Microsoft&#39;s Ballmer: Hackers getting smarter
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Microsoft&#39;s chief executive believes it&#39;s naive to suggest the software giant can eliminate all security vulnerabilities in its various
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An anonymous hacker who claimed last week to have found a way to generate valid Windows Vista activation codes now says his crack was a joke. But some users who tried it say it worked for them.
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A bug in Microsoft&#39;s Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000 and Proxy Server 2.0 can let hackers spoof Web content, such as a trusted site, with their own fake content, the Redmond
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ON THE SCENE - During an updated version of one of the more popular sessions at TechEd each year, senior security engineer and Microsoft MVP Marcus Murray demonstrated the use of some very simple hacking tools that can enable not-so-knowledgeable people to work their way to revealing the passwords of domain administrators in as little as 15 minutes.
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BOSTON -- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer believes the software industry will create more positive change in the next 10 years than it did in the previous 10 -- provided that security threats are effectively handled.
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Microsoft Corp. is inviting hackers onto its Redmond, Washington, campus again next week and this time software virtualization and mobile security will be the hot topics.
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Stoopid human Improved technology and design alone will not be enough to keep Windows Vista and Office 2007 users safe from hackers and identity thieves, according to Bill Gates.â¦
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Better install Microsoft's latest patches--hackers have posted attack code to exploit the flaws in Works.
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Could integrating antivirus software into Windows be the key to solving Microsoft&#39;s security woes or could the technology create more problems than it solves?
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SAN FRANCISCO - In his swan song to an annual gathering of 15,000 computer security experts here Tuesday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said the software giant has made giant strides in security. But he acknowledged that threats from malicious computer code and the proliferation of devices connected to the Internet have made security a moving target.
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If you don&#39;t think anybody else could possibly get any more spam than you, think of Bill Gates. The Microsoft Corp. chairman receives about 4 million pieces of e-mail per day, most of it junk, says Steve Ballmer, the company&#39;s chief executive.
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Progress can be seen in security enhancements being made to Windows Server 2003, says Microsoft&#39;s CEO. By Associated Press. Microsoft Corp.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is inviting hackers onto its Redmond, Washington, campus again next week, and this time, software virtualization and mobile security will be the hot topics. The company's semi-annual BlueHat hacking conference will run Thursday and Friday, giving Microsoft engineers and executives a chance to hear first-hand reports on the latest in computer security research. This will be Microsoft's sixth BlueHat conference since it introduced the event in early 2005. This year, representatives from such companies as Symantec, 3Com's TippingPoint division, and Sourcefire will speak on topics ranging from embedded system security, software "fuzzing," and exploit creation, according to a preliminary schedule of the event obtained by the IDG News Service. "The BlueHat speakers, both leading external security researchers and internal Microsoft engineers, will pierce the security veil of virtualization and process isolation," wrote Microsoft security group manager Andrew Cushman on the BlueHat blog. "Plus, we've got a couple of talks on Windows Mobile and more about automated exploit creation -- this time using Metasploit." There will also be a discussion of WabiSabiLabi's controversial exploit marketplace given by Roberto Preatoni, strategic director with the company, according to the preliminary agenda. Friday morning will be devoted to a discussion of mobile hacking tools and techniques, and software virtualization will be discussed later in the day. A more up-to-date agenda is expected to be posted within a few days, according to Microsoft's public relations agency. Usually Microsoft says nothing about its BlueHat hacking conferences prior to the event, but this year, the company preannounced the confab, saying it wants to be a little more up-front about what's going on. "BlueHat is unique and still a closed door conference for MS product teams, but this year we will open up a little -- with info about the conference before it starts and with more info made available during the conference," Cushman wrote.
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A reconfigurable handheld device could foster a community of hardware hackers.
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If you didn&#39;t think anybody else could possibly get any more spam than you, then think of Bill Gates. The Microsoft Corp. chairman receives 4 million pieces of e-mail per day, most of it junk, said Steve Ballmer, the company&#39;s chief executive.
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(InfoWorld) - CodeRed, Nimda, and Blaster. These high-profile worms, which exploited flaws in Microsoft's Windows operating system and other applications, made Microsoft the butt of security jokes and forced the company to reexamine its approach to developing secure software. "Throughout Microsoft, we thought Windows 2000 was a very solid, reliable operating system, perfect for deployment in the enterprise," said Ian Hellen, a security program manager at Microsoft's Windows Security Engineering Team. "Those tiny pieces of code were realÂ wake-up calls, saying Windows 2000 isn't there yet. It's just not designed to cope with these kinds of threats." That was then. With the commercial release of Vista just months away, Microsoft'sÂ efforts to improve securityÂ are now showing results, though much remains to be done by the company, said security experts attending the Hack In The Box Security Conference (HITB) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, this week. "Microsoft has done a left-hand turn in its business and said, 'Right, we've got to start building secure applications,'" said Mark Curphey, vice president of professional services at McAfee's Foundstone division. "They've implemented a very rigorous process across their organization and now they're starting to see the benefits of that." The progress that Microsoft has made can be seen in recent versions of software, such as Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 6, which has had one high-risk vulnerability uncovered, Curphey said. "They've done a lot better," said Bruce Schneier, the chief technology officer of Counterpane Internet Security. Curphey and others credit Microsoft's Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) software-development process with reducing the number of design and coding errors that lead toÂ security vulnerabilities. "We spent a long time trying to reorganize our whole development process so that all of Microsoft's products, particularly the Windows operating system, is reoriented to have security engineering at its core," Hellen said. To some degree, Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003 demonstrate how SDL has helped Microsoft improve the security of its products. "But it's really only in Windows Vista that we've been able to implement this in a comprehensive way," Hellen said, adding there is room for further improvement. One security improvement that has yet to be made to Windows Vista is a defense against Blue Pill, a prototype technology that uses hardware virtualization to install undetectable malware on a computer running the OS. Blue Pill, developed by Polish researcher Joanna Rutkowska, was first demonstrated using the second beta release of Vista. However, the latest pre-production release of Vista, called RC1, does not include defenses against Blue Pill, Rutkowska said, adding she was "surprised" by the omission. Blue Pill does not exploit any bugs in Vista, but Rutkowska recommended Microsoft disable paging of kernel memory in Vista, which would prevent Blue Pill from accessing the operating-system kernel and executing code. In response, Microsoft executives attending HITB said the company continues work on improving security in Vista, while making no specific promise that changes will be made to prevent Blue Pill attacks in the production version of Vista. Microsoft gets credit for improving the overall security of its products, but more can be done. However, users must first decide if the company's progress in this area is sufficient. "If we think it's enough, we're done. If we don't, than we have to do more," Schneier said. "They're going to fix the problem to the limit of their economic losses." One option is to make vendors like Microsoft liable for the economic risks of the security vulnerablilities that users face -- something that is unlikely to happen given the current political environment, Schneier said. "If we want more security, we have to raise the cost of not having it," he said.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer provided some perspective for anyone who thinks they are getting too much spam. &quot;There are two people who probably are the number one spam recipients in the world.