microsoft

A new analysis claims that over 90% of the Windows security vulnerabilities reported last year were made worse by users logged in with administrative privileges -- an issue Microsoft has been hotly debating recently. BeyondTrust Corp. (BTC), a ... software development company specializing in enterprise rights management, has indicated that the act of giving users administrative rights may leave systems more open to risk. The report issued by BTC was prepared by assessing security vulnerability bulletins released by Microsoft in 2008, and identifying specific "mitigating factors" (those that could ... (view more)

Microsoft recently commissioned research in two cities to try to understand how different types of consumer, from teens to professionals to baby boomers, think about privacy. During the recently held Data Privacy Day in San Francisco, Microsoft ... participated in a panel discussion with privacy experts from the California Office of Privacy Protection, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Intel and MySpace. According to Microsoft's Chief privacy strategist Peter Cullen, breaches impact consumer trust and is causing increased concern. (Source: google.com) Microsoft and other organizations ... (view more)

Government antitrust attorneys are reportedly still receiving complaints from hardware makers and other companies about Microsoft business practices, even as the software giant has stepped up its efforts to cooperate with those state and federal ... authorities overseeing its antitrust consent decree. In a recent court filing, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and numerous other states said complaints were received from several companies that manufacture and sell a variety of products that work with Windows. The department has been enforcing the consent decree for more than six years. (Source ... (view more)

Despite the upcoming release of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) , it appears that Microsoft is still losing market share to its competitors at Apple and Mozilla. (Source: computerworld.com ) Web metrics firm Net Applications released a new ... market share analysis Sunday, placing Microsoft at 67.6% -- the lowest market share percentage for the company since 2005. This 0.6 point drop follows an unfortunate trend for Microsoft, who has lost approximately 8 percentage points in the last year. While nowhere near as devastating as the drastic drops of November and December 2008, it seems that ... (view more)

The security researcher who recently discovered an especially sneaky way of spreading spyware online says Internet Explorer 8 will have "zero impact" on the problem. It comes as attacks using the 'clickjacking' technique spread to other browsers. ... 'Clickjacking' lures users into clicking on a button that at first appears legitimate but actually does something altogether nasty. The usual way of doing this is to hijack a legitimate web page and use frames to overlay it with a transparent web page. This means victims are actually clicking on a button they can't see, which will usually 'authorize ... (view more)

Documents unsealed by a federal court in the "Vista Capable" lawsuit reportedly reveal that Microsoft would have to come up with as much as $8.5 billion to settle accounts with customers affected by its 2006 "Vista Capable" marketing debacle. Keith ... Leffler, a University of Washington economist and expert witness for the plaintiffs, estimates that it would cost a minimum of $3.92 billion to as much as $8.52 billion to upgrade the 19.4 million PCs that were sold as Vista Capable to hardware capable of running premium versions of Windows Vista. (Source: computerworld.com ) Leffler said in a ... (view more)

After flirting with open source development for some time, Microsoft has made another step towards real commitment with the release of source code for Web Sandbox, a program used to test and secure web site content. (Source: zdnet.com ) The Sandbox ... source code will be released under the Apache 2.0 license, an open source license agreement allowing the content creator to maintain copyright while permitting others to develop the product for their own use. Microsoft has gradually been increasing their involvement with the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) since 2008 when they agreed to fund ... (view more)

An early release of Microsoft's uber-popular web browser Internet Explorer version 8 (IE8) is now available for download. The Redmond-based company boasts that it's the safest and most secure browser ever constructed, and has included several new ... features meant to protect users against even the most innovative hacker attacks. As expected, Microsoft has simply added yet another digit to its browser, dubbing this one simple "IE8". There are a number of good reasons to invest precious download minutes in Internet Explorer 8; at the top of the list is a special new feature meant to protect ... (view more)

Recently unsealed documents relating to the ongoing "Vista Capable" class-action lawsuit revealed that a group within Microsoft recommended in 2005 that the lowest-priced version of Windows Vista be released without the "Vista" name due to concerns ... over "user product expectations." The lawsuit claims that Microsoft misled consumers with its "Vista Capable" marketing program in the months leading up to the January 2007 release of Windows Vista. Part of the allegations in the lawsuit contend that Windows Vista Home Basic is not the "real" Vista because it lacks the ... (view more)

The tech industry is beginning to feel the heat from a financial meltdown that has been burning the rest of the world for months. Microsoft recently announced that it would lay off up to 5,000 employees -- 5 percent of its work force -- over the ... next 18 months, starting with 1,400 jobs immediately. Chipmaker Intel is also reportedly laying off between 5,000 and 6,000 jobs while closing five plants in the U.S. and Asia in response to falling computer sales. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) The announcement came a week after reporting a 90% dip in profits for the last three months of 2008. Facilities to be ... (view more)