June 2016 security update release

Today we released security updates to provide additional protections against malicious attackers. As a best practice, we encourage customers to apply security updates as soon as they are released. More information about this month’s security updates and advisories can be found in the Security...

Assessing Risk for the November 2014 Security Updates

Today we released fourteen security bulletins addressing 33 unique CVE’s. Four bulletins have a maximum severity rating of Critical, eight have a maximum severity rating of Important, and two have a maximum severity rating of Moderate. This table is designed to help you prioritize the deployment ...

Theoretical Thinking and the June 2014 Bulletin Release

As security professionals, we are trained to think in worst-case scenarios. We run through the land of the theoretical, chasing “what if” scenarios as though they are lightning bugs to be gathered and stashed in a glass jar. Most of time, this type of thinking is absolutely the correct thing for...

Advance Notification Service for the January 2014 Security Bulletin Release

Today we provide advance notification for the release of four bulletins for January 2014. All bulletins this month are rated Important in severity and address vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Office, and Dynamics AX. The update provided in MS14-002 fully addresses the issue first described i...

Assessing risk for the December 2013 security updates

Today we released eleven security bulletins addressing 24 CVE’s. Five bulletins have a maximum severity rating of Critical while the other six have a maximum severity rating of Important. We hope that the table below helps you prioritize the deployment of the updates appropriately for your...

Clarification on Security Advisory 2896666 and the ANS for the November 2013 Security Bulletin Release

Today, we’re providing advance notification for the release of eight bulletins, three Critical and five Important, for November 2013. The Critical updates address vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and Microsoft Windows, and the Important updates address issues in Windows and Office. While this...

Congratulations to the Top MSRC 2022 Q2 Security Researchers!

Congratulations to all the researchers recognized in this quarter’s Microsoft Researcher Recognition Program leaderboard! Thank you to everyone for your hard work and continued partnership to secure customers. The top three researchers of the 2022 Q2 Security Researcher Leaderboard are: Yuki Chen...

Security Update Guide Supports CVEs Assigned by Industry Partners

Hi Folks, This month we are introducing a new data element for each CVE in the Security Update Guide, called Assigning CNA. First let me back up a bit and give some information about the CVE program. The purpose of a CVE is to uniquely identify a cybersecurity vulnerability. The CVE program was...

Customer Guidance on Recent Nation-State Cyber Attacks

Note: we are updating as the investigation continues. Revision history listed at the bottom. This post contains technical details about the methods of the actor we believe was involved in Recent Nation-State Cyber Attacks, with the goal to enable the broader security community to hunt for activit...

Solving Uninitialized Stack Memory on Windows

This blog post outlines the work that Microsoft is doing to eliminate uninitialized stack memory vulnerabilities from Windows and why we’re on this path. This blog post will be broken down into a few parts that folks can jump to: Uninitialized Memory Background Potential Solutions to Uninitialize...

Recognizing Q4 Top 5 Bounty Hunters

We have tabulated the results from April-June 2018. The Top 5 Bounty Hunters for Q4 are now in. As with our list from Q3, we want to recognize both the leaders in payouts and in number of successful submissions. We appreciate the hard work and dedication of the following individuals and companies...

Draft of Microsoft Security Servicing Commitments for Windows

Updated September 10, 2018 The Servicing Criteria for Windows has transitioned to an official document and can be found at the link below. Microsoft thanks the members of the research community who provided feedback on the draft copy. Microsoft Security Servicing Criteria for Windows...

Moving Beyond EMET II – Windows Defender Exploit Guard

Since we last wrote about the future of EMET and how it relates to Windows 10 back in November 2016 see Moving Beyond EMET, we have received lots of invaluable feedback from EMET customers and enthusiasts regarding the upcoming EMET end of life. Based on that feedback, we are excited to share...

Security Bulletin MS14-045 rereleased

Every month for many years, we’ve released a number of updates focused on the continuous improvement of customers’ experiences with our technology. Historically, these updates happened at different times during the month, with the security-specific ones occurring on the second Tuesday of each...

Security Advisory 2953095: recommendation to stay protected and for detections

Today, Microsoft released Security Advisory 2953095 to notify customers of a vulnerability in Microsoft Word. At this time, we are aware of limited, targeted attacks directed at Microsoft Word 2010. This blog will discuss mitigations and temporary defensive strategies that will help customers to...

Advance Notification Service for August 2013 Security Bulletin Release

Today we’re providing advance notification for the release of eight bulletins, three Critical and five Important, for August 2013. The Critical updates address vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer and Exchange. As usual, we’ve scheduled the bulletin release for the second Tuesd...

Try something new – Beat the BlueHat Challenge!

August 2014 Update: The BlueHat Challenge is on hold. We will make an announcement on this blog when we re-start the BlueHat Challenge. Thanks for your interest! --- We were inspired by the Matasano Crypto Challenges. So we built a similar series of fun challenges to exercise reverse engineering,...

Speculative Execution Bounty Launch

Today, Microsoft is announcing the launch of a limited-time bounty program for speculative execution side channel vulnerabilities. This new class of vulnerabilities was disclosed in January 2018 and represented a major advancement in the research in this field. In recognition of that threat...

シンプル化された Windows 7 および Windows 8.1 のサービス モデル: 最新の改善点について

本記事は、Windows for IT Pros のブログ "Simplified servicing for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1: the latest improvements" 2017 年 1 月 13 日 米国時間公開 を翻訳したもの...

Microsoft releases Security Advisory 2963983

Today, we released Security Advisory 2963983 regarding an issue that impacts Internet Explorer. At this time, we are only aware of limited, targeted attacks. This issue allows remote code execution if users visit a malicious website with an affected browser. This would typically occur by an...

Assessing risk for the March 2014 security updates

Today we released five security bulletins addressing 23 unique CVE’s. Two bulletins have a maximum severity rating of Critical while the other three have a maximum severity rating of Important. We hope that the table below helps you prioritize the deployment of the updates appropriately for your...

July 2018 Security Update Release

Today, we released security updates to provide additional protections against malicious attackers. As a best practice, we encourage customers to turn on automatic updates. More information about this month’s security updates can be found on the Security Update Guide...