent
Change the Start value to 4 to disable the service.
Dan Card, of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT and a cyber security expert said: “People should remain calm whilst organisations respond to this global issue. It’s affecting a very wide range of services from banks to stores to air travel.“
He also said that whilst the cause is now known, it is still causing worldwide issues and impacts on consumer services, banking, healthcare and travel and will take some time to remediate.
“Companies should make sure their IT teams are well supported as it will be a difficult and highly stressful weekend for them as they help customers of all kinds. People often forget the people that are running around fixing things.”
Updated: 21/7/2024: Microsoft have updated their guidance and provided additional support for fixing these issues using managed devices via Intune. This can be found here.
Conclusion
CrowdStrike has acknowledged the issue and is investigating the cause. Users can follow the above steps to resolve the recovery screen issues and boot their PCs normally.
Crowdstrike and Microsoft worked tirelessly to resolve this issue and prevent further widespread impact.
“The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed.” he said as he clarified that the problems did not impact operating systems other than Windows 10 and WIndows Server 2016 and older and also emphasized, “This is not a security incident or cyber-attack.”
Devices running Microsoft’s latest Operating Systems seem to be less impacted (though information still being collated).
How did Microsoft allow this to this happen?
How did this happen? Many people are asking why Microsoft are shifting blame to Crowdstrike (who have admitted fault) asking why and how did Microsoft allow this?
In short, it’s not their fault and there really wasn’t anything they could have done to prevent it…. Here’s why..
Many Security products such as XDR products made by Crowdstrike, Palo Alto, and even Microsoft’s own XDR product defender, are what is known as “kernel mode products” . Whilst this issue affected Windows the same “hiccup error with the update” could have equally of affected other OS such as MacOS and Linux since they are kernal extensions.. This means is they had made the same mistake on the updates for these OS’s the same product mess up would have occurred.
In an ideal world all applications and services would run in user mode rather than Kernel Mode, but with many security and AV products, these have a need (a legitimately one) to monitor at the lowest levels of the OS in order to detect attacks… This is not possible if running in user mode as the kernel is protected.
The Blue Recovery Screen (which was mistaken by most as the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) which it actually was not is actually the Windows OS safety net.
As such, there is not much more Microsoft can do here. These are third party applications not managed or developed or controlled/updated by Microsoft. If Microsoft were to manually vet every update and change to an application, Microsoft would be classed as control hogs and the world will crucify them for it!
Microsoft cannot legally wall off its operating system in the same way Apple does because of an understanding it reached with the European Commission following a complaint. In 2009, Microsoft agreed it would give makers of security software the same level of access to Windows that Microsoft gets.
The outage is awful and has impacted so many organisation including crutiic services, but it’s also not fair IMO that Microsoft and Windows have been dragged through the dirt simply because it’s their OS that was impacted by the poor updates and issues another third party application caused.
It’s not the first time this had happened…to other OS’s
According report by Neowin, ” similar problems have been occurring for months without much awareness, despite the fact that many may view this as an isolated incident. Users of Debian and Rocky Linux also experienced significant disruptions as a result of CrowdStrike updates, raising serious concerns about the company”s software update and testing procedures. These occurrences highlight potential risks for customers who rely on their products daily.
In April, a CrowdStrike update caused all Debian Linux servers in a civic tech lab to crash simultaneously and refuse to boot. The update proved incompatible with the latest stable version of Debian, despite the specific Linux configuration being supposedly supported. The lab”s IT team discovered that removing CrowdStrike allowed the machines to boot and reported the incident. “
What this shows it the vital importance on update testing and deployment rings.
Yesterday 17th July 24, a new Cyber Security Bill was announced as part of the King’s Speech with industry experts and cyber security firms and advisory boards applauding the greater scrutiny and policies being placed on protecting the nation, our public services, critical infrastructure, and businesses – small, medium, and large.
The bill, will hand more power to regulators around cybersecurity incidents – and also includes a mandate reporting for ransomware attacks. The bill was announced in today’s King’s Speech, alongside 40 others.
… strengthen the UK’s cyber defences, ensure that critical infrastructure and the digital services that companies rely on are secure
Kings Speech | July 2024
In parallel, a new Digital Information and Smart Data Bill also announced, would have security concerns and implications if this Cyber Security Bill had not also been announced since one of it’s aims is to further support and speed up the digitising of more central and local government services as well as bring in new data-sharing standards, whilst giving the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) new powers.
CyberSecurity – State of the nation
The newly introduced Cyber Security Bill acknowledges that the UK as a whole faces increasing attacks from both financially-motivated cyber criminals and state actors, with entities of all sizes being frequent targets. The bill was proposed in response to cyber attacks on the UK’s digital economy, which have affected public services and infrastructure. Its aim is to enhance the protection of essential services and critical national infrastructure, which are particularly vulnerable to hostile actors. This is underscored by numerous cyber attacks in recent years on the NHS, NHS Blood supply, UK Trusts, the Ministry of Defence, the British Library, the Electoral Commission, Royal Mail, and various other government entities.
Life vs Death- The NHS Blood Supply Attack: The announcement comes after a severe Russian cyber-attack on Synnovis, a private firm offering pathology services like blood tests to the NHS. As a result of the attack, some patients were notified that their blood test appointments could be delayed by up to six months. It also affected supply of blood and much needed transfusions.
What’s in the Cyber Security Bill?
The new Cyber Security Bill consists of two main objectives.
To expand the remit of existing regulation
Provide regulators with a stronger foundation for the protection of digital services and supply chains, and enhance reporting requirements to develop a more comprehensive understanding of cyber threats.
The bill will expand the remit of regulators to cover supply chains and companies providing service/managed services to organisations – addressing the growing prevalence of supply-side attacks, where malicious actors gain access to organisation’s networks and systems via third-party suppliers such as MSPs, network providers and CSP providers or though APIs and systems which connect to other systems for things such as stock control, support and remote access. The bill also promises to create a stronger regulatory environment to ensure cyber safety measures are actually being introduced.
What about NIS2?
The Cyber Security Bill aims to revise the current UK Network and Information Security (NIS) Regulations 2018. These regulations originate from the EU’s NIS Directive, which outlines specific cybersecurity and incident reporting duties for operators of ‘essential services’ and digital service providers.
The EU has initiated an update to the original NIS framework, with ‘NIS2’ scheduled for implementation across EU member states by 17 October 2024. Whilst ‘NIS2’ does not expliciitly apply to UK companies, this bill is likley to align closely to it and may even add “icing on top”.
About mandatory reporting on ransomwareattacks
Today, whilst organisations need to report data breaches, there is no law/rule about reporting ransomware attacks. This bill changes this. This is a good move since, introducing the requirement to report of ransomware attacks (whether successful or not) will help the UK better understand the wider cybercrime landscape.
What the Cyber Security Bill means for IT and Security Teams
Cyber Secrity and protection remains one of the biggest threats to organisations and government today and remains one of the biggest budget spends which continues to see an year on year increase along side AI of course.
As we live in an increasingly digital society across almost every industry and service, every organisation needs to have, and will be obligned under the new bill, to have robust security governance and controls in place. Organisations need to shift away from simply deploying products in the hope they will stop attacks and instead ensure they also have effective data on attack vectors and trends as well as having clear kill chain risk analysis and mapping across their entire estate from users and devices, to identity and access, data protection, threat detection, isolution, remiation and of course prevention.
In the context of state-sponsored attacks, national conflicts, and wars, it is evident that cyber attacks have become a standard component of such conflicts, targeting infrastructure, governments, and individuals alike. The Cyber Security Bill emphasizes that sectors such as communications, power, finance, health, education, and transportation, including traffic control systems, are all potential targets.
Cyber Security Bill – Things you can do
The new Cyber Security and upcoming NIS2 requirement presents several opportunities for organisations to prepare and get ready which shoudl underpin their existing cyber security and resiliance programme.
In Cyber Security report by Microsoft earlier, Microsoft Security said that they have seen a ten fold increase in cyber attacks along with a similar attack attempot growth of their own platforms and systems include Microsoft 365 and Azure.
Microsoft say that passwords and account compromose (often leading to phisghing attacks and ransomware attacks) continue to rise the fastest with password attacks per month increasing from 3 Billion attacks per month in 2022, to more than 30 Billion a month in 2023.
Microsoft also say that the UK CyberSecurity market in the UK worth $6.2bn in FY25 and is said to continue to increase at around 20% YoY for the next 4 years. For Microsoft, they see the following key areas of security being of the biggest opportunoity driven by customer demand to protect their businesses and critical infraastucture.
Threat Protection – $2.4bn
Identity Protection & Secure Access – $2.2bn
Security Analytics – $1.6bn
Note: Values are UK TAM for 2025.
Consulting, Assessments and Workshops
Leverage your security partners to help you conduct comprehenise reviews.
Many Cyber Security partners have pre-packaged (often vendor funded) offerings to help businesses of all sizes, through the delivery of tailoured, comprehensive workshops and assessments around the core Zero Trust Security Pillars which loosely fit into the catagories above.
The Cyber Security bill strengthens the powers of regulators, which is likley to lead to more frequent and rigorous security assessments and audits. This means you will likely need to prove you are undertaking these regualry and that you have clear, definaed and proven attack simulation plans, prevent and detect and remediation plans in place.
Security Adoption and Consolidation
In the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity, the complexity of security has become a significant challenge for many organisations. With an average of 76 security tools to manage, info sec magazine reports that many organisations are overwhelmed by excessive support tickets, ungainly rulesets, redundant alerts, and cumbersome integrations of different often overlapping security products. This complexity can lead to gaps in security, making organisations vulnerable to cyber threats and huge costs.
As part of any review and assessment, contract renewal and negotiation, most organisations can strengthen their security posture while reducing both spend and complexity through a strategy known as security consolidation. This involves streamlining and integrating various security tools and processes into a cohesive system and leveraging/adopting many of the technologies they may already have but have not turned on – examples of this are the vast security products and services offered in Microsoft 365 E5 which may be under-used or not switched on.
Security consolidation super important is essential for several reasons. Firstly, it can enhances threat detection and response by providing a holistic view of security events, facilitating faster identification of anomalies and coordinated response strategies pulling information from products and suits of products rather than trying to connect. Secondly, it simplifies management and operations, making it easier for security teams to manage and operate, leading to increased efficiency and effectiveness in managing cybersecurity risks. Thirdly, it can massively reduces complexity and cost by eliminating redundant systems and streamlining processes, improving the security posture, and reducing the chances of errors.
The National Cyber Security Centre provides a wealth of resources and guidance on various cybersecurity topics, including security consolidation.
Managed SOC and XDR
In light of the cyber security bill, organisations may consider moving to a Managed Security Operations Centre (SoC) or Managed Extended Detection and Response (XDR) service offered from their MSP provider, CSP provider or specialist Managed Security Provider. These service provide a huge a range of benefits for organisations who dont have the time, resources or desire to manage their security operations including:
Comprehensive Cybersecurity: Managed SoC and XDR services provide comprehensive cybersecurity across an organisations entire IT environment – monitoring threat landscapes, including IT networks, devices, applications, endpoints, and data, for both known and evolving vulnerabilities, threats, and risks.
Reduced Complexity: In most cases, investing in such services can significantly reduce the complexity of managing multiple security tools and processes. Whilst these services “may” take on and suppoprt an organisation’s existing security products , in many cases they will require (as part of onboarding) a more steamlined approach to security management, making it easier for organisations to maintain a robust security posture without having to manage multiple products and services.
Faster Response Times: Managed SoC and XDR services can provide significantly faster and more accurate detection and response times to real and high-risk potential threats. Many will leverage their vast experience, Machine Learning and other advanced technologies like AI and automation to make threat detection and response faster than humanly possible.
More Cost-Effective: Whilst not cheap on the surface, consolidating security operations under a managed service, organisations can potentially reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of securioty operations, by eliminating the need for multiple standalone security solutions and sometimes expensive security analysts and consultants.
Access to Expertise: These services give organisations access to highly skilled security experts, which can be particularly beneficial given the current shortage of skills in the cybersecurity industry.
Employee Training and Education
The importance of end-user adoption and training around security awareness must not be overstated. It is a critical component of an any organisation’s cybersecurity strategy. The human factor is often the weakest link in corporate security, with studies suggesting that most cyber attacks are caused by human error. Educating end users on cybersecurity best practices is crucial for reducing the risk of insider threats, phishing attacks, and other cyber threats.
Every business, large and small, needs to develop an effective security strategy mindset that is built into their culture. This ensures that every employee, from frontline staff to managers and executives, understands the importance of cybersecurity and the far-reaching impact that a data breach can have. This means that regular training sessions and awareness needs to be conducted to keep all levels of the organisation updated on the latest threats and defensive practices.
Management plays a key role in this process. They should demonstrate leadership by actively participating in security awareness training, complying with the company’s own cybersecurity policies, and encouraging staff to participate in trainings. This helps to create a culture of enhanced cybersecurity awareness and empowering employees to come forward with observations, suggestions or issues they have seen.
End-user adoption and training around security awareness is a commitment that needs to be made at all levels of an organisation. It is not just about protecting the organisation’s digital assets, but also about safeguarding its reputation and credibility. By making security awareness a priority, organisations can significantly reduce their vulnerability to cyber threats.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the King’s Speech has outlined a much needed robust and forward-thinking approach to cybersecurity in light of the every increasing wave of state nation and cyber terrorism combined with the rapid adoption of generative AI.
The introduction of the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, as announced in the speech, is set to expand regulation to cover more digital services and supply chains, empower regulators to ensure cybersecurity measures, and mandate increased incident reporting to improve the government’s response to cyber attacks. This initiative is a significant step towards strengthening the UK’s cybersecurity infrastructure and resilience.
In light of these developments, every organisations should take proactive steps to align with these new measures. One of the key steps is preparing for the NIS2 Directive, which aims to establish a higher level of cybersecurity and resilience within organisations of the European Union and will also impact UK organisations. Organisations should start preparing by defining their compliance roadmap and optimising their cybersecurity awareness. They should conduct a thorough audit to identify gaps in their cybersecurity regimen and develop a comprehensive plan to address these gaps and achieve compliance with NIS2 requirements.
As we enter Microsoft’s new fiscal 2025, there a bunch of enhancements coming across the board to the Copilot experience inside the Office Copilot experience which im[acts PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Microsoft Loop. Microsoft regularly update the Office Apps, Team, and rest of their products, including Copilot, but the changes rolling out feel more like a “service pack”!
Here’s the key things coming to the app experiences this month and remember, you can always access the Microsoft 365 Copilot Roadmap –> here <–
AI Powered images coming to PowerPoint and Word.
Microsoft are making it much easier to add visuals to both Word and PowerPoint documents with Microsoft Designer in Copilot. This will make it much easier for content creators to get the right image for a document or presentation and will add to the image options within these apps.
With this update, you will be able to create AI-generated image directly from Word and PowerPoint with a simple prompt in additional to using the existing options for stock images as before.
Up until now, this has required users jumping to a browser to create an image in Bing Image Creator or Microsoft Designers, whereas now, they will be able to do this straight from the Copilot prompt in Word and PowerPoint upon which they will be able to create an image from scratch or find and use an existing image from Microsoft’s stock photography library to select from. Microsoft say that PowerPoint, Designer will automatically add the image into a “compelling slide design”.
Image (c) Microsoft
Additional “Document Support” in PowerPoint
Also coming this month, Copilot will support grounding for presentation creation from both encrypted Word documents and PDF files, providing more options for users to create presentation from. This gives users richer context to build new presentations, in addition to referencing.
Copilot in PowerPoint “General Improvements“
Rolling out in June/July and following lots of feedback from users, creating a new presentation from a Copilot is about to get much better with regards the quality or presentations created with more relevant content and images and improved consistency including:
Refined designs for title, section, and content slides.
Improved presentation structure with agenda, section and conclusion slides.
Enhanced abilities to improve transitions and animations across presentation content.
Copilot is also getting the ability to ground itself on your organisations’ people-centric data and insights from the Microsoft Cloud, Microsoft Graph, and the web using Bing Search. This brings Copilot up to the same level of that of Teams, Copilot Chat and Outlook, meaning that users can stay in the app, ask questions, and maintain focus on creating their presentations without having to jump into dfferent apps or windows.
Copilot in Excel is coming out of Preview
In July, Copilot in Excel is also coming out of “preview”.
The first noticable indication will be that Microsoft drops the “in preview” lable that users currently see when using Copilot in Excel.
Secondly, Copilot in Excel is also getting expanded data structure support, meaning it wont be limited to working with just data in tables. Yes, Copilot in Excel will be able to works on data ranges resembling tables so long as the data being worked on contains a single row of headers on top (such as filtered data). Along with this, Copilot in Excel will also now be able to provide more comprehensive answers, just like Word and PowerPoint, Teams and Outlook,
Next up, the edit box will be available on any Excel worksheet, regardless of the selected cell and Copilot will reason over the nearest table, or data range resembling a table, to the user’s selected grid area on the same worksheet.
Finally, Copilot in Excel will provides more conversational and comprehensive answers to a wide array of Excel-related questions, meaning that users can now receive step-by-step instructions to help with complex formulas, fixing errors in formulas or how to do something in Excel.
Image (C) Microsoft.
Copilot in Loop
Copilot is coming to Loop too – one of my favourite “new” apps, with what Microsoft call “Copilot-assisted Loop page creation”
For those unfamiliar with Microsoft Loop, it is described as “flexible canvases that assist users in organising and sharing their work with teams.”
Loop users can now utilise Copilot to transform a blank page into a structured document primed for team collaboration in record time. Whether starting from scratch or using an existing page or template, Copilot can swiftly generate a Loop page tailored to specific requirements, be it a project plan, a feedback session, or any other collaborative effort.
