MS gaining fast in AV-Comparatives tests

Detection rates up 7% in six months, more improvement predicted.
AV-Comparatives have released the results of their latest test of detection rates, pitting 17 scanners already known to perform well against their huge collection of malware. The most improvement over the previous run, which took place in February, was shown by Microsoft, whose score shot up by 7%.

The tests take the form of an on-demand scan over a testset of over 800,000 verified samples, including file and macro viruses, worms, trojans, backdoors and other malware, using 'best possible' settings. Multi-engine product AEC Trustport (which combines detection technologies from Norman, BitDefender and AVG) topped the tables with over 99.64%, with Avira's AntiVir in second place and another multi-engine scanner, GDATA's AVK, in third - both scored over 99%. Symantec and Kaspersky round out the top five, both spotting over 98% of all samples.

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Microsoft Adds Two to Forefront Family

LAS VEGAS -- Interop 2008 -- Microsoft is adding two edge security products to its Forefront line -- next-generation and rebranded versions of its remote network access product and its network edge protection product, the company revealed here today.
The newly christened Forefront Unified Access Gateway (formerly its Internet Access Gateway) and Forefront Threat Management Gateway (formerly Internet Security & Acceleration Server 2006) will be released in public beta versions later this year. Microsoft also announced that it will roll out an updated version of its SharePoint Optimizer for the existing IAG 2007 SSL VPN product next month.
“We wanted to update our naming and branding, and the vision you will see us [following] better over time is the integration and alignment with multiple access solutions across Microsoft” products, says Margaret Dawson, group product manager for Forefront edge products. “We will do a better job of integrating with SharePoint, OWA, mobile, Windows Server, etc."


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MS Forefront security

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kRNkm0TEuA

Microsoft hosts its own police academy

Hundreds of officials from agencies around the world including the FBI, Interpol, state attorneys general, city and county police, and the Air Force are attending a three-day technology training session at Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., campus beginning on Monday.
Microsoft is training the officers how to use technologies that can help them fight cybercrime as well as help them investigate traditional crime with an online component. Nearly 400 people from more than 80 agencies in 35 countries are attending.

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Microsoft encourages researchers to hack

Microsoft wants to encourage legitimate researchers to investigate its online services for vulnerabilities -- and promises not to sue as long as they submit the bugs they find

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30 day countdown until Cisco releases Microsoft-NAP friendly NAC gear

New and Hot subject .....

A story in Network World's Network Access Control newsletter reports that Cisco will have its Microsoft-compatible NAC gear ready in about a month, which should be good news for a lot of potential NAC users who are customers of both vendors. Cisco NAC being compatible with Microsoft network access protection (NAP) means users can deploy NAC without having to also deploy a NAC client. Instead, endpoints using Microsoft Vista and XP with Service Pack 3 can use the built-in NAP
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Microsoft releases public beta of security console

Microsoft on Tuesday released the first public beta of a centralized management console that will pull together administrative tasks around its collection of Forefront security software for clients, servers and the network edge.
At the RSA Conference, Microsoft released the first test code for Stirling, which it unveiled last summer. Stirling is designed as the knot that ties together Microsoft's Forefront security software – Client Security, Security for Exchange Server, Security for SharePoint, Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA), and the Intelligent Application Gateway

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Microsoft Technology Day( Kuwait)

Really it was a big event, at the Microsoft Technology Day 2008 held on March 30, 2008. There were around 300 attendees, 20 speakers and 42 sessions on various Microsoft technologies.

I have delivered the following sessions.

1- Microsoft Intelligent Application Gateway
2- Microsoft System Center Essential

Speakers were of MVPs, Microsoft employees and trainers from Infocenter Kuwait,

Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection

Gartner has positioned Microsoft Forefront Client Security in the Challengers Quadrant of the analyst group’s Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms, 2007

21 December 2007
Peter Firstbrook, Arabella Hallawell, John Girard, Neil MacDonald
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00153291
The stand-alone antivirus market has been replaced with a broader suite of defensive technologies supported by an extensible management platform that can subsume horizontal products, such as data protection and device management capabilities

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RSA to kick off next week with Microsoft's 'Stirling'

The world's largest security conference will kick off next week in San Francisco with the public unveiling of Microsoft's next-generation of security software, code-named Stirling.

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