Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Claims Credit for Failing in Security

Servers rack - amateur



Summary: Latest security issues and systematic deception, mostly from Microsoft and its various boosters across the Web (giving credit to Microsoft after Microsoft messed up)

Gratis as in Lock-in



A FEW days ago we wrote about Microsoft's attempt at disconnecting the air supply from third-party AV vendors, at least in small businesses. This would only decrease security due to monoculture, decreased competition, and lack of incentive to improve. The funny thing here is that Microsoft sells a vulnerable operating system and then claims to be distributing "free of charge" (only to some people) what ought to have been a characteristic of the operating system, not an add-on. The spinners from Seattle call it a "free" anti-virus software and what's meant by free is not freedom. It's free as in gratis, with lock-in. It decreases one's personal freedom and also impedes freedom of choice. A better headline than "Free Anti-Virus Protection Spurs More Robust Options" would be "Free-of-charge Anti-Virus Pseudo-protection Depresses More Robust Options".



Watch the Indian press turning the whole thing into Vista 7 promotion: "IT major Microsoft has launched a campaign to help computer users identify threats to their systems and how their networks can be made secure using Original Windows 7 that now comes with the advantage of Microsoft Security Essentials."

So Microsoft wants to dump Security Essentials on the market (as expected by many people all along) and already we learn that "Scareware Apes Microsoft Security Essentials". Microsoft has always performed very poorly among the security products already available and well established. "Anti-virus systems get tested" says The Inquirer which gives the following details:

A NUMBER of the most common anti-virus security systems have had a beady eye passed over their effectiveness and fitness for purpose in an assessment.

The study, which was carried out by the Austrian AV Comparatives group, looked at twenty products from the main providers that volunteered to take part.

We do not know who if anyone refused, but AV Comparatives said that it had limited test subjects to no more than twenty and required that participants adhered to its undisclosed criteria.


"Over half of all apps have security holes," claims Veracode (which we mentioned in [1, 2]).

More than half of all software applications failed to meet an acceptable level of security, according to a study based on real-world code audits by application security firm Veracode.

Around 57 per cent of applications failed to pass muster when first submitted to Veracode’s cloud-based testing service. A similar 56 per cent of finance-related applications failed first testing by Veracode’s security audit. The quality of the code used in many business-critical banking and insurance operations was simply not up to snuff.


ASP.NET Under Attack, Spin



In security news, the other major issue last week was the Microsoft ASP.NET vulnerability, which we wrote about in [1, 2, 3, 4].

“Is this really praise-worthy, especially when someone responds to flaws which the same someone is responsible for?”The ASP.NET problem alarmed Microsoft a great deal and the PR spin strives to make Microsoft be seen as responsive. An advisory was quickly issued [1, 2, 3] because of bad publicity and because it was already being exploited (a demo existed). There is only a temporary fix, not a permanent one. There are third-party fixes.

So, once again Microsoft pays attention to flaws a tad too late and then scrambles to limit damage it could probably prevent. Is this really praise-worthy, especially when someone responds to flaws which the same someone is responsible for?

Just like in the case of Russian spin [1, 2], Microsoft is trying to make itself look like the saviour rather than the problem. Lee Pender of the Microsoft boosters is trying to make Microsoft look good by painting it as responsive and responsible. To quote: "Well, late last week, we got an update from a Microsoft spokesperson who wanted to tell us that Microsoft hasn't just buried its head in the sand on Stuxnet."

We wrote about Stuxnet in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14].

Microsoft-Police



Over in Australia, Microsoft is involving the police right now (funded by taxpayers) [1, 2, 3, 5]. It's about a computer scam that affects Microsoft.

Twitter and Fog Computing



The other day we wrote about the major problem Twitter.com was having. Half a million Twitter users are said to be affected by a Twitter worm and Slashdot discusses the matter before and after the patching. Here are "the names and faces behind the 'onMouseOver' Twitter worm attack". It's one of those risks of Fog Computing. Even a teenager turns out to have been smart enough to do it.

But later, some mischievous users of the site started using the exploit to make people "retweet" infected messages (when they hovered over a tweet with the code inserted) that they had not authorised.


The guy is Australian, so will the police get involved? Or does the Australian police get involved only to help Microsoft?

Recent Techrights' Posts

OpenBSD Says That Even on Linux, Wayland Still Has a Number of Rough Edges (But IBM Wants to Make X Extinct)
IBM tries to impose unready software on users
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constraints Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
 
Media Cannot Tell the Difference Between Microsoft and Iran
a platform with back doors
Links 28/11/2023: New Zealand's Big Tobacco Pivot and Google Mass-Deleting Accounts
Links for the day
Justice is Still the Main Goal
The skulduggery seems to implicate not only Microsoft
[Teaser] Next Week's Part in the Series About Anti-Free Software Militants
an effort to 'cancel' us and spy on us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Permacomputing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 27, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, November 27, 2023
When Microsoft Blocks Your Access to Free Software
"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." [Chicago Sun-Times]
Techrights Statement on 'Cancel Culture' Going Out of Control
relates to a discussion we had in IRC last night
Stuff People Write About Linux
revisionist pieces
Links 28/11/2023: Rosy Crow 1.4.3 and Google Drive Data Loss
Links for the day
Links 27/11/2023: Australian Wants Tech Companies Under Grip
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 27/11/2023: Underwater Data Centres and Gemini, BSD Style!
Links for the day
[Meme] Leaning Towards the Big Corporate CoC
Or leaning to "the green" (money)
Software Freedom Conservancy Inc in 2022: Almost Half a Million Bucks for Three People Who Attack Richard Stallman and Defame Linus Torvalds
Follow the money
[Meme] Identity Theft and Forgery
Coming soon...
Microsoft Has Less Than 1,000 Mail (MX) Servers Left, It's Virtually Dead in That Area (0.19% of the Market)
Exim at 254,000 servers, Postfix at 150,774, Microsoft down to 824
The Web is Dying, Sites Must Evolve or Die Too
Nowadays when things become "Web-based" it sometimes means more hostile and less open than before
Still Growing, Still Getting Faster
Articles got considerably longer too (on average)
In India, the One Percent is Microsoft and Mozilla
India is where a lot of software innovations and development happen, so this kind of matters a lot
Feeding False Information Using Sockpuppet Accounts and Imposters
online militants try every trick in the book, even illegal stuff
What News Industry???
Marketing, spam, and chatbots
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 26, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, November 26, 2023
The Software Freedom Law Center's Eben Moglen Explains That We Already Had Free Software Almost Everywhere Before (Half a Century Ago)
how code was shared in the 1970s and 80s
When the So-called 'Cancel Culture' Sees Everything in Free Software Through the Scopes of 'Sex' (Because It Cannot Argue on Technical or Legal Grounds)
Losing the plot
Links 26/11/2023: Debunking So-called G.A.I. and Sierra Leone's National Curfew
Links for the day
In the 'Phoronix Universe', Single Job Openings at AMD Are News, But Not ~400 Layoffs
like a classifieds section
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Microsoft Shamelessly Attacks Both Git and Projects in GitHub, Using Plagiarism in "AI" Clothing (Exit GitHub Now!)
A mountain of plagiarism
Microsoft Loses Market Share, Market Price of Windows Plunges to Almost Nothing (28 Dollars for Vista 10)
GNU/Linux has grown so potent that Microsoft now charges only dozens of bucks for Vista 10
Professor Eben Moglen Stands with Snowden While Moglen's 'Critics' (Microsofters) Keep Defaming Prominent Whistleblowers
Don't listen to Microsoft liars and weasels, who merely try to "replace" Moglen and override his message
"Check Point" + Microsoft Partnerships Extend to Anti-GNU/Linux FUD
a close partner/pusher of Microsoft tries to alter the narrative (change reality itself)
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 25, 2023
IRC logs for Saturday, November 25, 2023
Links 26/11/2023: Fresh Concerns Over North Korea Satellite Ambitions and South China Sea Patrols
Links for the day
Eben Moglen Explains the Connection Between FSF and SFLC (Both of Which Under Attack by Microsofters)
Old clip