Microsoft Security Response Center Blog

Practical advice for earning higher Microsoft bounty awards

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

This year at the Nullcon International Security Conference I shared practical advice for how security researchers can maximize the impact of their security vulnerability submissions and earn higher bounty awards under the Microsoft Bounty Program. For those who couldn’t be there, I had two core pieces of advice. First , focus vulnerability research on the products and services that are eligible for bounty rewards.

BlueHat Shanghai 2019 Call for Papers is Now Open!

Thursday, February 14, 2019

We know security experts with diverse skills and experiences are found around the world. This year, the BlueHat Security Conference is coming to Shanghai! BlueHat Shanghai 2019 will take place on May 29-30 at W Shanghai - The Bund. We want to provide a venue for security researchers to come together to learn and share information, innovations, best practices and actionable items, as well as to engage in a rich conversation about security.

February 2019 Security Update Release

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Today, we released security updates to provide additional protections against malicious attackers. As a best practice, we encourage customers to turn on automatic updates. More information about this month’s security updates can be found on the Security Update Guide.

• Security Advisory
• Security Update
• Update Tuesday

Fuzzing para-virtualized devices in Hyper-V

Monday, January 28, 2019

Introduction Hyper-V is the backbone of Azure, running on its Hosts to provide efficient and fair sharing of resources, but also isolation. That’s why we, in the vulnerability research team for Windows, have been working in the background for years now helping secure Hyper-V. And why Microsoft invites security researchers across the globe to submit their vulnerabilities through the Hyper-V Bounty Program for payment of up to $250,000 USD.

Microsoft’s Cyber Defense Operations Center shares best practices

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Today, a single breach, physical or virtual, can cause millions of dollars of damage to an organization and potentially billions in financial losses to the global economy. Each week seems to bring a new disclosure of a cybersecurity breach somewhere in the world. As we look at the current state of cybersecurity challenges today, we see the same types of attacks, but the sophistication and scope of each attack continues to grow and evolve.

Announcing the Microsoft Azure DevOps Bounty program

Thursday, January 17, 2019

The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) is pleased to announce the launch of the Azure DevOps Bounty program, a program dedicated to providing rock-solid security for our DevOps customers. Starting January 17, 2019, we’re excited to offer rewards up to US$20,000 for eligible vulnerabilities in Azure DevOps online services and the latest release of Azure DevOps server.

January 2019 Security Update Release

Tuesday, January 08, 2019

Today, we released security updates to provide additional protections against malicious attackers. As a best practice, we encourage customers to turn on automatic updates. More information about this month’s security updates can be found on the Security Update Guide.

• Security Advisory
• Security Update
• Update Tuesday

December 2018 Security Update Release

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Today, we released a security update for Internet Explorer after receiving a report from Google about a new vulnerability being used in targeted attacks. Customers who have Windows Update enabled and have applied the latest security updates, are protected automatically. We encourage customers to turn on automatic updates. Microsoft would like to thank Google for their assistance.

• Security Update

December 2018 Security Update Release

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Today, we released security updates to provide additional protections against malicious attackers. As a best practice, we encourage customers to turn on automatic updates. More information about this month’s security updates can be found on the Security Update Guide.

• Security Advisory
• Security Update
• Update Tuesday

First Steps in Hyper-V Research

Monday, December 10, 2018

Microsoft has put a lot of effort in Hyper-V security. Hyper-V, and the whole virtualization stack, runs at the core of many of our products: cloud computing, Windows Defender Application Guard, and technology built on top of Virtualization Based Security (VBS). Because Hyper-V is critical to so much of what we do, we want to encourage researchers to study it and tell us about the vulnerabilities they find: we even offer a $250K bounty for those who do.