Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing corporate vice President Scott Charney shared his security vision for the next decade in his keynote address at the RSA conference today. Charney’s keynote highlighted new and persistent security risks in light of society’s increased dependence on information systems and identified key drivers of change in today’s interconnected world.
Spam filters for email programs are a little like the roof on a house. You wouldn’t want to live without one, but some are better than others.
Recent research from Cascade Insights showed that no email program they tested did better than Hotmail at filtering spam.
Get tricks for getting rid of spam, even if you don’t use Hotmail, and learn how to avoid other email and web scams.
You can also get more detailed information about SmartScreen, Microsoft’s spam-fighting technology, and go beyond the metrics in a detailed blog post by Dick Craddock, Hotmail Group Program Manager.
If you think you’re a target of a phishing scam or other fraud in an email, Xbox instant message, or on a website, you can report it. Most Microsoft products have built-in tools that make this easier.
Hotmail. If you receive a suspicious email message that asks for personal information, click the check box next to the message in your Hotmail inbox. Click Mark as and then point to Phishing scam.
Xbox 360. If someone is trying to phish you in Xbox 360, bring up the player profile, select File Complaint, select File Complaint again, select Text and Voice Communication and then select Text message to file a complaint, where it will be reviewed by our Enforcement Team.
Internet Explorer. While you are on a suspicious site, click the gear icon () and then point to Safety. Then click Report Unsafe Website and use the web page that is displayed to report the website.
Microsoft Office Outlook. Attach the suspicious email message to a new email message and forward it to[email protected]. To learn how to attach an email message to an email message, see Attach a file or other item to an email message.
Get more information about how to report and avoid fraud.
Third-party websites have the ability to track your online behavior and share this information without your knowledge or consent. Tracking Protection, a new feature in Internet Explorer 9, lets you choose which third-party sites can receive your information and track you online. When you add a Tracking Protection List, Internet Explorer will prevent your information from being sent by limiting data requests to websites in the list. For more information on tracking, see this recent IE blog post: Browse Without Being Browsed.
To turn on Tracking Protection
Microsoft releases security updates on the second Tuesday of every month.
The bulletin announces the release of 9 security updates:
Get the updates.
Download a video about the updates.
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Today the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) posted details about the February security updates. On Tuesday, February 14 at approximately 10 AM Pacific Time Microsoft will release 9 bulletins.
The easiest way to get the updates when they're available is to turn on Windows automatic updating. For more information about how this works, see Understanding Windows automatic updating.
The Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification Service offers details about security updates approximately three business days before they are released. We do this to allow customers (especially IT professionals) to plan for effective deployment of security updates.
Advanced Notification includes information about:
For more information about the security updates that will be released on February 14, see Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for February 2012.
For official risk and impact analysis, as well as deployment guidance, visit the MSRC blog. If you are on Twitter, you might want also want to follow @MSFTSecResponse.
A recent Ponemon Institute study (in cooperation with PC Tools) challenges the myth that people who fall for scams are generally older. According to survey results, 18-25 year olds are among the groups that are more susceptible to online scams. Respondents also said that a free prize or free antivirus software were the most likely scam offers that they would respond to.
Get more information about how to spot scams and protect yourself from them.
See more results from the study.
If you have automatic updating turned on and you’re not using the latest version of Internet Explorer that works on your computer, Windows Update will automatically upgrade you this month. Internet Explorer 9 is Microsoft's latest web browser with even more security features, but you can opt-out if you want.
Don’t want to wait? You can download Internet Explorer 9 yourself right now.
More information