Microsoft

Microsoft has unveiled a series of changes to its Windows 10 antivirus service that will bring all the company’s extended detection and response (XDR) facilities under one roof.

Announced at the company's Ignite 2020 event, the changes will see Microsoft 365 Defender (formerly Microsoft Threat Protection) and Azure Defender consolidated under the umbrella of the Microsoft Defender antivirus service.

Microsoft's Surface Duo, a dual-screen Android phone from the maker of Windows, is now available to order and shipping to consumers. This is the first smartphone Microsoft has released since the end of support for the Windows Phone platform five years ago.

After launching the Surface Duo last week, Microsoft published documentation on its approach to security in hte new device. A lot of the security features Microsoft outlines are standard for any Android phone. However, there are a couple of custom bits that stand out.

The most notable addition is Microsoft's "custom engineered" Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). This gives Microsoft "full control" over firmware components, and it's somethign the company already uses in its other Surface devices.

Last October, during a long day of closed-door sessions and windowless-lab meetings with executives and product managers, the kind of closeness that would now make me shudder in the context of a pandemic, Microsoft revealed its dual-screened phone. The joke at the time was that Microsoft refused to call the Surface Duo a phone, identifying it instead as a brand-new kind of hybrid device, even though it runs Android and makes phone calls.

More than two decades of efforts by Microsoft to put down roots in China may soon bring a partial pay-off if it succeeds in steering through the purchase of TikTok’s US business.

But as relations between the US and China continue to deteriorate, the software company’s long-term bet on the Chinese market is also facing its most uncertain period yet.

Microsoft has neutered a large-scale fraud campaign that used knock-off domains and malicious apps to scam customers in 62 countries around the world.

A researcher has published exploit code for a Microsoft Windows vulnerability that, when left unpatched, has the potential to spread from computer to computer with no user interaction.

Microsoft and Intel have recently collaborated on a new research project that explored a new approach to detecting and classifying malware.

Called STAMINA (STAtic Malware-as-Image Network Analysis), the project relies on a new technique that converts malware samples into grayscale images and then scans the image for textural and structural patterns specific to malware samples.

Microsoft is planning to update Office for iPad with support for Apple’s latest iPadOS trackpad and mouse support. The software maker has always been quick to update its range of iOS apps with Apple’s latest software features, and work is already underway to update Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more.

Attackers are actively exploiting a Windows zero-day vulnerability that can execute malicious code on fully updated systems, Microsoft warned on Monday.