Microsoft Is Going To Reward Hackers For Bugs In Project Spartan

As with the test version of Internet Explorer 11 , Microsoft also launched a reward program for the test version of the new browser, code-named "Project Spartan", which hackers and researchers are rewarded for reporting vulnerabilities.

The compensation amount varies from 500 to $ 15,000, although Microsoft claims that the reward may also increase depending on the vulnerability and found the quality of the bug message. The program runs from April 22 until June 22nd. In this way, Microsoft hopes to encourage researchers to leaks in Project Spartan to find and report before a final version this summer appears. When IE11 made the rewards program will allow more bugs were logged than with the test version of IE10 was.

Besides the reward program for Microsoft Project Spartan also has the "Online Services Bug Bounty Program" expanded.Thus vulnerabilities in Azure and Sway.com be rewarded in the maximum reward to $ 15,000 was raised. Again, the rewards can be higher depending on the submission.

The highest rewards Microsoft hands out for attacks to bypass security measures in Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2.Allows researchers can earn $ 100,000. Also this program is adapted, including "Hyper-V escapes" now come for a reward eligible. According to Microsoft's Jason Shirk play "bug bounties", as the rewards are called, an increasingly important role in finding vulnerabilities and safer software.

Microsoft Gives Details On HSTS Security In IE

Last month it was announced that Microsoft finally HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is added to Internet Explorer, which users must protect against man-in-the-middle attacks. Now the software giant has more details given about the security measure.

HSTS allows websites visited to visit over HTTPS only over HTTPS, even though HTTP is introduced into the address bar.The browser in this case captures the user's command and turns off automatically in HTTPS. Thus, no information is transmitted over unsecured HTTP there. HSTS websites offers two options to secure their connections with visitors.

The first option is to register the website on a table loaded by Internet Explorer and other browsers with HTTP traffic directly to HTTPS is put through. This makes IE using the Chromium HSTS list. Chromium is the open source browser on which Google Chrome is based. The second option is to offer a HSTS header. In this case, the browser after having visited the site for the first time over HTTPS, all future HTTP connections run over HTTPS.

Microsoft warns that HSTS can have two important effects on users. If there namely a certificate warning is displayed, the user can not ignore and must disconnect. Additionally supported by HSTS sites no mixed content. All content should be delivered over HTTPS. This can be a problem for websites where for example ads and images are loaded over HTTP. The HSTS-feature is already testing the Windows 10 Technical Preview and will later be added to the Project Spartan browser of the new OS.

Windows 10 Free For Users Of Windows 7 And 8.1

Windows 10, Microsoft will make available free of charge for users of Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1, so the software giant has tonight during a special event let you know. The upgrade to the operating system a year after launch free download. According to Microsoft, this involves more than a "one-time upgrade." Once a machine has been upgraded to Windows 10, Microsoft will continue to support operating system on the machine free of charge for the lifetime of the device.

Windows 10 will release the software giant new features sooner rather that it will wait for a new version of Windows. "We consider it as a Windows Service," said Microsoft's Terry Myerson. Therefore it would soon no longer make use of the device Windows, which would be good news for developers. Companies and business users, however, will have a choice whether they want to receive these consumer-oriented updates or important business rather shielding systems so that only receive critical patches and security updates.

One of the new additions to Windows 10 is an entirely new browser called "Project Spartan". The browser is specially designed for Windows 10 and should provide better interoperability, reliability and traceability. This would include reading articles should be improved and the voice assistant Cortana will be integrated into the browser, so users can find and do things faster. According to Microsoft's Jim alkove Spartan will be safer than ever.

Microsoft also showed tonight that already 1.7 million people in the pilot program of Windows 10 to participate and the software giant has already received 800,000 comments on the operating system. In addition, Windows 7 users were advised to install Internet Explorer 11 already, so they simply can upgrade to Windows 10 as the operating system is available.