MSRC

Update on Microsoft Actions Following Attack by Nation State Actor Midnight Blizzard

Friday, March 08, 2024

This blog provides an update on the nation-state attack that was detected by the Microsoft Security Team on January 12, 2024. As we shared, on January 19, the security team detected this attack on our corporate email systems and immediately activated our response process. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence investigation identified the threat actor as Midnight Blizzard, the Russian state-sponsored actor also known as NOBELIUM.

• Attack

Faye’s Journey: From Security PM to Diversity Advocate at Microsoft

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Faye, a veteran at Microsoft for 22 years, has had a career as varied as it is long. Her journey began in 2002 as the first desktop security Project Manager (PM) in Microsoft IT. From there, she transitioned into owning a deployment team that deployed to desktops and handled operations for Office’s first few customers.

Microsoft boosts its Microsoft 365 Insider Builds on Windows Bounty Program with higher awards and an expanded scope

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Starting today, we are doubling the maximum bounty award for the Microsoft 365 Insider Bug Bounty Program to $30,000 USD for high impact scenarios, such as unauthenticated non-sandboxed code execution with no user interaction. We are also expanding the scope of our bounty program to include more vulnerability types and products.

• Office
• Bounty
• Bug Bounty
• Bug Bounty Programs
• Community-based Defense
• Security
• Security Research

An Obsession With Impact: The Inspiring Journey of a Dreamer That Led to a Career at Microsoft

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Bruce’s story unfolds in Cincinnati, Ohio. As a young boy, he had an ambitious dream of one day becoming the President of the United States. This aspiration remained his guiding star until he began his professional career after college. His mother, amused by his

• BlueHat
• Bounty

New Security Advisory Tab Added to the Microsoft Security Update Guide

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Today, we are adding a new Security Advisory tab to the Security Update Guide to meet our customers’ needs for a unified and authoritative source for the latest public information about Microsoft security updates and issues. We are continuously listening to feedback from users of the Security Update Guide. Our goal is to find new and improved ways to help customers manage security risks and keep their systems protected.

• Security Update Guide
• Security Advisory
• MSRC

Congratulations to the Top MSRC 2023 Q4 Security Researchers!

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Congratulations to all the researchers recognized in this quarter’s Microsoft Researcher Recognition Program leaderboard! Thank you to everyone for your hard work and continued partnership to secure customers. The top three researchers of the 2023 Q4 Security Researcher Leaderboard are Yuki Chen, Wei, VictorV! Check out the full list of researchers recognized this quarter here.

• Researcher Recognition
• Security Research
• Security Researcher
• Community-based Defense

Microsoft addresses App Installer abuse

Thursday, December 28, 2023

28 October 2024 Update Microsoft disabled the ms-appinstaller URI scheme handler by default in App Installer on 28 December 2023 as a security response to protect customers from attackers’ evolving techniques against previous safeguards for CVE-2021-43890. Microsoft is pleased to announce that we have introduced new safeguards to the ms-appinstaller URI scheme handler by default in version 1.

• Attack
• Malware
• Windows

Azure Serial Console Attack and Defense - Part 2

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

This is the second installment of the Azure Serial Console blog, which provides insights to improve defenders’ preparedness when investigating Azure Serial Console activity on Azure Linux virtual machines. While the first blog post discussed various tracing activities, such as using Azure activity and Sysmon logs on Windows virtual machines to trace serial console activity, this blog outlines how to enable logging for Azure Linux virtual machines using Sysmon for Linux to capture and how to send these events to a log analytics workspace.

• Security Research
• Microsoft Threat Hunting
• Azure Serial Console

Introducing the Microsoft Defender Bounty Program

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

We are excited to announce the new Microsoft Defender Bounty Program with awards of up to $20,000 USD. The Microsoft Defender brand encompasses a variety of products and services designed to enhance the security of the Microsoft customer experience. The Microsoft Defender Bounty Program invites researchers across the globe to identify vulnerabilities in Defender products and services and share them with our team.

• Security Researcher
• Security Research
• Bounty
• Bug Bounty
• Community-based Defense

Celebrating ten years of the Microsoft Bug Bounty program and more than $60M awarded

Monday, November 20, 2023

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Microsoft Bug Bounty Program, an essential part of our proactive strategy to protect customers from security threats. Since its inception in 2013, Microsoft has awarded more than $60 million to thousands of security researchers from 70 countries. These individuals have discovered and reported vulnerabilities under Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure, aiding Microsoft in navigating the continuously evolving security threat landscape and emerging technologies.

• Bug Bounty
• Security Researcher