#microsoft

The Microsoft Researcher Recognition Program offers public thanks and recognition to security researchers who help protect our customers through discovering and sharing security vulnerabilities under Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure. Today, we are excited to recognize this year’s 100 Most Valuable Researchers (MVRs), based on the total number of points earned for each valid report.

**Why are there no links to an update or instructions with steps that must be taken to protect from this vulnerability?** This vulnerability has already been fully mitigated by Microsoft. There is no action for users of this service to take. This purpose of this CVE is to provide further transparency. Please see Toward greater transparency: Unveiling Cloud Service CVEs for more information.

Google has addressed a high-severity security flaw impacting the Android kernel that it has been actively exploited in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-36971, has been described as a case of remote code execution impacting the kernel. "There are indications that CVE-2024-36971 may be under limited, targeted exploitation," the tech giant noted in its monthly Android security

Cybersecurity startup Knostic, a finalist in this year's Black Hat USA Startup Spotlight competition, adds guardrails to how AI uses enterprise data to ensure sensitive data doesn't get leaked.

Adopting a military mindset toward cybersecurity means the industry moves beyond the current network protection strategies and toward a data-centric security approach.

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered design weaknesses in Microsoft's Windows Smart App Control and SmartScreen that could enable threat actors to gain initial access to target environments without raising any warnings. Smart App Control (SAC) is a cloud-powered security feature introduced by Microsoft in Windows 11 to block malicious, untrusted, and potentially unwanted apps from being run

The scheme, from the group also known as APT28, involves targeting Eastern European diplomats in need of personal transportation and tempting them with a purported good deal on a Audi Q7 Quattro SUV.

We are excited to announce that this year the Microsoft Bounty Program has awarded $16.6M in bounty awards to 343 security researchers from 55 countries, securing Microsoft customers in partnership with the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC). Each year we identify over a thousand potential security issues together, safeguarding our customers from possible threats through the Microsoft Bounty Program.

Plus: Meta pays $1.4 million in a historic privacy settlement, Microsoft blames a cyberattack for a major Azure outage, and an artist creates a face recognition system to reveal your NYPD “coppelganger.”

The state-sponsored Chinese threat actor gained access to three systems and stole at least some research data around computing and related technologies.