This is the final part of a three part series exploring the question of whether regions that experience political instability also experience increased malware infection rates and face more severe threats compared to more stable locations.  I examined Egypt in part 1 of this series, and Syria in part 2.  In this article I look at the threat landscape in Iraq using data from a new Special Edition Microsoft Security Intelligence Report: Linking Cybersecurity Policy and Performance and past volumes of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report.

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This year’s RSA Conference is next week at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.  If you are planning to attend, there are a few activities that I want to call to your attention. 

Microsoft’s Keynote
On Tuesday, February 26 at 8:50am PST, Scott Charney, Corporate Vice President, Trustworthy Computing, will deliver a keynote titled “Making a Case for Security Optimism.”  In the keynote, Scott will share his viewpoint on key security industry accomplishments that will have long-term impact and together form a basis for optimism.

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This is part two of a three part series exploring the question of whether regions that experience political instability also experience increased malware infection rates and face more severe threats compared to more stable locations.  I examined Egypt in part 1 of this series.  In this article, using data from a new Special Edition Microsoft Security Intelligence Report: Linking Cybersecurity Policy and Performance and volume 13 of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, I will take a look at another region that has experienced political instability: Syria.

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One question I have been asked on occasion is whether regions that experience political instability also experience increased malware infection rates and face more severe cyber-threats compared to more stable locations.  Recently, we published a new Special Edition Microsoft Security Intelligence Report: Linking Cybersecurity Policy and Performance.  This new report examines the correlation between thirty-four different socio-economic factors and regional malware infection rates across 105 countries.  I used this new report to try to get some insight into whether political instability is linked to higher malware infection rates.  To do this I took a closer look at a couple of the socio-economic factors from the report, demographic instability and regime stability. 

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This week we published a special edition to the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report titled “Linking Cybersecurity Outcomes and Policies.” The report contains a new methodology for identifying the linkages between socio-economic factors, public policies, and cybersecurity outcomes. We are making this report available to help encourage further discussion and research on the relationship between policy decisions and technical outcomes. This post is intended to help provide insight into the methodology that was used in the analysis. 

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Today, Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit, in collaboration with Symantec, have successfully taken down a dangerous botnet called "Bamital" that was being used to hijack people’s search results and take them to potentially dangerous websites that could install malware onto their computer, steal their personal information, or fraudulently charge businesses for online advertisement clicks. This botnet was exploiting the major online search and advertising platforms including Bing, Google and Yahoo. Over the last two years alone, Microsoft estimates this botnet to be responsible for compromising more than eight million computers and stealing tens of millions of dollars from unsuspecting victims all around the world. 

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Over the past several years I have had the opportunity to talk to customers and governments all over the world about the threat landscape and the data we publish in the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR).  During these conversations regional malware infection rates always garner a lot of discussion. One of the most interesting questions I’m increasingly asked is what factors contribute to the differences in regional malware infection rates? Or what do regions with low malware infection rates do differently than regions with high malware infection rates? Our Special Edition Microsoft Security Intelligence Report: Linking Cybersecurity Policy and Performance released today provides a new body of research that speaks to these questions.

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Posted by: Matt Thomlinson , General Manager, Trustworthy Computing. In my blog post earlier this week, I shared that I’m traveling in Europe for a series of cybersecurity policy events. This is my second and final post about this trip. After my first stop in Brussels, Belgium for the Global Cyber Security Conference , organized by the European Security Round Table (ESRT), I continued to Munich, Germany for the Munich Security Conference (MSC). Now in its 49 th year, the MSC is one of...

Are you an Information Technology (IT) Professional or developer looking for a resource to stay up to date with Microsoft security?  If so, I strongly encourage you to check out our Microsoft Security Newsletter.  This monthly newsletter delivered to your inbox in either HTML or Plain Text covers a wide range of Microsoft security topics from leading experts including...

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We are bringing together the best and brightest security professionals at the second annual Security Development Conference, May 14-15, 2013 at the InterContinental San Francisco Hotel. Join us as we spend two days immersed in content covering the latest in security development techniques and processes that can reduce risk and help protect organizations in this rapidly evolving technology landscape.

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