Microsoft

A former Microsoft accountant has been sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to repay over a million dollars after pleading guilty to theft and money laundering.

Microsoft said Sunday that a digital certificate stolen from a Dutch company could not be used to force-feed customers malware through its Windows Update service.

The company's assertion came after a massive theft of more than 500 SSL (secure socket layer) certificates, including several that could be used to impersonate Microsoft's update services, was revealed by Dutch authorities and several other affected developers.

For all its success as the world's biggest maker of PC operating systems and office programs, Microsoft's position as the dominant provider of software to consumers is at risk. Here are five reasons why.

Great news for folks who are keen on using the Microsoft Xbox 360 for homebrew purposes. Last week, some hackers announced that they’ve been able to bypass the Xbox 360 security system to inject and execute their own code. The hackers even released a video clip on YouTube demonstrating the hack in action. And what makes this attack different from previous ones is that it is supposedly unblockable by future software updates from Microsoft.

A Windows Phone 7 user has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, claiming that the software maker collects data from mobile phone users without their knowledge.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer promised that Windows Phone Mango would include "hundreds" of new features. It looks like another one of those features has emerged, and it's one that Microsoft hasn't talked about before: Mango includes support for creating WiFi hotspots that will allow up to five users at a time to share a 3G data connection.

The security company Qualys this week demonstrated how to reverse-engineer a Microsoft patch in order to launch a denial-of-service attack on Windows DNS Server.

Microsoft has removed code from its MSN web site that tracked its users' browsing habits, even if those users intentionally deleted their cookies in order to preserve their privacy.

Mike Hintze, associate general counsel, regulatory affairs, Microsoft, announced in a blog that the firm investigated the code once it was brought to its attention by a researcher.

After months of near silence, Microsoft is starting to talk publicly about Windows 8. Earlier this week the company started a new "Building Windows 8" blog, and Windows Live Division President Steven Sinofsky provided the first concrete information about the operating system in a post on Wednesday.

Researchers have found a flaw in the way Windows 7 handles IPv6, one of the key protocols underlying the internet, saying attackers could use the vulnerability to crash PCs.

The security firm Barracuda Labs said on Tuesday that someone would have to make a targeted denial-of-service attack to exploit the vulnerability, but exploitation could cause failure in a PC's network connectivity, applications and sound system.