Microsoft makes cloud logging free for business customers after hacking controversy

Microsoft will make cloud logs available for free to business customers. The company does this after a commotion earlier this week, when Microsoft only made logs available to certain paying customers, while the company also warned about state hackers.

Microsoft writes in a blog post that it will make cloud logs generally available to all enterprise customers, regardless of plan, in the coming months. This concerns logs that are created in cloud services such as Exchange Online or Microsoft 365. Administrators must pay extra if they want to see extensive logs; was for that Microsoft Purview Audit needed, or a package that included it, such as Enterprise E5 or G5 for Microsoft 365.

Purview Audit will now be available for free to all customers with a cloud subscription. However, the package is split up. The free version is called Standard and includes email access logs and “thirty other types of log data previously only available to paying customers.” The standard retention period will also increase. It was always 90 days, but that will be 180.

In addition, a paid version of Purview Audit will be released. It’s called Premium. That package is available to E5 and G5 customers. It has the same options as Standard, but also has additional analyzes and can be integrated into Office 365 with an API. The retention period is also longer with one year as standard, but even ten years optionally.

Microsoft says it is working with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, for the offering. It is not known what form this collaboration will take. So it is not clear whether the US government is paying money to fund the program.

The step is being taken after a fuss arose last week about Microsoft’s logging policy. Company then warned that suspected Chinese state hacker group Storm-0558 had infiltrated customer inboxes. Customers who wanted to know if they were a potential victim could look it up in logs, but these were only available if they paid. CISA says he is happy with the step. “Asking companies to pay for necessary logging provides insufficient visibility when investigating cybersecurity incidents.” Hackers could thus achieve ‘dangerous success in attacking American organizations’, the government agency says.