Tag Archives: Microsoft

China Expands Its Cybersecurity Regulations

As noted recently in the Wall Street Journal, “New cybersecurity rules will give Chinese authorities sweeping powers to inspect companies’ information technology and access proprietary information—steps that are likely to deepen concerns among foreign businesses about their China operations.”  These regulations were issued pursuant to the Cybersecurity Law of the People’s Republic of China, which came into force on June 1, 2017.… More

“If You Are Reading This, You Probably Weren’t Hacked Last Week” – So Now What?

First, the basic facts about the recent ransomware attack:

  • US-CERT has received multiple reports of WannaCry ransomware infections in several countries around the world.
  • Ransomware is a type of malicious software that infects a computer and restricts users’ access to it until a ransom is paid to unlock it. Individuals and organizations are discouraged from paying the ransom, as this does not guarantee access will be restored.…

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Microsoft Report Challenges Conventional Wisdom on Cybercrime Losses

It’s a pretty technical read, but this recent Microsoft report, "Sex, Lies and Cyber-crime Surveys" by Dinei Florencio and Cormac Herley tries to support an interesting hypothesis:  cyber-crime surveys that suggest huge losses from hacking and phishing aren’t reliable.  Here’s an excerpt of their thinking:

First, [cyber-crime] losses are extremely concentrated, so that representative sampling of the population does not give representative sampling of the losses.… More

Mozilla and Google Announce “Do Not Track” Browser Features

Earlier this week, both Mozilla and Google announced new browser features aimed at giving users greater control over how their personal data is collected online. Microsoft announced a similar initiative in December.

The introduction of browser “Do Not Track” features follows the Federal Trade Commission’s preliminary staff report, “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change:  A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers,” which supports a “universal consumer choice mechanism for online behavioral advertising.” In its report,… More

Tracking Protection to be Included in Internet Explorer 9: Is This the Tipping Point?

Microsoft announced yesterday in its IE blog that it will be adding a tracking protection feature to Internet Explorer 9.  In particular, Microsoft promises that:

  1. IE9 will offer consumers a new opt-in mechanism (“Tracking Protection”) to identify and block many forms of undesired tracking.
  2. “Tracking Protection Lists” will enable consumers to control what third-party site content can track them when they’re online.

Together with the FTC’s jump into the tracking fray last week,… More

Microsoft No Longer Seeking Removal of Cryptome or Leaked Compliance Handbook

Last week, lawyers from Microsoft issued a demand under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) seeking the removal of leaked copies of Microsoft’s “Global Criminal Compliance Handbook” that pulled website Cryptome.org from the Internet, at least temporarily.  The DMCA provides copyright owners with the ability to request that internet service providers remove infringing materials from websites.  Microsoft’s DMCA demand to Cryptome’s service provider, Network Solutions,… More

Incident of the Week: Ever-Growing Breach Involving Passwords for Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Earthlink and Comcast

What started out as an incident involving the leak of 10,000 user names and passwords for Windows Live Hotmail accounts continues to grow, both in terms of users and companies affected. According to reports from the beginning of the week, more than 10,000 user names and passwords from Hotmail were posted by an anonymous user on the site pastebin.com. The list was limited to accounts starting in A and B, leaving the fear that numerous more accounts had been affected. The original reports speculated that the breach was the result of a hack of Hotmail or a phishing attack. But more information is surfacing that indicates that the breach is much larger than first thought.

Conficker Worm Still Lurking, Threat Remains

While the media frenzy surrounding the Conficker worm may have died down over the past several months, recent reports suggest that the computer worm is alive and well, and continues to expose PC users worldwide to the risk of identity theft and other mischief.