Putting on the Blue Hat
Microsoft held the fourth of its "BlueHat" security events Friday. These are those twice-a-year confabs where independent security researchers are invited to meet with Microsoft's senior executives and software engineers. Although the events are internal to Microsoft, the company publicizes what these security heavyweights talk about. At the very least, it tells you what Microsoft, the world's largest software company, is concerned with in terms of emerging security threats. Not a bad thing to pay attention to if security is any part of your business. Without further ado, Microsoft's current security obsessions, as revealed by the BlueHat speaker list:
The security of Skype, the free, peer-to-peer Voice-over-IP application.
Wireless driver vulnerabilities and hardware virtualization rootkits.
I-Worm.Fuzzer, a representative of a new class of virus.
Microsoft also heard from Josh Lackey, who specializes in breaking wireless protocols, and Dan Kaminsky, director of Pen Test for IOActive. One of Kaminsky's recent assignments was eight months on the external penetration test team for Windows Vista. Microsoft didn't reveal what Lackey or Kaminsky talked about.
For a little more detail on the event, see Microsoft's TechNet page here.
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 23, 2006