![]() And another unit within Microsoft is in charge of making the company’s products less susceptible to hacking. National Security Agency (it is suing for the right to disclose how much). The crimes unit doesn’t tackle government spying, where Microsoft is among the major Internet companies that have turned over large amounts of data on users to the U.S. The financial sector has been thinking along those lines as well,” said Greg Garcia, a former cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security and at Bank of America who now advises the banking industry’s main cybersecurity coordination group, known as FS-ISAC. “That kind of integration is only for the better. Outside security experts praised the cross-pollination of fraud, security and software specialists. Microsoft has tangled with a Mexican mafia family that proudly put brand labels on pirated Xbox game CDs, a ring that took online payments via a parking garage in Malaga, Spain, and a Russian virus writer paid with a paper bag full of cash - by a 12-year-old boy on a bike. In the past few years “at least half of the major, significant takedowns have been driven by Microsoft,” said Steve Santorelli, a former Microsoft investigator and Scotland Yard cybercrime detective who now works at a security nonprofit group called Team Cymru. There are hundreds or thousands of botnets, and Microsoft is trying to get only the biggest or most damaging, or else to pursue fights that would establish key precedents. ![]() Next to a situation room with a wall-sized, touch-screen monitor sit rows of empty offices for visiting police, Microsoft customers or other allies expected to join specific missions for days or weeks at a time. In another room, a monitor tracks the countries and Internet service providers with the greatest number of machines belonging to some of the worst botnets. The center features a lab for dissecting malicious software samples that is accessible only with fingerprint authorization. But Finn hopes that by mixing specialists from various professional arenas, Microsoft can get better. “Cybercrime is getting worse,” Digital Crimes Unit chief David Finn told Reuters during an exclusive visit to the Redmond, Washington, campus building this week. Though it is at times derided for the security shortfalls in its own products, Microsoft has led more of those seizures than any other company. ![]() The new approach, to be launched on Thursday, is the latest attempt to close the gap created in the past decade as criminal hackers innovated in technology and business methods to stay ahead of adversaries mired in the slow-moving world of international law enforcement.Īlready, many of the biggest victories against organized online criminals have come when private companies have worked together to seize control of the networks of hacked computers, called botnets, that carry out criminal operations. Microsoft Corp’s expanded Digital Crimes Unit inside the 16,800-square foot, high-security facility combines a wide array of tactics that have worked the best: massive data gathering and analysis, gumshoe detective work, high-level diplomacy and creative lawyering. ![]() A variety of logos hover above the Microsoft booth on the opening day of the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas January 10, 2012.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |