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MSRC

Microsoft Security Response Center Blog

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.

From Indiana Jones to Cybersecurity: The Inspiring Journey of Devin

Monday, February 26, 2024

As a young boy, Devin found himself captivated by the adventures of Indiana Jones, the whip-wielding archaeologist from the VHS movies his grandfather showed him. The thrill of unearthing history and the allure of the unknown ignited a spark in Devin, leading him to dream of becoming an archaeologist. However, as he grew older and learned more about the realities of archaeology, he realized that his passion lay elsewhere.

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.

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.

Microsoft Actions Following Attack by Nation State Actor Midnight Blizzard

Friday, January 19, 2024

The Microsoft security team detected a nation-state attack on our corporate systems on January 12, 2024, and immediately activated our response process to investigate, disrupt malicious activity, mitigate the attack, and deny the threat actor further access. Microsoft has identified the threat actor as Midnight Blizzard, the Russian state-sponsored actor also known as Nobelium.

BlueHat India Call for Papers is Now Open!

Monday, January 08, 2024

You asked for it and it’s finally here! The inaugural BlueHat India conference will be held May 16-17th, 2024, in Hyderabad, India! This intimate conference will bring together a unique blend of security researchers and responders, who come together as peers to exchange ideas, experiences, and learnings in the interest of creating a safer and more secure world for all.

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.

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.

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.