Roger's Security Blog

As Chief Security Advisor of Microsoft EMEA - lets share interesting security information
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  • Blog Post: Article was Bogus: Do Mac Users not need Anti-Virus Protection?

    rhalbheer
    Today I was having a discussion with a religious Mac fan claiming that the only problem with security on the Internet is Windows and then I read this article on ZDNet: Despite what blogs (and Apple) say, Macs will eventually have malware In there it is referenced that the article I was quoting yesterday...
    on 4 Dec 2008

  • Blog Post: Security Intelligence Report v4 – Live and Ready to be Read

    rhalbheer
    As you (hopefully) know, we publish a Security Intelligence Report every 6 month and today we just released version 4. Let me give you some key findings before you go and read it J Basically the intent of the report is, to provide a comprehensive overview of the threat landscape we are seeing in the...
    on 22 Apr 2008

  • Blog Post: “Keep Everything Clear of the Doors”

    rhalbheer
    Ed Gibson, the Chief Security Advisor in the UK just wrote an interesting article, I would like to share with you: You've seen it, read it, heard it so many times you've blocked it out … routine, mundane. . . but instinctively you take the necessary precautions.  And the idiots who think they can beat...
    on 14 Dec 2007

  • Blog Post: Our Malicious Software Removal Tool and Storm

    rhalbheer
    There is an interesting article on the value of the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT – the tool we release monthly to clean PCs) and the fight against storm. It gives you some insight how our Malware Protection Center works and what they did against storm. A pretty interesting reading (even though...
    on 24 Apr 2008

  • Blog Post: Raid against Piracy

    rhalbheer
    There seem to be policy organizations being serious about fighting piracy! Hungary, actually with 41% pirated software “not even that bad”, seems to be really serious. But before, let me just take those 41% up for a second: This means that 41% of the work you do is stolen. I think a significant negative...
    on 22 Jun 2010

  • Blog Post: New Version of the Nigeria Scam

    rhalbheer
    I love that one: Somebody sends e-mails to Hotmail users that their account would expire and they should renew it – the attacker gets UserID/Password… Then a mail is sent on behalf of the user to their friends to tell them that they are stuck in Nigeria (got it already) and lost Passport, Money, Cards...
    on 17 Jul 2007

  • Blog Post: Hacking Back?

    rhalbheer
    Pretty often there is a discussion how far it is allowed to hack back. I was just reading an interesting post called Hackers Could Become The Hacked? which I wanted to share with you Roger
    on 16 Apr 2008

  • Blog Post: Do we Need Special Laws?

    rhalbheer
    Well, yes we need Cybersecurity Legislation without doubt but sometimes the legislator goes too far in my opinion. I read this article this morning: Use Google Street View Maps & Serve More Time. I quote: The state legislature in the U.S. state of Louisiana has passed a law adding extra time for...
    on 2 Jun 2010

  • Blog Post: Lessons from Some of the Least Malware Infected Countries in the World

    rhalbheer
    Over the course of the last few years we have seen some countries having constantly low infection rates. So, our team in Trustworthy Computing started to ask the question why this is the case. The countries are Austria, Finland, Germany and Japan. I think it is worth y look at them: Part 1: Introduction...
    on 15 Sep 2011

  • Blog Post: Hacking is destroying economic growth

    rhalbheer
    As usual (and probably as most of you) I started today scanning through my mails and RSS feeds for important and urgent information. By doing that, I stumbled across an article called Hackers and Nigeria vulnerability to cyber terrorism and I started to read it. As you know, I blogged several times...
    on 26 Sep 2008

  • Blog Post: I was visiting Nigeria – watch out!

    rhalbheer
    You know that I rarely did trip reports in the past. I am personally convinced that you do not want to read, what I had for breakfast in Barcelona. But this trip was different. When I told the people around me that I will be travelling to Nigeria I got a lot of different reactions J . I guess that...
    on 23 Nov 2007

  • Blog Post: How a Botnet looks like

    rhalbheer
    If you would like to know a little bit more on botnets and how they actually look like, there is a researcher who actually draw a map of one: What a Botnet Looks Like Roger
    on 9 May 2008

  • Blog Post: MTaS: Malware Testing as a Service

    rhalbheer
    Well, in my last post I wrote about the prices for malware. Today I read the next evolution of this: The possibility to have malware tested against anti-malware tools – not to make sure malware is really recognized, no, the other way round: To make sure it is not recognized. I read this article on wired...
    on 5 Jan 2010

  • Blog Post: Hackers getting Jobs in the Industry

    rhalbheer
    This is a theme that is quite controversial since a long time: Is it a good idea to hire known hackers to improve security of your products? It was an interesting process to follow a time ago, when the guy who wrote Sasser (and brought down several networks), was arrested by Law Enforcement and even...
    on 2 Aug 2007

  • Blog Post: Cyber Security: The Road Ahead

    rhalbheer
    This paper by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) was just brought to my attention. A piece of work, which is definitely worth working through. It lays out the problem space and then does a deep dive into the different sections: Governments Legislative Bodies The Armed...
    on 14 Apr 2011

  • Blog Post: How much does a lost Laptop cost?

    rhalbheer
    I stumbled upon this study today commissioned by Intel and executed by Ponemon. They key findings were: The average value of a lost laptop is $49,246. This value is based on seven cost components: replacement cost, detection, forensics, data breach, lost intellectual property costs, lost productivity...
    on 27 Apr 2009

  • Blog Post: A Detailed Analysis of an Attack – Do We Need an International Incident Sharing Database?

    rhalbheer
    I recently came across a paper called Shadows in the Cloud , which is actually a follow-up report of Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network , an investigation of the attacks on the office of the Dalai Lama and some governmental bodies. The report is written by two bodies who had the...
    on 21 Apr 2010

  • Blog Post: Additional Conficker Guidance

    rhalbheer
    Yes, Conficker is far from being over. We still see a lot of infections. Therefore we decided to publish additional guidance for Conficker: Microsoft Conficker guidance page for IT Professionals and those focused on security in the enterprise: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/dd452420.aspx...
    on 7 Feb 2009

  • Blog Post: The Africa Cable – A Chance for Africa! – A Threat for the Internet?

    rhalbheer
    The development in Africa especially with the new broadband services to me is a huge chance for the whole continent. I just found this map on the next two years: source: IntelFusion Even though I have not been in Africa over the last few months, I heard that in different cities fiber is brought...
    on 7 Oct 2009

  • Blog Post: Get Safe Online – This Week

    rhalbheer
    We see this concept all over Europe: There are National Security Awareness Days (or how ever they are called) in a lot of European countries. During these events, the industry (from software to banking to government to …) gets together to raise awareness on the most important trends, criminals explore...
    on 18 Nov 2008

  • Blog Post: You know about PDOS?

    rhalbheer
    Well, I know DOS, I know DDOS, but I never knew PDOS until today: there seems to be a new way to attack systems using the firmware update mechanism and generating a Permanent Denial of Service (actually damaging the hardware)…. I was involved in a Ciritical Infrastrucutre Protection workshop about...
    on 21 May 2008

  • Blog Post: Special Intelligence Report on the Rustock Takedown

    rhalbheer
    As you might remember, on Match 16th Microsoft together with other industry players was successfully able to take down the Rustock botnet and thus significantly reducing the spam level. We now just published a special Intelligence Report on this botnet: Read an overview of the Win32/Rustock family of...
    on 6 Jul 2011

  • Blog Post: Responsibility of ISPs for the ecosystem?

    rhalbheer
    If you like Scott Chaney's suggestion he made at ISSE this week called Collective Defense - Applying Public Health Models to the Internet he raised very good points about the different roles the participants in the Internet Health Ecosystem have to play. Into that, the following article fits in fairly...
    on 6 Oct 2010

  • Blog Post: Attacks on MS08-067

    rhalbheer
    As we were pushing on our Out-of-Band release earlier this month we tried to make you understand that immediate deployment is needed as the vulnerability is high risk. Otherwise we would not have gone out of band… Interestingly enough, we have not seen widespread attacks since now. Earlier today now...
    on 26 Nov 2008

  • Blog Post: Lottery Scam – The voice of the victim

    rhalbheer
    We all know that there are scammers telling you that you won in the lottery. A lot of security people think that the victims are naïve and dumb. We just started to run a story on lottery scam and part of it was an interview with a victim. The victim – let's call him "Mr. Ericson" to protect his privacy...
    on 20 Dec 2007