Hacker Declairs he can exploit Windows Update

The hacker who calls himself "Comodohacker" said this week that he could have used digital certificates stolen from a Dutch firm to issue fake updates to Windows PCs. If Comodohacker's assertion is accurate, he would have been able to push malware to Windows machines via the operating system's Windows Update service. Microsoft said that was impossible.

Comodohacker, who claims to be a 21-year-old Iranian, has taken credit for several attacks against certificate authorities, or CAs, the organizations and companies authorized to issue SSL (secure socket layer) certificates. In two of those attacks -- of Comodo in March and more recently of DigiNotar -- certificates were fraudulently generated. Among the 531 certificates stolen in the hack of Dutch-based DigiNotar were several that could be used to impersonate Microsoft's update services.

Comodohacker said he could exploit those certificates. "I'm able to issue Windows update[s]," Comodohacker claimed in one of several statements he has posted this week on Pastebin. "Microsoft's statement about Windows Update and that I can't issue such update is totally false!" Last weekend, Microsoft said that the certificates stolen from DigiNotar weren't enough to deliver actual updates.

Microsoft SkyDrive apps for Android ,iOS , Mac, and Windows coming Soon

SkyDrive integration is already on its way to Windows Phone 7 devices, but there’s word now that Microsoft’s cloud file storage and sync service is going to be popping up on a number of other platforms as well. According to a job posting spotted by Liveside, Microsoft is developing SkyDrive mobile apps for iOS and Android as well as desktop apps for Windows and Mac. 

With Microsoft doing its best to entice users to sign up for its cloud services and apps, SkyDrive has become an essential component to the company’s consumer strategy. SkyDrive was used to launch Microsoft’s Office Web Apps and it’s integrated tightly into the Windows Live Essentials 2011 apps, too.

With its increased importance to Microsoft’s cloud strategy, it’s certainly no surprise to hear that the company is working on apps for competitor’s platforms. Microsoft already offers several apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and there’s also a Bing app for Android. Native SkyDrive apps will provide a kind of “gateway” experience that encourages users to experiment with (and hopefully fully adopt) Microsoft’s other cloud-enabled apps once their files have been synced.

Microsoft has been busy shining up SkyDrive this year, too, revealing a full HTML5 makeover of the web app back in June. With 25GB of free storage available to users and totally free Office Web Apps on hand to enable collaborative document editing with no costly locally-installed software, it’s definitely a service worth checking out if you haven’t already.If you’re already making use of SkyDrive, stay tuned: it’s going to get even better once you’ve got cross-platform mobile access to all your files.