Microsoft Unveils Security Tools, Resources At Black Hat

by admin July 28, 2009 at 4:40 pm

Dealing with the changing threat landscape requires information sharing, Microsoft says, and it has developed software, guidelines, and programs to help make that happen

At the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas this week, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) plans to provide a progress report on the security initiatives that it launched last summer and to release new security tools and information to support security efforts by its customers and partners.

“There’s a race between attackers and defenders and if we want to win, we have to share information,” said Mike Reavey, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center.

To help realize that goal, Microsoft plans to release the Microsoft Office Visualization Tool, which provides a graphic visualization of the Office binary file format. The software is intended to help IT professionals and security researchers better understand attacks targeting Office files.

The reason for this is that most malware attacks application vulnerabilities rather than operating system vulnerabilities. In the second half of 2008, said Reavey, almost 90% of the vulnerabilities were in the application stack rather than the operating system.

Read more: informationweek.com