MS preps DRM hack fix
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Papering over the cracks Microsoft is working on closing a loophole that creates a means to strip usage restriction from music files wrapped in its DRM technology. A program called FairUse4WM, recently posted on the internet, allows users to bypass Microsoft's Digital Rights Management (DRM) system.â¦
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HD DRM: RIP A lone hacker has unlocked the master key preventing the copying of high-definition DVDs in a development that is sure to get the entertainment industry's knickers wrapped tighter than a magnet's coil. What's more, the individual was able to defeat the technology with no cracking tools or reverse engineering, despite the millions of dollars and many years engineers put into developing the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) for locking down high-definition video.â¦
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Microsoft is testing a new feature on its Download Centre website that can lock out pirated copies of Windows. During the test period, users of Download Centre can opt to have the Windows software installed on their PCs validated as genuine.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp. has rolled out its monthly security updates for December, patching critical flaws in Internet Explorer, Windows Media Format, and the Visual Studio 2005 development software. The seven security patches address 11 bugs, including two in the Windows Media Player software. However, no fixes were provided for two Microsoft Word flaws that have been used in a small number of attacks during the past week. Microsoft had said it would release only six patches on Tuesday, but the company added the Windows Media Format update at the last minute, after reports of attacks based on this vulnerability began surfacing. The Windows Media Format is used by Microsoft's Windows Media Player software. In late November, security vendors warned that a buffer overflow error could occur when the Windows Media Player processed ".asx" (Advanced Stream Redirector) media files, meaning that users would first need to be tricked into opening a malicious media file for the attack to work. In its update Tuesday, Microsoft also patched a similar bug in the way the media player processes ".asf" (Advanced Systems Format) files. The Internet Explorer patch fixes four bugs. It is also rated critical, and is noteworthy because some of these bugs will probably begin to be exploited by hackers by week's end, said Gunter Ollmann, director of IBM Corp.'s Internet Security System's X-Force threat analysis service. Enterprise administrators should also pay close attention to an SNMP (Simple Network Monitoring Protocol) patch issued Tuesday, Ollmann said. Microsoft has rated this patch as "important," rather than critical because SNMP is normally blocked at the firewall and turned off by default on Windows systems. However, it is widely deployed as part of the network monitoring infrastructure in the enterprise, and is often used on critical servers, Ollmann said. Ollmann believes this SNMP patch is the "most important" update for enterprise customers. "Since the service is widely deployed in the enterprise and since it's commonly deployed on servers, we think this would be an important attack vector for enterprises," he said. The remaining updates include a "critical" fix for Visual Studio 2005, and "important" updates for Windows and Outlook Express, Microsoft said. Microsoft defines "critical" flaws as bugs that could allow the propagation of an Internet worm without any action on the part of the victim. The company's next set of security updates are due Jan. 9.
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Microsoft issued a patch for what it says is a &quot;critical&quot; security flaw in the way Windows programs handle JPEG images. According to a security bulletin accompanying the patch, the flaw
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As part of its efforts to combat software piracy, Microsoft Corp. is testing a new feature on its Download Center Web site that can lock out pirated copies of Windows.
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The free service pack is a major overhaul aimed at defeating a wide variety of security weaknesses that hackers have exploited. Microsoft says the easiest way to obtain
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Microsoft has issued a patch to fix the security flaw, and urges its customers to use a new utility to locate the computer applications that are vulnerable.
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Microsoft fixes a critical flaw in the Windows operating system that could be used by criminals to create a self-copying PC worm attack.
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Microsoft published on Tuesday a patch for a major security flaw in its software&#39;s handling of the JPEG graphics format and urged customers to use a new tool to locate the many applications that are vulnerable.
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(InfoWorld) - There was a little surprise buried inÂ Microsoft's monthly security bulletins Tuesday. It turns out that Microsoft had quietly slipped out one of the February fixes just days before its Jan. 30 Vista launch. The fix was for a bug in Microsoft's Malware Protection Engine, used by products like Windows Defender, OneCare, and Antigen to scan for malware. Microsoft had discovered that the engine could possibly be tricked into running unauthorized code if it scanned a specially crafted PDF file. Nobody has actually launched such an attack, but since these products are always automatically scanning for malware in the background, the vulnerability could have led to some pretty nasty exploits. Still, it's strange that Microsoft waited so long to notify its customers of the patch. It's rare for Microsoft to release one of these out-of-cycle updates, but since it adoptedÂ its monthly patch process back in October 2003, it generally lets people know about them as soon as they're released. Microsoft's Mark Griesi told me that the company decided to send out the malware engine fix as soon as it was ready on January 26 and that this kind of quick fix is standard practice with most security software. But he said there was no particular reason why the company decided to wait until February 13 to tell people about it. Microsoft just hasn't been in the position of having to patch its security software since rolling out the monthly patch process, he added. "It was one of those first-time situations: 'Should we say something now or should we just wait,'" he told me. "This time we decided to wait. We won't do it again." From a PR perspective, it wasn't a bad move. Microsoft has touted Defender as one of the top three Vista security features. It wouldn't have been much fun to be talking about a major security flaw in the product just days before the Vista launch, would it?
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Blog: Microsoft revises one of its critical security bulletins from patch Tuesday, now including a fix for Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac.
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A toolkit designed to exploit a recently-disclosed Microsoft JPEG vulnerability has been released onto the net.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has won a patent for a digital-watermarking technology that could be used to protect the rights of content owners even when digital music is distributed without DRM protection.  The technology, called "stealthy audio watermarking," inserts and detects watermarks in audio signals that can identify the content producer, "providing a signature that is embedded in the audio signal and cannot be removed," according to a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trade Organization (USPTO). The application for U.S. patent 7,266,697 was filed May 3, 2004, by Darko Kirovski and Henrique Malvar, both of whom work at Microsoft Research. Malvar is a Microsoft distinguished engineer and managing director of Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington, and Kirovski is a researcher there. Microsoft currently has DRM technology called Windows Media DRM that encrypts audio files and protects them from misuse or unauthorized redistribution. The company has traditionally been an outspoken proponent of using DRM to protect owners of digital content, though it said earlier this year it would consider selling DRM-free songs online after rival Apple struck a deal with EMI Group to do so. Forensic digital watermarking technology like the technology Microsoft has patented doesn't encrypt files the way DRM technology does or prevent people from unauthorized use. However, it can be used to prove who owns the content of the digital file by encoding a file with a unique digital signature. That means illegally traded songs could be tracked back to the original purchaser, allowing authorities to identify illegal sharers and serving as a deterrent. The technology could also be used to track files for royalty distribution. In fact, Apple has been inserting simple watermarks into digital audio files that include personal information about the purchaser on some files sold over iTunes so those files can be traced back to their purchaser in the case of unauthorized distribution. However, Microsoft's watermark is much more intrinsic to the file and cannot be stripped out easily by hackers, like Apple's can, said J. Alex Halderman, a computer science PhD candidate at Princeton University who specializes in DRM technology. "It's much harder for people to remove from the recording," he said. The trick for these watermarks to be effective for digital music files, however, is that they must be inaudible and thus undetectable by those listening to the files, which has been difficult for those who have tried to create this technology in the past, Halderman said. Indeed, in their filing, Kirovski and Malvar acknowledged that to work properly, the watermarks must not only be inaudible, but also "must be scattered throughout the file in such a way that they cannot be identified and manipulated" and "be robust enough so that it can withstand normal changes to the file, such as reductions from ... compression algorithms." Microsoft Tuesday declined to comment on how it plans to use the watermark technology it has patented. However, Microsoft Research already has licensed similar yet non-forensic watermarking technology to a company called Activated Content, which is using the technology to insert and extract non-secure data into audio files.
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Last week, Microsoft quietly launched a program to address piracy issues with their software. The new program called &quot;Windows Genuine Advantage&quot; is a new validation on Microsoft&#39;s download center.
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Microsoft exec announces new tool designed to make patching simpler.
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Workshop Windows virus cleanup primer