UK SBSC : Security

LiveSeries: Details of upcoming Partner Live Meetings

UK SBSC — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:26:04 GMT

There are a number of new Partner Live Meeting events available to register for as part of the LiveSeries. The Live Series are a programme of Live Meetings which aim to effectively deliver top line information and key value propositions, highlighting the opportunities available to you around Microsoft technologies and resources. Visit: www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/liveseries

Click on the titles below to register now for the upcoming Partner Live Meetings:

Using Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG) to provide secure remote access to applications, Wednesday 20th May 2009, 2pm - 3pm
Who should attend? Partners who are looking to understand how to provide policy-based secure remote access to applications to extranet, mobile and internet users, be those Microsoft applications such as SharePoint or Exchange, or applications from 3rd parties.

Agenda:
• Overview of Microsoft Intelligent Application Gateway and the associated partner opportunity.
• Partner case study – Why we’re deploying IAG solutions to our customers.
• Q and A

Windows Server 2008 R2 – What’s New and where is the opportunity for Partners? Thursday 4th June 2009, 4pm - 5pm

The forthcoming new release of Windows Server provides a wealth of new capability for the web, virtualisation, manageability, and reliability. There are also a number of key features which makes it ‘Better together with Windows 7’, especially around the interconnecting of branch offices. Analyst AMI recently found that 80% of midmarket businesses wanted to better connect their remote offices and branches, rating it their number 1 strategic priority.

Agenda:
• An overview of key features and business benefits of Windows Server 2008
• Integration with Windows 7.
• What are the key opportunities for partners?
• Q&A

System Center Technologies with Exchange Server 2007 & SharePoint Server 2007, Monday 18th May 2009, 4pm - 5pm.

Who Should Attend? SharePoint and Exchange design and deployment partners who are looking to enhance the security of their solutions they implement for their customers.

Agenda:
• Overview of Microsoft System Center solutions and how they integrate into Exchange and SharePoint products, drive customer satisfaction and deliver incremental “services” opportunities for partners
• Partner case study – Why we’re deploying these solutions with our Exchange solutions. TBC
• Q&A

Press Release: GrIDsure announces innovative authentication for Microsoft IAG

UK SBSC — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:53:17 GMT

This press release has been sent to our Small Business team and may be of interest to you:

New GrIDsure authentication solution for Microsoft’s Intelligent Application Gateway launched at InfoSecurity 09

28^th April 2009, London, UK – GrIDsure, the innovative alternative to PINs and passwords, today announced that it is launching a unique authentication solution for Microsoft’s Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG) at InfoSecurity, stand E92. ‘GrIDsure for Microsoft IAG’, in partnership with Winfrasoft, adds two factor authentication to Microsoft’s flexible mobile worker solution without the need for expensive tokens.

GrIDsure’s solution is based on its groundbreaking yet simple invention that allows users to authenticate themselves by remembering a minimum of a four block sequential pattern on a five by five grid, known as a Personal Identification Pattern (PIP). Rather than users having to remember multiple passwords and PINs, they just enter a randomly generated number on the keypad that corresponds to their PIP on the grid.

By integrating with Microsoft’s system, a remote worker using IAG will never have to expose their secret PIP as it is never directly entered into the system. Instead, only the numbers that are generated by the PIP, which are different every time, are entered on the keypad. This effectively eliminates the possibility of shoulder surfing, key logging and various other techniques used to steal passwords.

Ian Shandling, Identity & Access Business Manager, Microsoft commented: “GrIDsure has evolved the user authentication market in a totally different way. GrIDsure has shown that a token is not required for two factor authentication, whilst also significantly enhancing the security value of PKI-based tokens.”

Jonathan Craymer, Chairman, GrIDsure commented: “GrIDsure outstrips anything currently available on the market and is both more secure and more cost effective than existing alternatives. A seismic shift in the industry is taking place to allow organisations to roll out secure one-time passwords on a far wider scale than was possible previously with physical tokens, with greater convenience for end users. As remote working becomes increasingly popular, the need for safe, simple and secure systems is paramount and GrIDsure has provided the perfect solution by thinking inside the box.

“GrIDsure for Microsoft IAG is a great example of how our system can easily be integrated into one of thousands of existing Microsoft solutions to dramatically increase access security and the fact that Microsoft is so enthusiastic about it is a real testament to the technology. Whether logging into computers, using online banking, shopping online or authenticating via a mobile phone – GrIDsure can help to secure it all.”

GrIDsure will be on stand E92 at InfoSecurity and will be demoing a number of ’out-of the box’ products including ‘GrIDsure for Microsoft IAG’, ‘GrIDsure for peripheral access’ (including Sharp’s printer/scanner/copier), ‘GrIDsure for windows login’, ‘GrIDsure for smartcard login’ and ‘GrIDsure for PKI access’.

About GrIDsure:

The aim of GrIDsure is simple, to offer everyone an easier and more secure way to protect their own identity and authenticate themselves.

GrIDsure is a new ingredient in the security mix, able to generate 'one-time' codes that are more secure and resilient to 'spyware' threats, creating an extra security layer which can work on its own or alongside all existing or future technologies such as biometrics and PKI.

GrIDsure neatly replaces all fixed passwords, PINs or combinations, on any electronic device or system, ranging from computers and mobiles to the world of physical security. GrIDsure is more secure and more cost effective than traditional hardware-based alternatives, is highly scalable and reduces administrative time to run the system.

GrIDsure was awarded ‘Cool Vendor in Application Security and Authentication 2008' status by Gartner.

Visit: www.gridsure.com

Press Contact: David Atkinson

October 24, 2008 (Out-of-Band) Microsoft Security Response Center Security Bulletin Release

UK SBSC — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:23:00 GMT

What is the purpose of this alert?

Microsoft is scheduled to release a security bulletin (out-of-band) to address a vulnerability in all currently supported versions of Windows. The software update will be available for download from the Microsoft Update / Windows Update web site from 4am Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time (AEDST) on Friday, October 24, 2008.

This security update will be released outside of the usual monthly security bulletin release cycle in an effort to protect customers. Microsoft recommends customers prepare their systems and networks to apply this security bulletin immediately once released to help ensure that their computers are protected from attempted criminal attacks. The purpose of this notification is to assist customers with resource planning for this security bulletin release. For more information about security updates, visit http://www.microsoft.com/protect.

For the latest updates on this vulnerability please refer to the Microsoft Security Response Center blog at http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/default.aspx

Anyone believed to have been affected can visit: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/support/default.mspx and should contact the national law enforcement agency in the UK.

As an SBSC partner, we recommend you go to http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security for the most current information on this and all security alerts. You may also benefit from signing up for automatic security alerts to ensure you receive timely notification.

Microsoft continues to encourage customers to follow the “Protect Your Computer” guidance of enabling a firewall, applying all software updates, and installing anti-virus and anti-spyware software. Additional information can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/protect.

New Bulletin Summary

Bulletin identifier	Windows Bulletin
Maximum Severity Rating	Critical
Impact of Vulnerability	Remote Code Execution
Detection	Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer can detect whether your computer system requires this update.
Restart Requirement	The update requires a restart.
Affected Software	Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008

The full version of the Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for this month can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-oct.mspx.

Although we do not anticipate any changes, the information provided in this summary is subject to change until the release. At this time, no additional information on this bulletin such as details regarding severity or details regarding the vulnerability will be made available until the bulletin is published.