CNET: Windows 7 almost five times more secure than XP
Those are the findings of Microsoft's latest Security Intelligence Report, which detailed in depth the state of software vulnerabilities, exploits, security breaches, and malware in 2010.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-20063220-83.html#ixzz1MXpezMKz

Microsoft SIR Report - Volume 10
Direct download (PDF) or Microsoft webpage:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/sir/

What is SIR: The Security Intelligence Report (SIR) is an investigation of the current threat landscape. It analyzes exploits, vulnerabilities, and malware based on data from over 600 million systems worldwide, as well as internet services, and three Microsoft Security Centers.

Regards
Urs

"In theory, stopping spam is easy: just make it uneconomic to send millions of messages by charging for each one sent, or make senders authenticate their identity to stop address spoofing and simplify blocking. In practice, that would involve building a secure, parallel email infrastructure linking electronic authentication with real-world identities: a daunting task. Yet that's just what Germany is about to do."
http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/germany-provides-secure-way-deal-spam-510?page=0,0&source=rss_security

Certainly interesting approach and in my opinion something that is kind of overdue since a long time as good old SMTP was never designed for the today’s world and Internet. Also the idea to charge for emails is not new, but together with a new service type, providing emails on the same level as paper mail sounds interesting and it makes - at least for me - more sense to charge for such a service. I had many discussions with customers that wanted exactly such features like proof of identity, proof of delivery, etc. But the main question remaining is, if it makes sense to solve that in isolated solutions (services) or if we don't need a new global standard for such needs. SMTPv2? :-) As long as I need to attach also to the SMTP-World, I will still have a SPAM problem.

Also interesting the second aspect of the article, describing a new German law, that allows ISPs to charge for sent messages (if they wish). However, I'm surprised that it needs a new law to do so.
Would you pay for emails and if so, how much?

Perhaps this would help to solve another issue: Bots on end users PCs. Sometimes, I get the impression that some people don't care about their PCs security and would even "accept" (or ignore) a (hidden) bot on their PC. They have a flat Internet rate and don't care about sent emails, other traffic and as long as the bot does not disturb their work. But if they have to pay?

-Urs

Good series of articles about Windows 7 security:
http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Windows-7-Security-Primer-Part1.html
http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Windows-7-Security-Primer-Part2.html
http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Windows-7-Security-Primer-Part3.html

These articles cover the fundamental information how to secure Windows 7 and some of the lesser known security functionality it provides.

- Urs

Good article and step by step instruction on simplifying DA/NAP deployments with UAG:
http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Integrated-NAP-Functionality-UAG-2010-Service-Pack1-DirectAccess.html

- Urs

There have been a few recent incidents of what we previously thought was extremely rare — malware authors using code signing certificates that were issued to companies with good reputations.

The high-profile Stuxnet incident included validly signed malware with misappropriated Authenticode certificates from two Taiwanese companies. More recently, it appears a U.S. credit union lost its private key to malware authors who used it to sign some variants of Trojan:Win32/Tapaoux.A as well.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/archive/2010/09/16/hold-on-to-your-keys.aspx

Microsoft has also published a guide: Code-Signing Best Practices:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/install/drvsign/best-practices.mspx

-Urs