Forefront Team Blog : Windows Server 2008

New release of Forefront Online Protection for Exchange

Forefront Blogger — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:46:00 GMT

This week we released an update to Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE) - our hosted service providing anti-malware and anti-spam for both on-premises Exchange and Exchange Online. FOPE can be used as an alternative to the new Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server, or in tandem with it for messaging defense-in-depth.

The new release of Forefront Online Protection for Exchange offers enhanced policy control capabilities (such as enhanced regular expressions support, custom dictionaries) for IT admins to more effectively adhere to compliance needs. In addition, it supports advanced globalization/localization by supporting 13 languages in the Admin Console, in documentation and via telephone support. These enhancements were a direct result of feedback from Forefront Online Protection for Exchange customers, who expressed a need for more options when they created custom company policy rules for filtering, and more flexibility to manage these rules.

Additional enhancements with the new release:

· Policy rule syntax options: The new release provides the option to use either a basic syntax, which is a mixture of comma-separated values (CSV) and simple string-wildcard syntax or Regular Expressions.

· New Policy Rules e-mail header match option: FOPE now allows you to match e-mails based on e-mail header name and value.

· More flexibility for outbound forced TLS rules: The Policy Rules editor now offers a check box to enable Opportunistic TLS for recipients not specifically identified by the policy rule. Custom policy rules filters now feature the following enhancements:

The ability to upload dictionaries of custom-created lists or content for use in policy rules

The ability to apply the dictionaries across multiple rules and domains

Available now: Windows Identity Foundation for building more secure, simplified access to cloud applications

Forefront Blogger — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:35:00 GMT

Today at our Professional Developers Conference Microsoft announced the availability of Windows Identity Foundation (WIF), a new extension to the .NET Framework that makes it easier for developers to create more secure applications with interoperable, identity-based access.

The software and documentation are available here. You can watch a video discussion about WIF on Channel 9 here.

WIF is ideal for both on-premises and cloud apps, and it ties closely to today’s launch of the Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud services platform. As part of our open platform for simplified access to both on-premises and cloud applications (formerly known as codename “Geneva”,) WIF is a key element of how Microsoft is addressing customer needs around cloud security. It also represents more progress for our Business Ready Security strategy.

Extending single sign-on from on-premises infrastructure to cloud applications is an important customer need, to simplify user login and ensure productivity. But the complexities of identity and access often block developers from quickly delivering this capability. There are too many identity technologies to choose from. Custom development of identity functionality is slow, expensive and requires developers to be identity and security experts.

WIF changes this, by providing developers with a standard approach to building identity-based access into on-premises and cloud applications using the claims-based architecture. It boosts developer productivity through a single, simplified identity model within familiar tools, such as .NET and Visual Studio.

For example, Quest Software says it was able to reduce authentication/authorization development time by 80% using WIF for its new OnDemand IT management solution hosted on Windows Azure – announced today. Quest OnDemand relies on ADFS 2.0 (beta) for authentication, too.

Online travel service leader Hogg Robinson in the UK is using WIF and ADFS 2.0, as well. Lead architect Jon Simpson said the technologies "masked many complexities, yet offered extension points throughout the solution such that we could implement all of our requirements. We welcome this new, open approach from Microsoft. We didn't have to compromise our solution anywhere!"

WIF enhances application security because it provides consistent, proven means for single sign on, federation, strong authentication and identity delegation. With WIF developers don’t have to continually re-build authentication logic, and applications can call each other securely. And, because WIF allows developers to externalize identity logic from applications, re-coding is less likely to be required as identity needs change.

Additionally, WIF is based on industry standard protocols for interoperability across heterogeneous cloud and enterprise environments.

Complementing WIF are the upcoming Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 – a role in Windows Server that allows customers to extend their existing investment in identity infrastructure to cloud applications – and Windows CardSpace 2.0, which helps end users easily navigate multiple logins and manage different personas.

Forefront secure messaging screencast & interview

Forefront Blogger — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:15:00 GMT

Cristian Mora Aguilar, Forefront Technical PM, starts off by briefly telling us about Microsoft's secure messaging solution and what business problems it resolves. He then gives us a screencast / demo of some of the cool scenarios enabled and problems solved with the secure messaging solution. Find out how Microsoft products help secure Microsoft Exchange Server.

http://edge.technet.com/Media/Forefront-Secure-Messaging-screencast-and-interview/

Direct Access and UAG video - Deep dive with a Program Manager

Forefront Blogger — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:15:00 GMT

Ben Bernstein and Stephen Bowie tell us what the value is for Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG) with Direct Access (DA).

After this, we do a whiteboard of UAG + DA architecture, including explaining how it works with multiple UAG servers. Here's how the rest of the interview breaks down:

How UAG supports legacy IPv4 clients (Marker 3 @ 8:02)

How does the client know to connect to the proper DNS server and not the one from the local ISP? (Marker 4 @ 13:17)

How do we know it's securely talking to the proper DNS server? (Marker 5 @ 15:01)

What other components on UAG enable DA? (Marker 6 @ 16:10)

Additional value add for UAG with DA (Marker 7 @ 17:55)

http://edge.technet.com/Media/Direct-Access-and-UAG-video-Deep-dive-with-a-Program-Manager/

Schedule and Strategy Update for Forefront Endpoint Protection

Forefront Blogger — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Today we are announcing a schedule and strategy update for Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010, a component of the upcoming Forefront Protection Suite (previously codenamed “Stirling.”)

We are delaying the release Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 - anti-malware for Windows desktops and servers - until the second half of 2010. Based on customer feedback and market trends, we have made the strategic decision to build Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) on System Center Configuration Manager, Microsoft’s solution to comprehensively assess, deploy, and update servers, clients, and devices. This approach better aligns our customers’ client management and security infrastructure, helping simplify deployment and reduce costs.

We are confident this is the right decision for our customers. In the interim, we will continue to offer our current Forefront Client Security (FCS) solution, which supports and protects both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. We are developing the necessary tools and guidance to facilitate the future upgrade from Forefront Client Security to Forefront Endpoint Protection and will help customers with the migration process.

We also remain committed to providing integrated management for the Forefront Protection Suite. We will release Forefront Protection Manager in the first half of 2010, as scheduled, providing multi-server management for Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server and Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint. We will provide information about endpoint security management in Forefront Protection Manager at a later time.

We are on track to release all other Forefront products on schedule, as part of our Business Ready Security strategy:

o Fourth quarter 2009: Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server, Forefront Online Protection for Exchange, Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 and Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010

o First half 2010: Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint, Forefront Identity Manager 2010.

The Forefront team

Steve Ballmer on The New Efficiency

Forefront Blogger — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:56:00 GMT

Making business decisions regarding IT investment is tougher than ever. To help, today Microsoft hosted a special VIP Business Leadership Roundtable event. CEO Steve Ballmer and moderator Robert Youngjohns, President of the Microsoft US Subsidiary, discussed major trends in the new role of technology in the workplace. Ballmer and Youngjohns were joined by a panel of early adopter customers representing key industries like automotive, hospitality, transportation and IT. Attendees got a close look at how real companies are making IT investments across the desktop, server, network and beyond.

How IT needs to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated users
The ever more mobile and distributed workforce, and
The impact of greater industry regulations and ongoing threats to data.

Forefront identity and security solutions, and our Business Ready Security strategy, are core parts of the way Microsoft is helping customers tackle these issues. You can view highlights of today's event and get lots of info on the range of Microsoft IT solutions - including a Business Ready Security overview, Secure Messaging, Secure Collaboration, Identity and Access Management and Information Protection at www.TheNewEfficiency.com

Microsoft Security Essentials available tomorrow

Forefront Blogger — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:44:00 GMT

Microsoft Security Essentials, the new no-cost, anti-malware service that helps protect consumers against viruses, spyware and other malicious software, will be available tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 29. It requires no registration, trials or renewals and will be available for download directly from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials.

Making Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) broadly available as a free consumer download for genuine Windows-based PCs is part of the company's ongoing commitment to provide a more trustworthy computing experience for all customers. The company hopes to encourage broader adoption of anti-virus protection across the consumer audience, which in turn will help increase security across the entire Windows ecosystem. For business customers, Microsoft continues to offer Forefront Client Security.

MSE will have a positive impact on Forefront products, because it allows Microsoft to capture additional threat intelligence from customers using MSE and apply it to our security research, signature development and protection capabilities in Forefront solutions.

Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server RC

Forefront Blogger — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:46:00 GMT

If you're not already aware...the Release Candidate of Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (the next, newly named version of Forefront Security for Exchange) is available for download and evaluation now! Part of the Forefront Protection Suite - the next generation of the Forefront Security Suite, aka "Stirling" - FPE provides fast and effective protection against malware and spam by inlcuding multiple scanning engines. Its comprehensive messaging protection also prevents out-of-policy content from entering or leaving your network using content filtering. And it integrates with Forefront Online Protection for Exchange to provide the defense-in-depth benefits of hosted and on-premise filtering in a single solution.

Forefront Client Security v1.0 on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Forefront Blogger — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:20:00 GMT

Forefront Client Security (FCS) v1.0 is fully supported on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 as of August 31, 2009. With the release of new updates available through Windows Server Update Services or Microsoft Update, customers will be able to extend the protection of FCS v1.0 on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 systems and incorporate security in their infrastructure upgrade plans. More information on updates needed for this support is provided in a knowledge base article here.

FCS v1.0 will be supported on all of the following versions of Windows 7: Windows 7 Business, Enterprise, Home, and Ultimate. FCS v1.0 will also be supported on Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Server and Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Server installation. For a full list of supported platforms, please visit http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb404245.aspx.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core installation is not supported at this time. However, it is planned to be supported with future updates.

Analyst: The market impact of security/identity integration

Forefront Blogger — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:54:00 GMT

Analyst Jon Oltsik of the Enterprise Strategy Group writes a column for Network World called "Networking Nuggets and Security Snippets." Last week he penned an interesting piece titled "The market impact of security/identity integration."

In the article Oltsik describes how governance, compliance and new electronic business processes are driving more alignment of security policy with users, roles and business activities. He goes on to provide his take on who the leaders, challengers, dark horses and question marks are among vendors in this newly converged space. He cites IBM, Microsoft and, tentatively, CA as leaders.

Yes, I'm flagging the story because Jon's take is very much in line with Microsoft's view and strategy. But it's worth a read.

Forefront Unified Access Gateway beta 2

Forefront Blogger — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:04:00 GMT

I’m very pleased to announce that today Forefront Unified Access Gateway Beta 2 is available for download from www.microsoft.com/uag . This beta release marks an important milestone in Microsoft’s remote access strategy as it brings together a host of access technologies into one environment.

Chances are you are reading this post from your laptop… and if you’re not currently outside of the corporate network, chances are you will be later today… You might be at home checking your email and getting some last minute work items done… That’s what UAG is all about! It’s about making sure that you, the user, remain as productive as you need to be regardless of what machine or network you are accessing from. Of course, it’s also about making sure that your company’s network and assets remain secure as you work remotely.

We know that when they say that “one size fits all”, it usually means that it fits some people well and the rest of us need to compromise. The same is true with remote access... Each technology is best suited for a different scenario/environment and the trick is to make sure you get the right one for the right task. A VPN client would be overkill for casual access from a kiosk or stealing a minute of time on your friend’s PC at home to check email… On the other hand, being limited to web-access only from your corporate laptop will leave you unfulfilled and wanting more. Unfulfilled, in this case also means: unproductive. That said, having multiple methods of remote access also translates to multiple $$$’s. Each environment needs to be well-managed, supported, scaled, etc. No less important is that each user needs to remember which environment is best to use in which scenario to easily achieve productivity. This means you’re doing less with more and that’s not good… and not just in this economy.

So here’s how UAG solves the problem…. It brings together a variety of remote access technologies such as DirectAccess, SSL VPN, Remote Desktop, web publishing, etc. under one roof and one user/admin experience. This way, administrators can easily roll out access to every type of user (employees, partners, etc) from virtually every location (corporate laptop, home PC, borrowed PC, kiosk, PDAs, etc). Users, in turn, get a simple and straightforward experience that adapts to the level of security of device they are using. If they come in from a corporate machine, they can get full connectivity through DirectAccess or for down-level PCs - SSL VPN. If they come from home PCs or borrowed PCs access policies will be tailored to their specific security. For instance, if they don’t practice safe-computing and don’t have an Anti-Malware software installed, running and up-to-date – UAG can decide to block access to uploads so no potentially harmful files will reach the network. If the user has an updated AV we may allow uploads but consider blocking downloads based on whether or not the Endpoint Session Cleanup (formerly: Attachment Wiper) can run to clean up any residue or temp files.

The policy options are limitless but they are also simple. Built in policies and administrative wizards help guide through setting up SharePoint, Exchange, DirectAccess, Terminal Services and much more….

The features I’m most excited about in UAG are our enhancements for DirectAccess. DirectAccess is really the next step of remote access and provides the best user experience possible. Wherever you may roam, you are simply connected, always-on, to corpnet. There is no need to open a VPN client, wait for connectivity, etc… You simply login and you are connected! What UAG brings to the table is a variety of capabilities to help simplify deployment and management, extend access to older servers and clients and grow the scale of the deployment. If you’re not yet looking at DirectAccess for your organization, you should…. And if you’re looking at DirectAccess you should look at UAG!

I could go on and on about the features and capabilities but why hear it from me?! Go and download the beta and see for yourself.

For more information you may want to try:

· The UAG engineering blog

· UAG website

· UAG TechNet Center

· DirectAccess site and UAG DirectAccess page.

Uri Lichtenfeld

Product Manager - UAG

Business Ready Security news at WPC

Forefront Blogger — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:01:00 GMT

This week in New Orleans Microsoft is hosting its annual Worldwide Partner Conference. We made several announcements today at the conference about our identity and security solutions. This news is part of our Business Ready Security strategy to help both partners and customers 1) protect everywhere and access anywhere, 2) integrate and extend security across the enterprise, and 3) simplify the security experience and manage compliance

Official names and pricing for “Stirling”

Forefront codename “Stirling” - the next generation of the Forefront Security Suite for integrated, comprehensive protection across endpoints, servers and the edge – will be officially known as Forefront Protection Suite (FPS).

FPS will include the products in the current suite, plus the Forefront Protection Manager (formerly known as the “Stirling” management console) and the Forefront Threat Management Gateway Web Security Service.

FPS pricing will remain the same as the current Forefront Security Suite and all of the component solutions will continue to be licensed on a subscription basis. They will also be available independently, with Forefront Protection Manager included. (Note that the Forefront Threat Management Gateway license is sold separately on a per processor basis.)

At WPC we are also announcing the following new product solution names:

· Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 - current version is Forefront Client Security

· Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server - current version is Forefront Security for Exchange Server

· Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint - current version is Forefront Security for SharePoint

· Forefront Online Protection for Exchange - currently called Forefront Online Security for Exchange

· Forefront Threat Management Gateway Web Security Service - the next generation of ISA Server 2006.

The new FPS solutions are currently in beta and final versions will ship over the course of the latter half of 2009 and the first half of 2010.

Public beta 2 of Forefront Unified Access Gateway

Forefront Unified Access Gateway beta 2 is available for download at www.microsoft.com/forefront. UAG provides secure, virtually anywhere access to messaging, collaboration and other applications, increasing productivity and policy compliance. UAG also extends the benefits of Windows DirectAccess across the enterprise, enhancing scalability, deployment and management.

Official name for “Geneva”

The three components of Microsoft “Geneva” – the upcoming open platform providing simplified user access and single sign-on for cloud and on-premises applications – have the following names:

· Active Directory Federation Services – formerly known as “Geneva” Server

· Windows Identity Foundation – formerly known as “Geneva” Framework

· Windows Cardspace – same as current version

Partner opportunities

At WPC partners will learn about how the solutions above offer tremendous opportunity to better meet the identity and security needs of customers...and to build their own businesses. Since announcing a $75 million investment in our partner ecosystem at WPC last year, we have seen very strong partner development and growth.

For example, we have seen a 50% increase in participation in the Security Software Advisors (SSA) program, which offers fees to partners who influence deployment. The Security Solutions Competency, which enables partners to differentiate themselves as experts, is one of the fastest growing competencies in Microsoft’s history and in the last year grew 46% in participation. This year we anticipate quadrupling the number of identity and security partners we support with training, marketing and customer engagement.

The multi-engine advantage...and updates

Forefront Blogger — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:33:00 GMT

Today we posted a white paper about the Microsoft antimalware engine strategy and changes beginning December 1, 2009. A summary is below - read the full document for a complete overview.

Forefront server security products - such as Forefront Secrurity for Exchange, Forefront Security for Sharepoint and Forefront Security for Office Communications Server incorporate a multi-engine strategy, using both Microsoft and industry-leading security partner technology to consistently drive high detection rates. They also include an advanced multiple engine manager that allows customers to concurrently configure up to five engines. Using multiple scanning engines delivers several critical advantages:

It increases the chances that emerging threats will be caught quickly.
It provides redundancy to help protect against scan failures or defects in individual engines; if an engine fails, other engines continue scanning messages.
It gives administrators an effective way to choose the most appropriate level of protection for their environment given their security needs and server performance capabilities.
It allows engines to be taken offline for updates or reconfiguration without forcing messages or documents to be queued.

Tests performed quarterly by the independent AV-Test.org group have shown that the multi-engine set for Forefront security products rates highest in response times for “in the wild” viruses and variants. We have found that having multiple engines consistently provides the highest detection rates against the competition with average response time of 3-6 hours for new viruses versus competitive single-engine solutions average response times are more than 2-9 days (as noted in recent AV-Test.org data.)

In order to further develop stronger technology relationships with our antimalware partners and ensure continued customer value for the longer term, we are standardizing on a set of five antimalware engines moving forward. We are confident that this solution will continue to provide equal or better detection rates and response times than the industry’s other leading solutions.

What does this mean for Microsoft and its customers? The current and next generation of Forefront server security products, including Antigen, will include five antimalware engines as part of an ongoing strategy to maximize and maintain our malware detection advantages, as well as make investments in other areas that will increase overall protection for our customers.

Customers will be able to take advantage of these new enhancements and engine changes after deploying the Antigen and Forefront service packs released on July 1, 2009. These service packs will allow customers to move to the new set of five engines as well as additional engine changes that Microsoft may release after December 1, 2009.

Forefront: CCTM Certified for UK government use

Forefront Blogger — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:12:00 GMT

Last week West Coast Labs announced that Forefront Client Security has received the CESG Claims Tested Mark (CCTM),which provides a government quality mark for malware detection and performance, based on accredited independent testing. CESG is the UK government's National Technical Authority for Information Assurance. Their stamp of approval means UK government departments can reliably look to Forefront for endpoint protection.

The certification is designed to attest to the overall effectiveness and performance ofaproducts providing protection from a wide variety of security threats (malware, spam, URLs, etc. It is the fastest growing certification systems for information security products and services and is a highly regarded accreditation program.

Server & Tools Business Exec discusses state of IT, answers your questions on June 23

Forefront Blogger — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:15:00 GMT

Are you interested in hearing about how other IT pros are reacting to economic conditions and where they’re investing (particularly security?)

Do you have questions about Microsoft’s efforts to help IT be more cost effective and deliver new solutions to business?

Is there a connection between virtualization and cloud computing?

On Tuesday, June 23rd from 10:30am – 11:00am (PDT), join a teleconference with Bob Kelly, corporate VP of Infrastructure Server Marketing. Bob will talk about the state of IT within the context of results from a new Harris Interactive study of 1,200 IT professionals from the U.S., United Kingdom, Japan and Germany. The study was commissioned by Microsoft’s Server & Tools Business. There will be time for your questions following the brief presentation. Submit questions over the phone or you can submit them at any time leading up to or during the teleconference by tweeting with the Twitter hashtag, #qs4ms. If you are interested in attending, please REGISTER NOW. Once you open the invite box, you can save and close to your calendar.