This security update is rated Critical for supported editions of Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2000. For supported editions of Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2002, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac, and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac; Open XML File Format Converter for Mac; all supported versions of PowerPoint Viewer, and Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats; Microsoft Works 8.5; and Microsoft Works 9.0, this security update is rated Important.

For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.

Find out more at:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin...7.mspx

Thomas W Shinder, M.D., MCSE
Sr. Consultant / Technical Writer

Prowess Consulting www.prowessconsulting.com
PROWESS CONSULTING | Microsoft Forefront Security Specialist
Email: tshinder@isaserver.org
MVP — Forefront Edge Security (ISA/TMG/IAG)

Microsoft Forefront codename “Stirling” is an integrated security suite  that delivers  comprehensive protection across endpoint,  edge, and application servers and will its easier to manage and control. Learn about what will be released in Stirling to provide comprehensive, coordinated protection and monitoring from desktops to servers in the datacenter and the network edge.

Presenter: Neha Sharma, Group Product Manager, Microsoft Corporation

Neha is a Group Product Manager for Microsoft Corporation’s Security, Access and Solutions Division. She has over 10 years of experience in the Security market, three of the 10 years have been at Microsoft.  Neha holds an MBA from Hofstra University and a B.E. in Electronics from Nagpur University in India.

I highly recommend that you attend this Webcast. Neha is a very smart and insightful person, and she’ll communicate the value of Stirling in a way that few other people can. I’ve known Neha for several years, and she’s not only a ace technologist, she’s one heck of a great gal and and someone I call a good friend.

Check out and register for the Webcast at:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDeta...413590

HTH,

Tom

Thomas W Shinder, M.D., MCSE
Sr. Consultant / Technical Writer

Prowess Consulting www.prowessconsulting.com
PROWESS CONSULTING | Microsoft Forefront Security Specialist
Email: tshinder@isaserver.org
MVP — Forefront Edge Security (ISA/TMG/IAG)

This webcast will take a look at the Identity Manager architecture and components from the lens of an IT Pro.

This session will cover common deployment topologies and the challenges they present, best practices for managing the product, as well configuration tips and tricks to help ensure a successful deployment.

Check it out and sign up for the Webcast over at:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDeta...ode=US

HTH,

Tom

Thomas W Shinder, M.D., MCSE
Sr. Consultant / Technical Writer

Prowess Consulting www.prowessconsulting.com
PROWESS CONSULTING | Microsoft Forefront Security Specialist
Email: tshinder@isaserver.org
MVP — Forefront Edge Security (ISA/TMG/IAG)

One of my favorite Forefront products (outside of ISA and TMG and IAG) is Forefront Security for Exchange. Forefront Security for Exchange is an antimalware and antispam solution that you can use to product your Exchange Servers by installing components on the mailbox server, the hub transport server, the edge server, or any combination of these server roles.

The next version of Forefront Security for Exchange (FSE) adds many new features that aren’t currently available with the release version. The most important improvement is in the antispam feature set. With previous versions, you had to depend on the built in antispam capabilities included with Exchange.

This article, by Neetu Rajpal, is a great introduction to the new product. Take a read of this article and then keep your eyes out for an article series on FSE by yours truly in the coming weeks.

Check it out at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.0...h.aspx

HTH,

Tom

Thomas W Shinder, M.D., MCSE
Sr. Consultant / Technical Writer

Prowess Consulting www.prowessconsulting.com
PROWESS CONSULTING | Microsoft Forefront Security Specialist
Email: tshinder@isaserver.org
MVP — Forefront Edge Security (ISA/TMG/IAG)

“…With the introduction of transparent data encryption (TDE) in SQL Server 2008, users now have the choice between cell-level encryption as in SQL Server 2005, full database-level encryption by using TDE, or the file-level encryption options provided by Windows.

TDE is the optimal choice for bulk encryption to meet regulatory compliance or corporate data security standards. TDE works at the file level, which is similar to two Windows® features: the Encrypting File System (EFS) and BitLocker™ Drive Encryption, the new volume-level encryption introduced in Windows Vista®, both of which also encrypt data on the hard drive. TDE does not replace cell-level encryption, EFS, or BitLocker.

This white paper compares TDE with these other encryption methods for application developers and database administrators. While this is not a technical, in-depth review of TDE, technical implementations are explored and a familiarity with concepts such as virtual log files and the buffer pool are assumed.

The user is assumed to be familiar with cell-level encryption and cryptography in general. Implementing database encryption is covered, but not the rationale for encrypting a database…”

Check out this white paper at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc278098.aspx

HTH,

Tom

Thomas W Shinder, M.D., MCSE
Sr. Consultant / Technical Writer

Prowess Consulting www.prowessconsulting.com
PROWESS CONSULTING | Microsoft Forefront Security Specialist
Email: tshinder@isaserver.org
MVP — Forefront Edge Security (ISA/TMG/IAG)

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is a powerful inventory, assessment, and reporting tool that can securely assess IT environments for various platform migrations and virtualization without the use of any software agents. This versatile toolkit:

• Quickly discovers clients, servers, and applications across your IT environment.
• Conducts migration and virtualization assessments for your IT projects.
• Auto-generates reports and proposals.
• Scales well to small businesses as well as large enterprises.

Get Reports and Proposals for PC Security

When you use the MAP Toolkit to assess the security of your client infrastructure, you get the following reports and proposals:

• PC Security Assessment Report. Identification of physical and virtual machines that may represent security risks in your environment (for example, machines where firewall, anti-spyware, or anti-virus products are not found, not running, or not up-to-date as reported by Windows Security Center).
• Security Readiness Proposal. Overview of Network Access Protection (NAP) within Windows Server® 2008 and Forefront Client Security, and the benefits it can provide for your IT environment.
• Security Readiness Report. Assessment of machines running a client operating system as well as your server environment in terms of readiness to support NAP and Forefront Client Security

Check out the MAP toolkit at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionacceler...090513

HTH,

Tom

Thomas W Shinder, M.D., MCSE
Sr. Consultant / Technical Writer

Prowess Consulting www.prowessconsulting.com
PROWESS CONSULTING | Microsoft Forefront Security Specialist
Email: tshinder@isaserver.org
MVP — Forefront Edge Security (ISA/TMG/IAG)

Microsoft Forefront codename “Stirling” is an integrated security suite that delivers comprehensive protection across endpoint, servers and the edge that is easier to manage and control.

By delivering simplified management and providing critical visibility into threats, vulnerabilities, and configuration risks, Forefront codename “Stirling” helps you protect your business with greater confidence and efficiency.

At release, “Stirling” Beta 2 will include:

• A central management server and dashboard for simplified administration, easy investigation and faster responses.
• The next generation versions of Forefront products, including the next generation of:
  • Forefront Client Security
  • Forefront Security for Exchange Server
  • Forefront Online Security for Exchange
  • Forefront Security for SharePoint
  • Forefront Threat Management Gateway (renamed from Internet Security & Acceleration Server)

And when you download the latest beta software, you’re automatically registered to access valuable beta resources assembled in one convenient location.

Get Stirling Beta 2 over at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/cc33...9.aspx

HTH,

Tom

Thomas W Shinder, M.D., MCSE
Sr. Consultant / Technical Writer

Prowess Consulting www.prowessconsulting.com
PROWESS CONSULTING | Microsoft Forefront Security Specialist
Email: tshinder@isaserver.org
MVP — Forefront Edge Security (ISA/TMG/IAG)

This screencast and document covers the key new features and improvements in the Windows 7 Release Candidate. This includes areas like performance, networking, security, PC management as well as everyday tasks.

Check it out at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd75877...ecnews

HTH,

Tom

Thomas W Shinder, M.D., MCSE
Sr. Consultant / Technical Writer

Prowess Consulting www.prowessconsulting.com
PROWESS CONSULTING | Microsoft Forefront Security Specialist
Email: tshinder@isaserver.org
MVP — Forefront Edge Security (ISA/TMG/IAG)

“The wise intrusion analyst will devote a lot of attention to the prevention, detection, and reporting of mapping techniques. They know that recon is just part of the game. As attackers amass high-quality information about the layout of networks and distribution of operating systems, they allow themselves to specifically target their attacks. You do not want to allow your organization to get in a one exploit, one kill situation!

The line between exploit/denial of service and recon probe couldn’t be thinner. Any exploit that fails (or succeeds) also provides intelligence about the target.

This chapter contains many traces showing information gathering techniques. We will consider some of the ways an attacker might map the network and its hosts. We will take a short look at NetBIOS-specific issues since there are so many deployed Windows systems, and finally examine some of the so-called “stealth” mapping techniques…”

Read the rest of this chapter at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc700819.aspx

HTH,

Tom

Thomas W Shinder, M.D., MCSE
Sr. Consultant / Technical Writer

Prowess Consulting www.prowessconsulting.com
PROWESS CONSULTING | Microsoft Forefront Security Specialist
Email: tshinder@isaserver.org
MVP — Forefront Edge Security (ISA/TMG/IAG)

Wondering about using DNS black list with Forefront Security for Exchange?

Don’t wonder about it, just do it!

Here’s a nice article by Alex Nikolayev on Forefront DNS RBL. If you’ve never worked with RBLs before, and even if you have, you’ll find this an interesting and enjoyable article.

Check it out at:

http://blogs.technet.com/fss/archive/2009/05/08/fo...y.aspx

HTH,

Tom

Thomas W Shinder, M.D., MCSE
Sr. Consultant / Technical Writer

Prowess Consulting www.prowessconsulting.com
PROWESS CONSULTING | Microsoft Forefront Security Specialist
Email: tshinder@isaserver.org
MVP — Forefront Edge Security (ISA/TMG/IAG)