Microsoft's WebGL claims bashed by own employee
It didn't take long for researchers to pooh pooh last week's advisory that claimed that hard-to-fix design flaws in the emerging WebGL 3D standard seriously imperiled end users who relied on it.
Microsoft
Can Microsoft use the DMCA to kill competing Xbox 360 accessories?
Can Microsoft remotely disable third-party accessories from working with the Xbox 360 and get away with it?
The Redmond, Washington software- and console-maker did just that, and claims copyright law gave it the right. At issue is Microsoft’s 2009 remote disabling of Datel memory cards, which prompted an antitrust lawsuit that lives on today—litigation that has morphed into the latest test of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Autorun infections drop by over one million after Microsoft security update
Microsoft has reduced infection rates for Autorun-related malware by as much as 82 per cent on certain platforms, thanks to a February security update which disabled the feature.
Holly Stewart, of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, explained in a blog post that the number of infections found by the Malicious Software Removal Tool from January to May 2011 dropped by 82 per cent on Vista SP2, 68 per cent on Vista SP1 and 62 per cent on Windows XP SP3. This amounts to 1.3 million fewer infections on Windows Vista and XP from February to May, she said.
Microsoft Security Essentials is most used anti-virus
According to the latest reports, Microsoft Security Essentials is the most popular anti-virus application worldwide. Microsoft’s solution, which is free to all genuine Windows users, has taken the top spot in the second quarter of 2011, as reported by OPSWAT’s study (via Softpedia).
Why Microsoft has made developers horrified about coding for Windows 8
When Microsoft gave the first public demonstration of Windows 8 a week ago, the reaction from most circles was positive. The new Windows 8 user interface looks clean, attractive, and thoughtful, and in a first for a Microsoft desktop operating system, it's finger friendly. But one aspect of the demonstration has the legions of Windows developers deeply concerned, and with good reason: they were told that all their experience, all their knowledge, and every program they have written in the past would be useless on Windows 8.
Memory disclosure technique for Internet Explorer 7 / 8
Memory disclosure became an important part of exploit development in the light of various protection mechanisms. The ability to read memory holds multiple benefits for exploit developers. The most obvious one is, of course, the ability to circumvent ASLR - if we can read the content of the memory, we can determine the address of an module, for example by reading a vtable pointer of some object and subtracting a (constant) offset. However, memory disclosure brings additional benefits as well. For example, many exploits rely on a specific (predictable) memory layout.
Microsoft's 16 patches include one for "cookiejacking"
Microsoft is prepping a large security update for Tuesday, with plans to deliver 16 patches to fix 34 vulnerabilities across its product line.
Fake anti-virus cloaks itself to appear to be Microsoft Update
We are seeing the criminals behind fake anti-virus continuing to customize their social engineering attacks to be more believable to users and presumably more successful.
Last week I wrote about fake Firefox malware warnings leading users to rogue security software. This week they've started to imitate Microsoft Update.
If Chromebooks succeed, Mac OS X could be the hardest hit
Mac OS X never took off in the same way that Windows did. But I suspect that Google Chromebooks will either push users away from Mac OS X towards iOS devices, or have a stranger effect: bring iOS users of the iPad and iPhone closer to its Mac OS X sibling.
With three major desktop operating systems — Windows, Mac OS X and the million variants of Linux — there will soon be another, in a manner of speaking. Google Chrome OS will be pre-installed and supported by Chromebooks — dedicated light hardware which will run the cloud-based feature set of the operating system.
Does anyone need Windows 8?
In Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, the Once-ler manufactures Thneeds, a does-everything garment that "all people need." But a quick glance at the bizarre creation makes it obvious that no one actually needs such a thing. Could Windows 8 be Microsoft's Thneed?
Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) previewed its impressive next version of Windows on Wednesday night. In a YouTube video, the company convincingly demonstrated how its innovative new interface can work on any device, ranging from standard personal computers to large touch screen displays to tablets.
