Entries Tagged as 'Microsoft Security'
by Neil MacDonald | January 21, 2011 | Comments Off
In my kick off post for 2011, I talked about the need for IT to expand the depth and breadth of patching. In the follow-on post, I talked about the need to migrate more users to run with standard user (and not administrative level) privileges. One of the challenges to both of these actions is [...]
Category: Application Security Information Security Microsoft Microsoft Security Windows 7 Tags: Application Security, Best Practices, Browser Security, Information Security, Microsoft, Microsoft Security, Windows
by Neil MacDonald | November 15, 2010 | Comments Off
I’m here this week in San Diego at Gartner’s Identity and Access Management Summit. I’ve been associated with Gartner’s identity-related research from 1995 when I joined Gartner to cover Novell and directory services. I’ve atached identity change over the past 15 years. Directory services evolved into metadirectories which evolved into user provisioning which has evolved [...]
Category: Cloud Security Information Security Microsoft Security Virtualization Security Tags: Adaptive Security Infrastucture, Cloud Security, Information Security, Microsoft Security, Next-generation Security Infrastructure, Virtualization Security
by Neil MacDonald | November 9, 2010 | 5 Comments
I presented a session exploring this provocative point of view at Gartner’s US Fall Symposium titled “Why Cloud Computing Will be More Secure Than What You Have Today”. This Wednesday afternoon presentation was a part of Gartner’s “Maverick Track” where presentations that challenge conventional wisdom are provided for clients. If you attended Symposium and weren’t [...]
Category: Cloud Cloud Security Virtualization Security Tags: Cloud Security, Information Security, Microsoft Security, Next-generation Security Infrastructure, symposium, Virtualization Security, Windows
by Neil MacDonald | November 8, 2010 | 2 Comments
In this research note on deploying Windows 7 security features for clients, I explore in detail the security capabilities baked into Windows 7 – AppLocker, BitLocker, BitLocker To Go, the Windows Firewall, USB Port Control and so on. One question I get from clients is whether or not to use the built-in capabilities of Windows [...]
Category: Endpoint Protection Platform Virtualization Virtualization Security Windows 7 Tags: Endpoint Protection Platform, Microsoft Security, Next-generation Security Infrastructure, Virtualization Security, VMware, vSphere
by Neil MacDonald | September 24, 2010 | Comments Off
Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is a free consumer offering originally delivered to market in 2009 based on the same engine and anti-malware feeds that are used within Microsoft’s for-fee enterprise-oriented Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP). I saw this announcement from Microsoft earlier in the week. From the announcement: For this reason, Microsoft is announcing that beginning [...]
Category: Endpoint Protection Platform Microsoft Microsoft Security Tags: Endpoint Protection Platform, Microsoft, Microsoft Security, Reducing Cost, Windows
by Neil MacDonald | September 22, 2010 | 11 Comments
Migrating from IE6 to IE8 is not easy because of legacy web-enabled applications that don’t render correctly on IE8 and vendors that are slow to officially support it. There are a variety of ways to virtualize IE6 to help with this issue, including using application virtualization tools. I originally wrote about the potential issues using [...]
Category: Microsoft Microsoft Security Virtualization Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Security, Virtualization, Windows
by Neil MacDonald | August 3, 2010 | Comments Off
Last week, Microsoft held its annual financial analyst meeting. The materials presented are available at this link. There are the things you would expect – like Microsoft talking about the success of Windows 7 and IE8. There were a couple of areas that stood out: 1) Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Turner, explained that Microsoft’s [...]
Category: Cloud General Technology Next-generation Data Center Windows 7 Tags: Cloud Security, Microsoft, Microsoft Security, Windows
by Neil MacDonald | July 23, 2010 | Comments Off
In my previous post, I discussed a free virtualized browser offering from Dell KACE. The virtualized browser is based on Firefox with Dell indicating that it hopes to offer a virtualized version of Internet Explorer in the future. That’s more complicated than it first appears. Technically, can IE be virtualized? Yes. Some of the application [...]
Category: Application Security Information Security Virtualization Virtualization Security Windows 7 Tags: Endpoint Protection Platform, Microsoft Security, Virtualization Security, Windows
by Neil MacDonald | July 21, 2010 | Comments Off
Just because Microsoft stopped providing security patches for Windows 2000 last week, don’t assume that it can’t continue to be used securely in your environment. One option is to pay Microsoft $50,000 per quarter ($200,000 per year) for a Custom Support Agreement (CSA) for continued access to critical Windows 2000 patches. A lower-cost alternative program [...]
Category: Information Security Microsoft Security Tags: Information Security, Microsoft Security, Windows
by Neil MacDonald | July 12, 2010 | 2 Comments
Coming back from vacation, I saw this recent article in the New York Times on the recent theft of classified military data. In this case, the person simply bypassed the restrictions on USB ports and simply copied the data to a writeable CD/DVD drive. According to the report: According to Pentagon officials and one former [...]
Category: Information Security Windows 7 Tags: Endpoint Protection Platform, Information Security, Microsoft Security, Windows
