Why Microsoft needs to realise forewarned means forearmed on security

Microsoft has taken the decision to keep its customers less informed about security issues, if a recent blog by Chris Betz, the senior director of the firm's Security Response Centre, is anything to go by. The post revealed the software giant is to cease to offering users advanced warning about the software updates it plans to roll out during its monthly Patch Tuesday event, unless they pay. "We are making changes to how we distribute ANS [Advanced Notification Services] to customers. Moving forward, we will provide ANS information directly to Premier customers and current organisations involved in our security programs, and will no longer make this information broadly available through a blog post and web page," Betz wrote. If you happen to be part of the premium customer program, or a Microsoft Active Protections Program partner like many security vendors, then you will still get advanced warning. Everyone else can, apparently, go swivel.