Microsoft

Microsoft just declared that browser plug-ins' best days are behind them, but Adobe is working hard to disprove the notion with its Flash Player.

Flash, the most widely used browser plug-in, will be barred from the new "Metro" version of Internet Explorer 10 that will ship with Windows 8, IE team leader Dean Hachamovitch announced last night during the company's Build conference. In response, Adobe pointed out that Flash will still work with the more traditional "desktop" interface--but also that the company has other plans for staying relevant.

Since our presentation of COM server-based binary planting exploits at the Hack in the Box conference in May this year, Microsoft has introduced a number of relevant changes to Windows and Internet Explorer.

Sophos says criminals will likely circumvent built-in anti-virus to be shipped with Microsoft Windows 8 next year.

Windows 8 will ship during the third quarter of 2012 and comes bundled with Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) that contains anti –viruses and -spyware tools. Microsoft on Tuesday released a preview of the new operating system to developers during its Build conference in the US.

StrikeForce Technologies, a small vendor of a keystroke encryption technology, is accusing Microsoft of not acting fast enough to fix a browser issue that it says is preventing StrikeForce's technology from working with Internet Explorer 9.

The problem was first reported to Microsoft, and acknowledged by the company, in April, said George Waller, executive vice president of StrikeForce. Since then, Microsoft has been saying it will fix the problem but has not gotten around to doing it yet, Waller said.

The hacker responsible for the recent attack on DigiNotar has claimed that he also has the ability to issue Windows updates.

Microsoft has denied that this is possible in a recent security statement issued last week. The hacker, known as Comodohacker, claims that this is not true and he has already reversed an “entire windows update protocol”.

Here’s good news for consumers but bad news for the antivirus industry - Microsoft will be shipping antivirus protection as standard with the Windows 8 operating system.

Microsoft issued five security bulletins for its September 2011 Patch Tuesday, addressing 15 vulnerabilities in Windows and Office.

In addition, the software giant issued an updated security advisory Tuesday, adding six more DigiNotar root certificates to its Windows Untrusted Certificate Store. DigiNotar, a certificate authority based in the Netherlands, has been reeling since it announced its CA systems were breached by an attacker.

The folks over at Skype Journal noted last week a small update in the progress towards Microsoft closing on its proposed Skype acquisition.

The banhammer. Many Xbox LIVE users know that from time to time Microsoft will give the mighty hammer a good swing, catching hackers off-guard in such a way that nearly all who get banned come up with some rather interesting excuses ranging from the common “Microsoft got the wrong guy” to the more thought out reason of “Well, you see, I let my friend borrow my console for a while and when I got it back…”

Microsoft today said it will dispense five security updates next week to patch 15 vulnerabilities in Windows, Excel, SharePoint Server and Groove.

All five updates will be rated "important," the second-highest threat ranking in Microsoft's four-step system.