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Gartner published its 2006 E-Mail Security Boundary Magic Quadrant and rated Microsoft a leader in the category for its efforts.
Microsoft and email security used in the same sentence might be viewed as an oxymoron by countless system administrators due to virus activity that has exploited its client-side Outlook email client over the years. On the server and gateway side, Microsoft has greatly improved what it can offer for email security.
Research firm Gartner placed Microsoft in its "Magic Quadrant" of leaders, according to the report published by the firm this week. Microsoft noted that Gartner's designated "Leaders" are performing well today, have a clear vision of market direction and are actively seeking competencies to sustain their leadership position in the market.
"Our work in e-mail security is an integral part of our broader security strategy," said Andy Lees, corporate vice president of Server and Tools Marketing at Microsoft.
Microsoft gained this position with the help of some acquisitions. One of the services Gartner evaluated, the Exchange Hosted Services line, includes a variety of technologies Microsoft gained when it purchased FrontBridge Technologies in August 2005.
Before that, Microsoft completed the purchase of Sybari, which included that company's Antigen line of security products. Antigen for Exchange is being rebranded as Forefront Security for Exchange Server.
Microsoft has that technology scheduled for release within the next six months. It has been designed to function with Exchange 2007, and is available as a public beta for testing.
Microsoft Sues Mystery Hacker Over DRM
By
David A. Utter
The FairUse4WM utility released by the hacker known as Viodentia has led Microsoft to file a federal lawsuit, which the company will use to try and track down the person behind the DRM-cracking tool.
Only through access to illegally accessed source code could Viodentia's FairUse4WM be so effective at stripping away the DRM on music obtained as part of subscriptions to services like Yahoo and Napster, according to the report on ZDNet.
A Microsoft lawyer cited in the story described Microsoft's belief that Viodentia has an advantage over other DRM crackers:
"Our own intellectual property was stolen from us and used to create this tool," said Bonnie MacNaughton, a senior attorney in Microsoft's legal and corporate affairs division. "They obviously had a leg up on any of the other hackers that might be creating circumvention tools from scratch."
Viodentia has denied Microsoft's claim of source code theft or access:
FairUse4WM has been my own creation, and has never involved Microsoft source code. I link with Microsoft's static libraries provided with the compiler and various platform SDK files.
Microsoft's legal attack has the company demanding information from Internet service providers provide information that could lead to tracking down Viodentia. The company also wants sites hosting FairUse4WM to take it down.
A music subscription service allows the subscriber to download songs for personal use. The catch is the subscription; if it is canceled the songs become unplayable thanks to Microsoft's "PlaysForSure" DRM software.
FairUse4WM removes the DRM from the songs. Devoted users of subscription services and their "all you can listen" downloads use the utility to turn a single month's subscription fee into thousands of songs they can now use after canceling the service.
Partners who have bought in to PlaysForSure for their music services are not pleased with this turn of events. Neither is Microsoft, which will use a different DRM scheme for their forthcoming Zune media player. The Zune will have an accompanying subscription service, but won't use the PlaysForSure Microsoft licenses to its partners.
About
the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer with WebProNews.
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