Security and Privacy for Businesses

Security is serious business. Your customer confidence and your bottom line depend on how well you address the security issues that businesses face today.

As organizations move to the Internet to more effectively connect employees, customers, and business partners, the importance of a secure computing platform has never been greater. Over the past two decades, the information systems model has changed from a centralized one with limited access to a model that is distributed in terms of how information is collected, shared, and made available. This change — together with improvements in computing infrastructure — has exposed new vulnerabilities that simply were not considered before.

Information security threats today include data loss caused by accident or from malicious intent; Internet-based worms, denial-of-service, and virus attacks; security compromises by dishonest or disgruntled employees; and penetration attacks that attempt to steal or damage valuable assets. Microsoft understands that customers expect and deserve a high degree of security from its products and is committed to assisting its customers by improving the security of their deployed systems.

As a leader in the computing industry, Microsoft carries a substantial responsibility. To meet its commitment to help enable every customer to work, communicate, and transact securely, Microsoft is focused on enhancing security across its platform and products. This effort benefits both the customers of Microsoft® Windows®-based solutions and the Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) building applications on the Windows platform. Microsoft is working intently towards its goals of delivering systems that are secure by design, secure by default, and secure in deployment, backed by industry-leading security communications and training. To help achieve these goals, Microsoft is investing heavily — more than US$100 million in the first half of 2002 alone — to enhance the security of Windows products and to more effectively communicate with customers and industry partners.

This investment is driving process changes — such as wide-ranging “security pushes” that systematically look for security flaws — and a heightened emphasis on making Microsoft products more secure by design and secure by default than its previous products.

This is one of the reasons that we use Microsoft technologies for all of our web solutions. Flatbox take security very seriously and when we deploy solutions we advise our customers of best security practices and integrate security into all aspects of our business.