A sharp increase in cyberattacks gave Microsoft Corp.’s ubiquitous Windows operating system the kind of lift it hasn’t seen in years, as fears of getting hacked prompted companies to upgrade their computers faster than they otherwise might have.
When the software giant reported quarterly earnings last week, it surprised several analysts, notching an 11% jump in sales of Windows 10 licenses for computers sold primarily to corporate customers, from a year earlier. Bulk sales of Windows licenses and related cloud services, meanwhile,...