While Microsoft talked up Windows Vista security at Black Hat, a researcher in another room demonstrated how to hack the operating system.

Joanna Rutkowska, a Polish researcher at Singapore-based Coseinc, showed that it is possible to bypass security measures in Vista that should prevent unsigned code from running.

And in a second part of her talk, Rutkowska explained how it is possible to use virtualization technology to make malicious code undetectable, in the same way a rootkit does. She code-named this malicious software Blue Pill.

“Microsoft is investigating solutions for the final release of Windows Vista to help protect against the attacks demonstrated,” a representative for the software maker said. “In addition, we are working with our hardware partners to investigate ways to help prevent the virtualization attack used by the Blue Pill.”

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The software giant outlines how it will vie with Salesforce.com and other vendors of Web-based customer relationship management software

Microsoft’s move into Web-delivered software got a big boost on July 11, when CEO Steven A. Ballmer disclosed plans to sell a service for handling customer relationship management (CRM) applications over the Internet. The move puts Microsoft in direct competition with the trailblazer of hosted CRM applications, Salesforce.com. And it bolsters Microsoft’s efforts to roll out scads of new Web-based programs to consumers

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Ack:- ATLAS ASP.NET

“Atlas� is a free framework for building a new generation of richer, more interactive, highly personalized cross-browser web applications.

This new web development technology from Microsoft integrates cross-browser client script libraries with the ASP.NET 2.0 server-based development framework.

Highlights