Microsoft software and cloud platforms underpin enterprise systems, so vulnerabilities and security advisories can affect identity, data, and operations.
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Background for this topic.
Microsoft is a technology company whose Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure, identity services, and developer tools form a widely deployed enterprise computing ecosystem. Its security relevance spans endpoint and server software, cloud control planes, authentication, collaboration data, and the update mechanisms used to maintain them.
Security news under this tag commonly concerns vulnerabilities requiring patching, exploits against exposed services, identity or token compromise, and misconfiguration of cloud permissions or authentication policies. Practitioners should verify affected versions and exposure, apply updates or mitigations, enforce multifactor authentication and least privilege, and monitor relevant audit logs. Incidents involving Microsoft-hosted identities or data may require rapid session and credential containment, investigation across cloud and on-premises systems, and assessment of privacy or regulatory obligations.
Microsoft has announced new cybersecurity enhancements for Outlook personal email accounts as part of its 'Secure Future Initiative,' including the deprecation of basic authentication (username + password) by September 16, 2024. [...]
Business as usual needs a real change Feature Microsoft president Brad Smith struck a conciliatory tone regarding his IT giant's repeated computer security failings during a congressional hearing on Thursday – while also claiming the Windows maker is above the rule of law, at least in China.…
Palo Alto Networks Reaches Leaderboard While Trend Micro Falls to Strong PerformerThe XDR market has matured significantly, Forrester found. Leading vendors such as Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike are supporting diverse telemetry sources and developing strategies to replace traditional SIEM tools. These advancements give better detection quality and cost management.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a high-severity Windows vulnerability abused in ransomware attacks as a zero-day to its catalog of actively exploited security bugs. [...]
Tech Giant to Test AI Feature Via Windows Insider ProgramMicrosoft dialed back even further its plans to roll out Recall, an automatic screenshot feature indexed by artificial intelligence that has garnered opposition from users and security and privacy advocates. The move is Microsoft's second retreat from Recall within a week.
Microsoft says it removed a Copilot app that was "incorrectly" added to Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems in April due to buggy Microsoft Edge updates. [...]
Microsoft President Brad Smith told US Congress that the tech giant accepts responsibility for security failings regarding the 2023 China hack
Microsoft on Thursday revealed that it's delaying the rollout of the controversial artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Recall feature for Copilot+ PCs
Microsoft is delaying the release of its AI-powered Windows Recall feature to test and secure it further before releasing it in a public preview on Copilot+ PCs. [...]
'It's not our job to find the culprits – That's what we're paying you for' lawmaker scolds Brad Smith Lawmakers on Thursday grilled Microsoft president Brad Smith about the Windows giant's businesses dealing in China — and the super-corp's repeated security failings — at a time when Beijing-backed spies are accused of breaking into Microsoft-hosted email accounts of American government officials.…
Researchers Infiltrate Major Organizations Using Fake ExtensionCybersecurity researchers say an experiment in developing a fake, malicious extension for Microsoft's Visual Studio Code, the world's most popular integrated development environment, succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. VSCode doesn't manage permissions or visibility, the researchers said.
Brad Smith Says the Tech Giant 'Accepts Responsibility' for Cyber BreachesMicrosoft President Brad Smith testified Thursday to the House Homeland Security Committee that the tech giant "accepts responsibility" for a series of security failures identified in a federal report following multiple high-profile cyberattacks targeting government agencies and major organizations.
Why the company took so long to address the issue is not known given that most other stakeholders had a fix out for the issue months ago.
Threat actors with ties to Pakistan have been linked to a long-running malware campaign dubbed Operation Celestial Force since at least 2018
A previously undocumented cross-platform malware codenamed Noodle RAT has been put to use by Chinese-speaking threat actors either for espionage or cybercrime for years
A new phishing campaign uses HTML attachments that abuse the Windows search protocol (search-ms URI) to push batch files hosted on remote servers that deliver malware. [...]
Symantec suggests Black Basta crew beat Microsoft to the patch The Black Basta ransomware gang may have exploited a now-patched Windows privilege escalation bug as a zero-day, according to Symantec's threat hunters.…
An RCE vulnerability that affects the Web scripting language on Windows systems is easy to exploit and can provide a broad attack surface.
Microsoft has announced that the DirectAccess remote access solution is now deprecated and will be removed in a future release of Windows, recommending companies migrate to the 'Always On VPN' for enhanced security and continued support. [...]
The ELF backdoor, initially thought to be a variant of existing malware, has a Windows and a Linux version