Network admins get peek at Microsoft's security
Microsoft's top network security manager appeared at a company road show Tuesday to let other administrators know what the software giant is doing to help keep corporate networks safe.
Speaking at Microsoft's Security Summit, a 20-city tour to showcase the software giant's latest technologies regarding Internet threats, Richard Devenuti, corporate vice-president for Microsoft's Services and IT unit, highlighted improvements in the company's software and told how those improvements had been incorporated into Microsoft's own networks.
Perhaps the biggest change regarding security at Microsoft is that the issue has clout now, Mr. Devenuti said. The information technology group now has the power to hold up development or cut off someone's network access, he said.
"If a user doesn't do what I want them to do, we whack them off the network," he said. Mr. Devenuti's IT group is also one of the last Microsoft groups to sign off on a product before it is released. The group just gave the go-ahead to Microsoft's Internet Security & Accelerator (ISA) Server 2004, which is due out in the coming weeks, he said.
The significance of security in the decision-making process is only one of the changes that has happened at Microsoft since the company kicked off its Trustworthy Computing Initiative more than two years ago. In the past year, Microsoft has continued educating its developers, moved to monthly updates and extended security support for older versions of Windows.
The Security Summit is the company's latest education initiative. By year's end, Microsoft hopes to train nearly 500,000 people worldwide in how to better protect their systems.
