Microsoft security chief says sovereignty is a speed and risk choice
Original title: Sovereignty vs. security: Microsoft’s Roger Halbheer says you’re asking the wrong question
Halbheer says boards buy a location and assurance, while identity abuse and detection speed decide real control.
In a Help Net Security interview, Microsoft Customer Security Officer Roger Halbheer argues digital sovereignty is first a security decision made per workload. He says organizations underestimate how fast they detect and stop an attacker, and that moving workloads on premises steepens cost in people and speed. He cites Microsoft’s Digital Defense Report 2026, ISC2, BSI, and CERT-Bund figures on weaponization time, credential theft, staffing, and unsupported Exchange. He also describes cloud controls and preview agentic tools MDASH and Project Perception.
Unconfirmed: The steep sovereignty cost curve is Halbheer’s model, not a measured study result.
- He says discovery-to-weaponization can be well below 24 hours, with a year heading for 72,000 CVEs.
- In 52.2 percent of valid-account intrusions, attackers stole further credentials, the report says.
- BSI found 92 percent of about 33,000 reachable on-premises Exchange servers at or past end of support.
- The European Commission figure he cites is over 80 percent reliance on non-EU digital inputs.
- MDASH and Project Perception are in preview and delivered from the cloud, including EU and Swiss regions for MDASH.
- Vendors
- Microsoft
- Products
- MDASHProject Perception
- Organizations
- BSICERT-BundEuropean CommissionISC2
- Countries
- Germany
From the original article
6 min read at helpnetsecurity.com
In this interview with Help Net Security, Roger Halbheer, Customer Security Officer at Microsoft, argues that digital sovereignty is a security question first. He explains why organizations underestimate speed, the time it takes to detect and stop an attacker, and why the cost curve turns steep once workloads move on premises.
By Mirko Zorz · helpnetsecurity.com
A short excerpt; the article and its images belong to the publisher. Summary, key facts and assessment above are AI-written from the article and can be wrong.