Microsoft does a U-turn. It *will* email out security advisories after all

Yesterday, the world was scratching its head as to why Microsoft had announced it would no longer send out security advisories via email.

The general consensus was that newly introduced Canadian anti-spam legislation was to blame for the decision, but I and others did raise a concern that Microsoft may have made its decision with too much haste – and that its activities were probably exempted from the new anti-spam law.

Well, I’m delighted to say that there’s some good news about this particular storm in a tea cup.

Brian Krebs reports that Microsoft has realised its earlier decision was daft and a spokesperson has confirmed that it will return to automated email notifications:

On June 27, 2014, Microsoft notified customers that we were suspending Microsoft Security Notifications due to changing governmental policies concerning the issuance of automated electronic messaging. We have reviewed our processes and will resume these security notifications with our monthly Advanced Notification Service (ANS) on July 3, 2014.

This is surely good news for everybody. Huzzah!

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.