Microsoft offers enhanced security for sign-ins

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:05:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) -- Microsoft is offering enhanced security for email, storage and other services.

People who turn on the new feature will be asked not just for a username and password, but also a second piece of information, such as a temporary code sent as a text message to a phone on file. Users can have their devices remember the second code, so they're not asked for it again and again.

Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. already allow two-step verification as an option.

The security enhancements work with all Microsoft accounts, such as email addresses ending in Hotmail.com, MSN.com and Outlook.com. Those accounts unlock a range of Microsoft Corp. products, including email, Skype, SkyDrive storage, Xbox gaming, Office software subscriptions and Windows 8 machines.

Skype hands over information on teen Wikileaks fan

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 21:55:00 +0000

Skype, the Microsoft-owned online calls site, has shown scant regard for protecting user privacy. According to Russia Today, the company handed over sensitive account data pertaining to a teenage WikiLeaks fan from Holland to a Texas-based private cyber-intelligence firm, iSIGHT Partners.

A 16-year-old Dutch teenager's user information was released to iSight without even so much as a warrant. RT reported:

The youngster was suspected of being involved in Operation Payback, an Anonymous-endorsed initiative that targeted the servers of PayPal, Visa, Mastercard and others after those companies blocked WikiLeaks from receiving online payment backs in December 2010. When hacktivists responded to the blockade by overflowing the servers of those sites with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, PayPal asked Dallas, Texas’ iSIGHT Partners Inc., a self-described“global cyber intelligence firm,” to investigate.

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Microsoft offers enhanced security for sign-ins

Skype hands over information on teen Wikileaks fan