Finding and reporting bugs is always something that software companies have to do. But usually its just for its own software products. Microsoft, on the other hand, has been working for the past couple of years trying to find and report bugs in other companies" software such as products made by Apple and Google. ZDNet.com reports that the Microsoft Security Vulnerability Research team, otherwise known as MSVR, has so far found 109 different software bug from 38 different companies since July 2010.
The past couple of months have seen the MSVR team working to find and report bugs in a number of products. In July the team found security issues in Facebook and also in Google"s Picasa service. Both issues have since been fixed by the respective companies. In August the team found security problems on the Safari web browser from Apple as well as the WordPress blogging software. Microsoft said, "Vendors have responded and have coordinated on 97 percent of all reported vulnerabilities; 29 percent of third-party vulnerabilities found since July 2010 have already been resolved, and none of the vulnerabilities without updates have been observed in any attacks."
Microsoft first got some attention for its third party software team in 2009 when it found a particularly bad security issue in Google"s Chrome Frame. Microsoft has sent out a public list of all the security issues it has found in third party software products since April at the MSVR web site. Some of the other companies that Microsoft has helped out in the past several month include RealNetworks, Opera with its web browser and Foxit"s PDF reader software.