REDMOND , Wash. — Dec. 5 , 2013 — The Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit today announced it has successfully disrupted a rampant botnet in collaboration with Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and leaders in the technology industry, including A10 Networks Inc. The Sirefef botnet, also known as ZeroAccess, is responsible for infecting more than 2 million computers, specifically targeting search results on Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines, and is estimated to cost online advertisers $2.7 million each month. Today’s action is expected to significantly disrupt the botnet’s operation, increasing the cost and risk for cybercriminals to continue doing business and preventing victims’ computers from committing fraudulent schemes.

This is Microsoft’s first botnet action since the Nov. 14 unveiling of its new Cybercrime Center — a center of excellence for advancing the global fight against cybercrime — and marks the company’s eighth botnet operation in the past three years. Similar to Microsoft’s Citadel botnet case, the ZeroAccess case is part of an extensive cooperative effort with international law enforcement and industry partners to dismantle cybercriminal networks and ensure that people worldwide can use their computing devices and services with confidence.

“This operation marks an important step in coordinated actions that are initiated by private companies and, at the same time, enable law enforcement agencies around Europe to identify and investigate the criminal organizations and networks behind these dangerous botnets that use malicious software to gain illicit profits,” said Troels Oerting, head of the EC3. “EC3 added its expertise, information communications technology infrastructure and analytic capability, as well as provided the platform for high-level cooperation between cybercrime units in five European countries and Microsoft.”

Due to its botnet architecture, ZeroAccess is one of the most robust and durable botnets in operation today and was built to be resilient to disruption efforts, relying on a peer-to-peer infrastructure that allows cybercriminals to remotely control the botnet from tens of thousands of different computers. ZeroAccess is used to commit a slew of crimes, including search hijacking, which “hijacks” people’s search results and redirects people to sites they had not intended or requested to go to in order to steal the money generated by their ad clicks. ZeroAccess also commits click fraud, which occurs when advertisers pay for clicks that are not the result of legitimate, interested human users’ clicks, but are the result of automated Web traffic and other criminal activity. Research by the University of California, San Diego shows that as of October 2013, 1.9 million computers were infected with ZeroAccess, and Microsoft determined there were more than 800,000 ZeroAccess-infected computers active on the Internet on any given day.

“The coordinated action taken by our partners was instrumental in the disruption of ZeroAccess; these efforts will stop victims’ computers from being used for fraud and help us identify the computers that need to be cleaned of the infection,” said David Finn, executive director and associate general counsel of the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit. “Microsoft is committed to working collaboratively — with our customers, partners, academic experts and law enforcement — to combat cybercrime. And we’ll do everything we can to protect computer users from the sinister activities and criminal networks that victimize innocent people and businesses around the world.”

Last week, Microsoft filed a civil suit against the cybercriminals operating the ZeroAccess botnet and received authorization from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to simultaneously block incoming and outgoing communications between computers located in the U.S. and the 18 identified Internet Protocol (IP) addresses being used to commit the fraudulent schemes. In addition, Microsoft took over control of 49 domains associated with the ZeroAccess botnet. A10 Networks provided Microsoft with advanced technology to support the disruptive action.

As Microsoft executed the order filed in its civil case, Europol coordinated a multijurisdictional criminal action targeting the 18 IP addresses located in Europe. Specifically, Europol worked with Latvia, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany to execute search warrants and seizures on computer servers associated with the fraudulent IP addresses located in Europe.

This is the second time in six months that Microsoft and law enforcement have worked together to successfully disrupt a prevalent botnet. It demonstrates the value coordinated operations have against cybercriminal enterprises.

“If the hacker community has not yet taken notice, today’s disruption of the ZeroAccess botnet is another example of the power of public-private partnerships,” FBI Executive Assistant Director Richard McFeely said. “It demonstrates our commitment to expand coordination with companies like Microsoft and our foreign law enforcement partners — in this case, Europol — to shut down malicious cyberattacks and hold cybercriminals accountable for exploiting our citizens’ and businesses’ computers.”

Microsoft and its partners do not expect to fully eliminate the ZeroAccess botnet due to the complexity of the threat. However, Microsoft expects that this action will significantly disrupt the botnet’s operation. Microsoft is working with ecosystem partners around the world to notify people if their computers are infected and will make this information available through its Cyber Threat Intelligence Program (C-TIP). ZeroAccess is very sophisticated malware, blocking attempts to remove it, and Microsoft therefore recommends that people visit http://support.microsoft.com/botnets for detailed instructions on how to remove this threat. Because Microsoft found that the ZeroAccess malware disables security features on infected computers, leaving the computer susceptible to secondary infections, it is critical that victims rid their computers of ZeroAccess by using malware removal or antivirus software as quickly as possible. Europol is also providing information on its website about botnets to educate the public on how to protect themselves.

More information about today’s news and the coordinated action against ZeroAccess is available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/presskits/dcu. Legal documentation in the case can be found at http://www.botnetlegalnotice.com/ZeroAccess.

About Europol

EC3 is the focal point in the EU’s fight against cybercrime, contributing to faster reactions in the event of online crimes. It will support Member States and the European Union’s institutions in building operational and analytical capacity for investigations and cooperation with international partners. EC3 officially commenced its activities on 1 January 2013, and it aims to become the focal point in the EU’s fight against cybercrime, through building operational and analytical capacity for investigations and cooperation with international partners in the pursuit of an EU free from cybercrime. The European Cybercrime Centre is hosted by Europol; the European law enforcement agency in The Hague, The Netherlands, and thus EC3 can draw on Europol’s existing infrastructure and law enforcement network.

About FBI

As an intelligence-driven and a threat-focused national security organization with both intelligence and law enforcement responsibilities, the mission of the FBI is to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, including cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes; to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States; and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners.

About A10 Networks

A10 Networks was founded in Q4 2004 with a mission to provide innovative networking and security solutions. A10 Networks makes high-performance products that help organizations accelerate, optimize and secure their applications. A10 Networks is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. For more information, visit: http://www.a10networks.com.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

N ote to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released a critical update to all supported versions of the PostgreSQL database system, which includes minor versions 9.3.2, 9.2.6, 9.1.11, 9.0.15, and 8.4.19. This update fixes three serious data-loss bugs affecting replication and database maintenance. All users are urged to update their installations at the earliest opportunity.

The replication issue affects some users of PostgreSQL binary replication, and can cause minor data loss between the master and the standby. While not all users are affected, it is difficult to predict when the bug will occur, so we urge all users of replication and continuous backup (PITR) to update immediately. Additionally, users who had replication running under PostgreSQL minor versions 9.3.0, 9.3.1, 9.2.5, 9.1.10, or 9.0.14 should plan to take a fresh base backup of each standby after update, in order to ensure no prior data corruption already exists. More information about this issue is on its wiki page.

This release also fixes two timing issues with VACUUM, which can cause old, overwritten or deleted rows to re-appear at a later date under some circumstances. Users with very high transaction rates, particularly those who experience "transaction ID wraparound" every few weeks or less, are the most at risk for this issue. Those users should set vacuum_freeze_table_age to 0, and run a database-wide VACUUM after the update. The second of the two VACUUM issues affects only 9.3, making it expecially important for 9.3 users to update.

Additional fixes included in this release, some of which only affect version 9.3, include:

• Prevent "lock already held" error.
• Resolve race conditions in timeout management, which could cause server lockup.
• Fix minor bugs with HOT updates and the Visibility Map.
• Prevent pg_multixact storage growth on standbys.
• Fix bug in GIN indexes which caused transient query failures.
• Remove issue which caused SP-GiST index creation to hang
• Fix assorted bugs in Materialized Views.
• Restore ability to use duplicate table aliases in complex queries.
• Fix two bugs in subquery optimization.
• Allow pg_receivexlog to resume streaming when more than 4GB of logs are generated.
• Prevent planner crash on whole-row references.
• Prevent premature deletion of temporary files.
• Patch multiple minor memory leaks.
• Suppress display of dropped columns for CHECK and NOT NULL constraint violations.
• Allow default and named arguments for window functions.
• Return a valid JSON value when converting an empty HStore string.
• Fix GMT timezone offset.
• Report out-of-disk-space error correctly during pg_upgrade.
• Time zone updates for several time zones.

Additional changes and details of some of the above issues can be found in the Release Notes.

As with other minor releases, users are not required to dump and reload their database or use pg_upgrade in order to apply this update release; you may simply shut down PostgreSQL and update its binaries. Users who have skipped multiple update releases may need to perform additional post-update steps; see the Release Notes for details.

Links: * Download * Release Notes

REDMOND, Wash. — Dec. 1, 2013 — Looking back on 2013, billions of searches on Bing from around the world reveal it was a year of American songs, superhero movies, Facebook love, high-end designer brands, controversial sports stars, European getaways and fierce women. Bing search trends, found at http://www.BingTrends.com, indicate what has most captivated people around the world in 2013, and this year the trend report includes search data from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.

Most-searched people around the world

Ladies appeared to rule 2013, since a woman was the most-searched person of the year in eight of the 12 participating countries around the world — Beyoncé reigned in the U.S., while Miley Cyrus’ highly publicized twerking made her the top-searched person in both Australia and Canada. Former flames Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were the most-searched people in the U.K. and Germany, respectively. Actress and actors Bruna Marquezine, Wen Zhang and Salman Khan were the most-searched people in Brazil, China and India, while singers Rihanna and David Bisbal ranked at the top for France and Spain, and gorgeous TV personalities Danmitsu and Belen Rodriguez were favorites in Japan and Italy.

Most-searched person in the U.S.

With an amazing Super Bowl performance — including a reunion with Destiny’s Child — as well as a successful world tour and famous family, Beyoncé captivated Americans this year and was the most-searched person on Bing in the U.S. She earned not only the title of most-searched person, but the most-searched musician nod as well. Fellow musician Rihanna also came out near the top for 2013, earning both the No. 3 spot as most-searched person and No. 2 for most-searched musician. Newcomers to the top 10 this year include Amanda Bynes at No. 8, Madonna at No. 5 and President Barack Obama at No. 10. Taylor Swift’s busy year in the public eye helped her make the biggest jump in rankings, going from No. 10 in 2012 to No. 4 this year:

Additional top Bing search results from the U.S. and around the world are available at http://www.BingTrends.com.

About Bing

Bing is the search engine from Microsoft. It was introduced in 2009 with a mission to empower people with knowledge — to answer any question and provide useful tools to help you best accomplish your goals, from the everyday to the extraordinary. Bing continues on that mission today by moving beyond the search box to power intelligent experiences across a range of devices and services from Microsoft and third parties.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

Net Proceeds to Primarily Fund Capital Return

SANTA CLARA, CA - NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) announced today the pricing of $1.3 billion aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due in 2018. The Company has also granted the initial purchaser of the notes a 13-day option to purchase up to an additional $200 million aggregate principal amount of notes from the Company to cover any over-allotments.

Net Proceeds to Primarily Fund Capital Return

SANTA CLARA, CA - NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) announced today its intention to offer, subject to market and other conditions, $1.3 billion aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due in 2018 in a private offering to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933. In addition, the Company expects to grant the initial purchaser of the notes an option to purchase up to an additional $200 million aggregate principal amount of notes from the Company to cover any over-allotments.