LAS VEGAS — July 26, 2012 — Microsoft Corp.’s Trustworthy Computing Group named Vasilis Pappas the winner of the company’s first-ever BlueHat Prize contest, a competition that awards the development of new, innovative computer security defense technologies. The company presented Pappas, currently a Ph.D. student at Columbia University in New York, with $200,000 at the Microsoft Researcher Appreciation Party.

“A year ago we posed a challenge to the researcher community and asked them to shift their focus from solely identifying and reporting individual vulnerabilities to investing in new lines of defensive research that could mitigate entire classes of attacks,” said Mike Reavey, senior director, Microsoft Security Response Center. “It’s with great pleasure that we congratulate the winner of our inaugural BlueHat Prize contest, Vasilis, for his submission of a novel defensive technology that advances the challenging issue of exploit mitigation of some of the most popular attack techniques we’re seeing today.”

kBouncer, the winning entry among 20 submissions, detects abnormal control transfers using the Last Branch Recording feature of Intel processors to mitigate Return Oriented Programming (ROP). ROP is an advanced technique that attackers use to combine short pieces of benign code, already present in a system, for a malicious purpose. By using supported hardware features, kBouncer can be implemented with lower cost to performance and development time. All three BlueHat Prize finalists designed technologies to mitigate attacks that leverage ROP, underscoring how prominent the exploitation technique is today. Microsoft awarded first runner-up, Ivan Fratric, $50,000 for his submission, called ROPGuard, and a surprise $10,000 cash reward was given to the second runner-up, Jared DeMott, for /ROP. In addition to the monetary prizes, the company gave all three winners subscriptions to the Microsoft Developer Network valued at $10,000 each.

“The Blue Hat prize is more than a competition; it’s the future of security defense, where the community comes together to collectively take on some of the toughest problems we face and make the computing ecosystem safer,” said Matt Thomlinson, general manager, Trustworthy Computing Group, Microsoft. “The result is that in under a year, we went from challenge to creation to integration of some of the BlueHat Prize finalists’ technologies into the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit 3.5 Technology Preview, to protect against known and unknown threats. We’ll continue to evaluate additional integration as appropriate.”

The BlueHat Prize competition was designed to challenge the security community to look beyond the norm of problems, such as vulnerabilities, and instead focus on developing innovative solutions to pressing security challenges. Microsoft accepted entries from Aug. 3, 2011, until April 1, 2012, and then a panel of Microsoft security engineers judged the submissions based on the following criteria: practicality and functionality (30 percent); robustness — how easy it would be to bypass the proposed solution (30 percent); and impact (40 percent). The official BlueHat Prize competition rules and guidelines are available at http://www.BlueHatPrize.com.

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.

REDMOND, Wash. — July 26, 2012 — Beginning with the class of 2016, Seton Hall University will provide incoming freshmen with Windows 8 to help create a new and dynamic learning environment and better prepare students to enter the workforce after graduation. The university also made the decision to standardize on Windows to help reduce its IT support and mitigate ongoing maintenance costs while also providing comprehensive security, reliability and management across thousands of devices.

“We have a responsibility to give all our students access to the technology they need to be successful learners today, as well as future leaders in the workplace,” said Dr. Gabriel Esteban, president, Seton Hall University. “By putting the most advanced mobile computing system in the hands of all of our students, regardless of prior experience or socio-economic background, we are leveling the playing field and creating opportunities for tomorrow’s servant leaders.”

Seton Hall University has been at the forefront of using technology to expand the impact of education and accelerate students’ growth for the past 14 years through the school’s Mobile Computing Program, which provides a standard laptop to all its undergraduates as part of their tuition and fees. However, incoming freshman and returning juniors this year will receive Samsung Series 7 tablets or Samsung Series 5 ultrabooks running Windows 8. More than 1,200 students have already received this technology, and when school resumes this fall, nearly 2,500 students will be using Windows 8 devices as part of their academic experience.

“From students’ perspectives, Windows 8 delivers an environment that allows them to be as productive as possible,” said Stephen Landry, chief information officer, Seton Hall. “They want integration of their tablet experience with their desktop experience, and products like Microsoft Office 365 for education help make that possible. Other devices out there have the form factor and battery life, but miss the mark on offering efficient content creation and consumption.”

Along with tablet and laptop devices, Seton Hall has also equipped incoming freshmen with the Windows Phone-based Nokia Lumia 900 and Office 365 for education. Windows Phone aids students with seamless integration with the students’ Windows 8 desktop environment, providing them with access to familiar programs and documents on both devices. These tools make the process of keeping up on academic work and connecting with other students and professors effortless.

Seton Hall will also upgrade the entire campus to Office 365 for education, Microsoft’s communications and collaboration cloud suite, which provides email, shared calendars, Microsoft Office Web Apps (such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint), video and online meeting capabilities, and document sharing to academic institutions. This will ensure that not just students, but also faculty and staff have a familiar user experience across all their devices, allowing for greater productivity and teamwork, no matter what compatible device they are working on at any given time.

“Windows 8 provides us with the ability to manage thousands of devices on our campus network that other operating systems just didn’t provide,” Landry said. “We couldn’t manage these devices without the help and the tools that Microsoft has provided.”

“Microsoft really has the right vision for creating a dynamic learning environment for students,” Landry said. “With Windows 8, students can create and collaborate seamlessly with each other, regardless of the device they have with them.”

Find more information, news and perspectives from Seton Hall University at http://www.shu.edu/go/mobile.

More information about how organizations are turning to Microsoft technology is available on the Microsoft Customer Spotlight newsroom.

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.