Microsoft Will Remove the Free VPN That Comes With Windows Defender

Microsoft Will Remove the Free VPN That Comes With Windows Defender

As of Feb. 28, Microsoft Defender customers will lose access to the VPN that came with the subscription. Billed as “the privacy protection feature,” the VPN included in the subscription isolated Microsoft 365 applications for additional security. It was released in 2023. Why did Microsoft remove the VPN feature? “Our goal is to ensure you, and your family remain safer online,” an anonymous Microsoft employee wrote in the end-of-support notification. “We routinely evaluate the usage…

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Sneaky Log Phishing Scheme Targets Two-Factor Security

Sneaky Log Phishing Scheme Targets Two-Factor Security

Security researchers at French firm Sekoia detected a new phishing-as-a-service kit targeting Microsoft 365 accounts in December 2024, the company announced on Jan. 16. The kit, called Sneaky 2FA, was distributed through Telegram by the threat actor service Sneaky Log. It is associated with about 100 domains and has been active since at least October 2024. Sneaky 2FA is an adversary-in-the-middle attack, meaning it intercepts information sent between two devices: in this case, a device…

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Microsoft Is Disabling Default ActiveX Controls in Office 2024

Microsoft Is Disabling Default ActiveX Controls in Office 2024

Microsoft will disable ActiveX controls by default in the Office suite, starting in October with the release of Office 2024. Phasing out the software framework is likely related to numerous security vulnerabilities that have been exploited in the past. Dating back to 1996, ActiveX has long been used for embedding interactive objects, such as buttons or forms, within Office documents. It was formerly used to load multimedia content, like videos, in Internet Explorer. However, it…

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Strengthening Microsoft 365 with Human-centric Security

Strengthening Microsoft 365 with Human-centric Security

Information Security Media Group • July 1, 2024     Microsoft’s native and add-on email security capabilities help to protect against basic threats, but they aren’t enough to ensure full protection. Learn how a multi-layered human-centric security strategy can augment Microsoft 365 to defend against modern threats like business email compromise, advanced phishing, account takeover, impersonation abuse, and accidental data loss. Watch this 45-minute recorded webinar featuring Proofpoint’s email security experts. We will…

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Australian Organizations are Fascinated With Copilot for Microsoft 365, But Will They Avoid The “Gotchas”?

Australian Organizations are Fascinated With Copilot for Microsoft 365, But Will They Avoid The “Gotchas”?

The interest in Microsoft Copilot is high, with many major Australian organizations signing on to be part of Microsoft’s early access and pre-launch testing process. According to Microsoft, 70% of Copilot users say they are more productive, and overall, there’s a 29% increase in speed with tasks like searching, writing and summarising. Copilot use is only going to accelerate, as Microsoft and its partners embed the AI product directly into PCs and processes. Gartner recently…

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Androxgh0st Malware Botnet Steals AWS, Microsoft Credentials and More

Androxgh0st Malware Botnet Steals AWS, Microsoft Credentials and More

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency warned in a joint advisory about a threat actor deploying a botnet that makes use of the Androxgh0st malware. This malware is capable of collecting cloud credentials, such as those from AWS or Microsoft Azure and more, abusing the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, and scanning for Amazon Simple Email Service parameters. What is the Androxgh0st malware? The Androxgh0st malware was exposed in December 2022…

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