Since the Secure Future Initiative (SFI) began, we’ve dedicated the equivalent of 34,000 full-time engineers to SFI—making it the largest cybersecurity engineering effort in history. And now, we’re sharing key updates and milestones from the first SFI Progress Report.
A Microsoft account (formerly known as a Windows Live ID) is a single email address and password you use to sign in to various Microsoft products and services. If you have a device that runs Windows 8 or Windows RT or you use a service like Hotmail, Outlook.com, or Xbox LIVE, you probably already have […]
<p>This article in our<a href="https://blogs.technet.com/b/security/archive/2012/10/04/microsoft-s-free-security-tools-summary.aspx?Redirected=true"> free security tools series</a> focuses on the benefits of the <a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/jj657553">Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit</a>. If you are an IT Professional then you know platform migrations can be a daunting task. Depending on your organization’s size, complexity and maturity, simply understanding your organization’s IT state and migration potential can take hours, days and sometimes even months. To help ease the migration process, Microsoft has created the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit. The MAP Toolkit is a powerful inventory, assessment and reporting tool that can securely assess IT environments for various platform migrations. The toolkit is designed to run in any organization regardless of size and is effective at helping to accelerate PC, server, database and cloud migration planning across heterogeneous environments. It also provides tailored assessment proposals and recommendations, and helps gain efficiencies through multiple technology migration assessments with a single tool. </p>
You may have seen reports about security alerts for Java recently. Java is a commonly used piece of software from Oracle, so there’s a good chance you have it installed on your computer. Cybercriminals often use fake virus alerts to lure you into buying fraudulent antivirus software. These alerts state that your computer or other […]
One of the best ways to keep potentially malicious Internet traffic from attacking your Internet Information Services (IIS) Web server is to keep it from getting to the Web server service. To help protect users from malicious webpages, Microsoft and other browser vendors have developed filters that keep track of sites that host malware and phishing attacks and display prominent warnings when users try to navigate to them
Microsoft Security Experts are now available to strengthen your team with managed security services. Learn how to defend against threats with security experts.
<p>This article in our <a href="/b/security/archive/2012/07/31/microsoft-s-free-security-tools-series-introduction.aspx">series</a> on Microsoft’s free security tools is focused on a tool called the <a href="http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7558">Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer</a> (MBSA). Many years ago before Windows Update was available, servicing software was much more painful than it is today. Microsoft released security updates weekly, and there were few deployment technologies available to help determine which systems needed which updates. I wrote an <a href="/b/security/archive/2012/03/26/trustworthy-computing-learning-about-threats-for-over-10-years-part-6.aspx">article on this topic</a> if you are interested in a walk down memory lane. For those IT administrators that lived through those days, the MBSA was a godsend. Today, 10 years later, the MBSA is still a free security tool that many, many IT Professionals use to help manage the security of their environments. </p>
We’ve received reports of a recent email scam that spoofs the Microsoft Services Agreement. The scam email message replaces legitimate links in the agreement with links that can compromise your computer when clicked. If you receive mail that looks like the real agreement or asks you to click a suspicious link or to provide personal […]
<p>In July, we kicked off a blog series focused on "<a href="/b/security/archive/2012/07/31/microsoft-s-free-security-tools-series-introduction.aspx">Microsoft's Free Security Tools</a>." The series highlights free security tools that Microsoft provides to help make IT professionals' and developers' lives easier. A good tool can save a lot of work and time for those people responsible for developing and managing software. In the series we discuss many of the benefits each tool can provide and include step by step guidance on how to use each. Below is a summary of the tools covered in the series and a brief overview of each.</p>
<p>This article in our <a href="/b/security/archive/2012/07/31/microsoft-s-free-security-tools-series-introduction.aspx">series</a> focused on Microsoft’s free security tools is on a tool called <strong>Portqry</strong>. This tool is a TCP/IP connectivity test tool, port scanner, and local port monitor. Portqry is useful for troubleshooting networking issues as well as verifying network security related configurations. Because of this broad functionality, I have heard some Information Technology (IT) Professionals refer to this tool as a “Swiss army knife” of tools.</p>
Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native SIEM solution powered by AI and automation that delivers intelligent security analytics across your entire enterprise.
Today we released a downloadable tool called a “Fix it” for Internet Explorer. On September 21, we will release a cumulative update for Internet Explorer through Windows Update. We recommend that you install this update immediately. If you have automatic updating enabled on your computer, you won’t need to take any action – it will […]
<p>This article in our <a href="/b/security/archive/2012/07/31/microsoft-s-free-security-tools-series-introduction.aspx">series </a>focused on Microsoft’s free security tools is on a tool called <strong>Windows Defender Offline</strong>. Windows Defender Offline is a standalone software application that is designed to help detect malicious and other potentially unwanted software, including rootkits that try to install themselves on a PC. Once on a PC, this software might run immediately, or it might run at unexpected times. Windows Defender Offline works by scanning an operating system to check the authenticity of any communication the operating system has with the Internet. If there is an application deemed unsafe, it will alert the user and block the contents of the application until the user either accepts or denies the risk.</p>
