It looks like Ray Ozzie has been making even more changes at Microsoft. First, he embraced the PHP community, joined the Apache Foundation, and released code under a GNU license. Now he is opening up the security patching process to give security vendors a head start on developing signatures.
For those without the budget or influence to be on the vendor list, he's also rating patches with a "exploitability index."
From Information Security Magazine:
The idea behind the early-access program is to give security vendors a head start on developing signatures and filters for attacks that follow the release of a new set of Microsoft patches on the second Tuesday of the month. Microsoft will announce its new plans at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas this week.
Known as the Microsoft Active Protection Program (MAPP), the new plan will be open to security companies that provide defensive technology to large customer bases, meaning antivirus (AV), intrusion detection system (IDS) and intrusion prevention system (IPS) vendors. This kind of early notification is something that other companies have been calling for, and Microsoft officials said they've gotten to the point where they could use some help from the rest of the security community.
* * *
In addition to the MAPP announcement, Microsoft also plans to add a new component to its monthly security advisories: an exploitability index. The index will rank vulnerabilities based on the likelihood of someone developing working exploit code for the Microsoft flaws within 30 days immediately following the patch release. [From Microsoft to revamp patching, add exploitability index]
Leave a comment