By Tal Shahaf, Redmond, Seattle
Publication Date: 2025-11-30 02:58:00
Seattle is a gray, rainy city for most of the year, located in the far corner of the U.S., almost on the Canadian border. It lacks historical landmarks or renowned cultural institutions, and its main tourist attraction – the Space Needle – aspires to be the Eiffel Tower of the city but reaches only half its height. Yet, in this place hides one of the largest cyber intelligence centers in the world, perhaps the largest of them all.
This is what is called the “Digital Crimes Unit” (DCU) – a center that monitors all data traffic across the global network. It is operated by Microsoft, not the first company you might think of in the context of cybersecurity.
It’s worth getting used to the idea: Microsoft is reorganizing itself in order to take cybersecurity seriously, with a strong focus on defending against AI-based cyberattacks, which are a tangible and immediate threat.
At last week’s Ignite conference in…
