What’s this? A spooky surprise 1.13.2 pre-release? We didn’t even snapshot them! This is a very small pre-release to address a few performance issues and upgrade issues left over from 1.13.1. If all goes well with this pre-release, we will do the full release on Thursday.  Don’t worry though, snapshots for 1.14 will be starting really soon!

A full changelog for this pre-release can be found on Minecraft.net.

CHANGES IN 1.13.2-PRE1

• Improved performance of upgrading worlds
• Improved startup time
• Improved performance of turtle pathfinding
• Improved mob spawning performance
• General other performance improvements
• MC-134115 – Containers next to chunk borders can lose items when upgrading
• MC-91621 – Mobs repetitively despawn and respawn rapidly at high Y coordinates (causing lag)

To get pre-releases, open your launcher and go to the “launch options” tab. Check the box saying “Enable snapshots” and save. To switch between the snapshot and normal version, you can find a new dropdown menu next to the “Play” button. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (In the “launch options” page).

Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com.

Pre-releases can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds. 

Share your thoughts on how 1.13.2 is shaping up in the comments below!

Sandbox

Abilities

• Titan
• Now Throwing Hammers can be picked only if your own Throwing Hammer ability is not fully charged
• Fixed an issue in which Burning Maul’s slam attack was unintentionally triggering melee-based perks
• Banner Shield can no longer be overpenetrated by weapons with perks such as Armor-Piercing Rounds
• Resupply can now also benefit allies behind obstacles
• Hunter
• Fixed an issue in which Kill Clip would not trigger if players reloaded their weapon using Marksman’s Dodge while having the Dragon’s Shadow Exotic chest armor equipped
• Warlock
• Fixed an issue where Healing Rift and Well of Radiance could prevent weapon perks such as White Nail and Magnificent Howl from working properly
• Note: This introduced a bug where White Nail may occasionally activate after 2 hits. This will be addressed in a future update.
• Fixed an issue where Handheld Supernova could deal damage to allies
• Fixed an issue where Handheld Supernova kills would sometime appear as “Killed by the Architects” in the obituary and where the ability was inconsistent in triggering the Dark Matter perk
• Players will no longer perform the Atomic Breach melee ability when using the heavy attack of the Escalation Protocol Sword
• Fixed an issue in which using the Phoenix Protocol Exotic chest with Well of Radiance could result in weapons not rendering
• Casting Chaos Reach with your back up against a wall will no longer block the beam
• Fixed an issue in which Chaos Reach was dealing less damage at lower framerates; as a result, players may now notice an increase in total damage output

Armor

• Lucky Pants will no longer reload Hand Cannons that are not stowed
• Fixed an issue where ammo scavenger perks would give certain weapons less ammo than intended
• Prodigal Grasps and Dragonfly Regalia Grasps will no longer block the player’s view when they are using a Bow

Weapons

• Increased Scout Rifle damage against combatants
• Repositioned the scope on the Fighting Lion’s Lupus Visage ornament for better visibility while players are aiming down sights
• Decreased Fighting Lion damage to be brought in line with other breach-load Grenade Launchers 
• Reduced aim assist on Sleeper Simulant
• Buffed aim assist on Linear Fusion Rifles (not including Sleeper Simulant)
• Fixed an issue where Dynamic Sway Reduction and Zen Moment perks would not function properly when combined with Lunafaction Boots or Rally Barricade
• Fixed an issue where the Taken Spec mod description was displayed twice in weapon tooltips
• Fixed an issue where the Between Breaths ornament for Whisper of the Worm would not display properly
• The charge bar on compound Bows now fills in two stages to directly reflect the two stages of the drawing animation
• Fixed an issue where visual effects on some weapons were sometimes still visible next to a character using Super abilities
• Fixed an issue where being shot by an allied Guardian’s Telesto could result in a crash
• Fixed an issue where One Thousand Voices would sometimes speak at the volume of One Hundred Thousand Voices
• Fixed an issue where Bows were not equipped properly when characters were sprinting
• Fixed an issue where the Badlander Shotgun was missing reload audio
• Updated the ATC Rex Häkke scope to align with other weapon scopes
• Fixed an issue where parts of Borealis did not display the correct element
• Fixed excessive perk activation audio for Redrix’s Broadsword when players activated the Desperado perk
• Fixed excessive perk audio for Trinity Ghoul’s Lightning Rod perk when the weapon is stowed
• Updated the draw animation on Trinity Ghoul
• Updated the description of Ionic Return on Borealis to more accurately reflect its bonus damage behavior

Gambit

General

• Fixed an issue where Gambit clan engrams were not functioning properly
• Fixed an issue where shield walls would not spawn at the beginning of a match
• Fixed an issue where matchmaking for Gambit would sometimes take longer than intended, sometimes resulting in players being removed from the match
• Gambit Quitter Penalties have been reenabled
• Fixed an issue where the invasion portal would sometimes not open throughout the match

Crucible

Iron Banner

• Fixed an issue where Iron Engram displayed a higher Power level than intended
• Fixed an issue where Iron Banner token rewards from matches were doubled
• All Iron Banner bounties will now reward powerful gear
• Iron Banner bounty requirements have been reduced:
• Lightbearer: Super kills reduced to 20 from 25
• Iron in the Blood: Match completions reduced to 15 from 30
• Shine On: Orbs generated reduced to 50 from 100
• Iron Victory: Match wins reduced to 7 from 10
• To Be Precise: Precision kills reduced to 50 from 100
• All in a Week’s Work: Kills reduced to 150 from 250

General

• Fixed an issue where the kill feed would no longer display under certain circumstances
• Capture Zone waypoints no longer pulse when progress state changes or when in a Power Play in Iron Banner
• Fixed an issue that prevented audio cues from playing when players are revived in Countdown

Medals

• In Breakthrough, fixed an issue where the “Quick Strike” medal could be awarded for a short time after deploying the Breaker
• Fixed an issue where the Survival medal “Lone Gun” was firing for all players when winning a round
• Corrected an issue where the new “Perimeter Control” medal in Control did not properly replace the deprecated “I Live Here Now” medal

Quests

• Updated quest step “The Candidate” in “Forging the Broadsword” to new requirements: “In the Crucible, rapidly defeat opponents in groups of two or more.” 
• This step will now track individual players defeated in a multikill instead of counting only “Double Play” medals 
• Before, “Triple Play” rewarded +1 progress for 1 Double Play. Now, “Triple Play” will award +2 progress for “Double Play” and +1 for “Triple Play.”

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Items and Economy

General

• Fixed an issue where powerful gear could sometimes drop at the same Power level as a character or below
• Raised the low end of powerful gear, which slightly increases the average Power upgrade per powerful drop
• Edge Transit has some company; added Through Fire and Flood, Zenobia D, and Crooked Fang-4fr to world Legendary pool
• Fixed an issue where Prime Engrams were going straight to the postmaster at the end of Crucible matches; they will now show alongside other end-of-match rewards
• Fixed an issue where the Cataloguer emblem was repeatedly sent to postmaster for some players
• Fixed an issue where Offering to the Oracle was not being properly consumed on use for some players
• Fixed an issue where the Last Wish Ghost and Sparrow were not dropping at the intended drop rates
• Fixed an issue where some weapons did not dismantle into the proper materials

Triumphs

• Removed “Trace Rifle Mastery” Crucible Triumph for players on all platforms
• Added Triumphs for completing Exotic badges in Collections
• “Trusted Right Hand” Triumph is now possible to complete
• It no longer requires more weekly bounties than are available in a week
• Triumphs to find all Ascendant chests in the Dreaming City no longer lose progress on the weekly reset if players have completed, but not yet claimed them

Collections

• Transmat effects added to Collections, under the Flair category
• Transmat effects gained (inventory or postmaster), used, or dismantled after September 4, 2018 will be unlocked in Collections
• Transmat effects are unlocked when added to player inventory, NOT when gaining ships that have them pre-socketed
• Added event Ghosts to Collections
• Added Forsaken emblem variants to Collections
• Added missing emblems to Collections
• Source updated for the Grenade Launcher Through Fire and Flood: Obtained through Legendary drops and rank-up packages

Bounties

• Fixed an issue where bounties could expire in a players Post Master and cause WEASEL errors
• Fixed an issue where Korean IGR bounties did not have an Abandon option
• Added a recovery state for players who abandoned IGR bounties to acquire a weekly rotating IGR bounty for 250 Glimmer
• This recovery state persists until the next weekly reset
• Fixed an issue where the Eververse Bounty “Rise to the Challenge” did not have an Abandon option
• Players who Abandon “Rise to the Challenge” will be able to recover it from Eververse for 250 Glimmer until the weekly reset.

General

• Fixed an issue where boosted players could not receive Destiny 2 achievements for the boosted class
• Players will now receive the achievement when unlocking the first node of a new subclass
• Fixed an issue where players could not receive credit for the Destiny 2 achievement for completing the weekly Flashpoint
• Sturm quest will now increment when picking up Legendary and Exotic engrams
• Pinnacle wanted bounties from Spider will now complete for all members of the fireteam
• Bakken, the Relentless can now be summoned in the Divalian Mists
• Fixed an issue where the Blind Well could become locked if multiple players tried to activate it at once
• Heroic completion on the Rift Generator public event now consistently grants the appropriate rewards and properly counts toward Heroic public event completions
• Fixed an issue where some players were unable to access the Strike playlist
• Fixed an issue where enemies would not spawn during Kalli, the Corrupted raid encounter

Disruption/Insults/Disrespect

Disruption/Insults/Disrespect

Harassment/Personal Attacks/Privacy Violation

Gory Violence/Explicit Sexuality

Illegal Activity

Hacking/Cheating

Spoilers/Stolen Content

Soliciting/Phishing/Impersonation

If you work within the world of software development, you’ll find yourself bouncing back and forth between a few tools. You’ll most likely use GitHub to host your code, but find yourself needing some task/priority software. This could be GitHub itself or other ones like Jira. Of course, you may also find yourself collaborating on several tools, like Slack, and several projects. Considering that it’s already hard to keep track of the progress on one of your projects, working across several of them becomes a struggle. This problem gets worse as you move up the ranks of management where it becomes increasingly difficult to assimilate and rationalize all of this information. To help combat this, Anaxi was created to help give you all the information on the state and progress of your projects in one single interface.

Why measure dev progress?

According to LinkedIn data, there are currently over 3,000 software engineers employed on average at Fortune 4,000 companies. So, how do those companies measure the progress of their software projects and the performance of their teams? After all, you can’t manage what you don’t measure, so the best of them will manually compute portions of this data on a weekly basis. This turns into a tedious and time-consuming task. In fact, this directly impacts your bottom line. Anaxi cuts out this task and may significantly improve software development efficiency within organizations. Teams will know the impact of any process change, which task they should focus on, and whether or not to anticipate any bottlenecks. This also helps reduce the loss in revenue due to shipping critical issues. According to Tricentis, there was a total of $1.7T loss in revenue in 2017 alone due to software failures and poor bug prioritization.

What is Anaxi?

Anaxi currently offers a free iPhone app that provides the full picture of your GitHub projects to help you understand and manage them better. Anaxi has a lot of features based on what they call reports. Reports are lists of issues or pull requests that you can filter as you see fit using labels, state, milestone, authors, assignees, and more. This allows you to monitor those critical bugs or see the progress of your team’s work. For each project, you can select the people on your team so you can easily see what each person is doing and help where help is needed most. It can also be used to keep track of your own work and priorities, and because it’s an iPhone app, it grants quick access to issues and pull requests that have been assigned. There’s also a customizable color indicator for report deadlines that will help you prioritize what to work on.

How to set up the app

First, you’ll need an iPhone and access to the app store. Go into the App Store and download it. Once you open the app, the landing page will appear.

To get started, press on the Connect GitHub button on the bottom of the screen and enter your GitHub credentials. Next, you’ll be asked to select projects that you want to monitor. Anaxi will automatically select some projects. There is a button you can press to edit this list at the bottom that allows you to add or remove projects from this list. If you forget a project, or realize that you don’t want to monitor a project anymore, you can change it once the initial setup is over.

When you have your projects selected, hit the Next button. It’s time to select your team. Anaxi will start by automatically selecting people that you interact with the most with for the projects you selected. Just like the previous step, you can edit this list by pressing the button at the bottom and you can add or remove team members later.

Next, you will be prompted to help set up the reports for your projects. Anaxi will also start by automatically choosing labels that are most used, but you can customize which labels you want to monitor by clicking the button at the bottom of each project. Later on, you can create more tailored reports by adding issue or pull request reports when inside of a project folder.

Now, Anaxi is set up and a view of reports appears. Mine are all green because I don’t have any activity on my selected projects. From this menu, you can see which projects have pull requests at the top. Clicking on these will pull up open tickets on these projects. If you scroll down, you can see all the pull requests and issues that are assigned to you and your team. Then you can see individual views near the bottom for all of your projects. The order of these can be changed at any time by hitting the edit button in the top right and dragging the folders around.

Let’s choose an open-source project and see what it looks like when more people are working together and there are more issues and pull requests. For this example, let’s use kubernetes/kubernetes. As you can see below, Anaxi created a report for the new project, and added it to the current full report that already existed. Now that there is a more active GitHub project present in my reports, we can see the full extent of Anaxi in action.

To edit any part of the reports, simply click on that section, and then click on the edit button in the top right. Once there, you can change filters and if you scroll to the bottom, you can change the values for when an aspect of a report displays green, yellow or red.

My experience

After using Anaxi for a little while, scrolling through my GitHub Projects doesn’t feel like a chore anymore. It’s easy to choose one project and see everything that I want to see. One thing that was slightly bothersome is every time you click on a project, it has to read the GitHub API instead of holding on to it. This results in some wait time when you are trying to switch back and forth between multiple projects in quick succession, but that’s the only downside I’ve seen so far. Changing the colors or filters on aspects of reports is surprisingly easy and intuitive. Another thing I like is that you can create a due date for a certain issue or pull request. This is great when you want to build in dates into your projects. I feel like this would really help me when I want to prioritize certain things, instead of creating Google Calendar notifications, I can do this on the project directly.

So far, I haven’t worked on any project that’s been bigger than 4 people, so it hasn’t helped me that much… yet. As I move forward in my career and work on projects with more and more people and deadlines, I feel like Anaxi will become a go-to product for me. The ability to see everything so easily and the customizability really draws me in and makes me love the product and see myself using it in the future.

What’s coming next

Anaxi currently offers an iPhone app, but don’t fret if you are a web user. The plan for Anaxi is to work on integration with Jira next to help with the technology gap between managing project and managing code. After that is completed, they are planning on creating a web app, followed by Android, and ending with native desktop apps.

This article was produced in partnership with Holberton School.

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month, and Microsoft Store is committed to helping small business owners understand the dangers of cyberattacks and the actionable steps they can take to mitigate cyber threats.

Getting hacked is a scary threat, yet most small business owners don’t think they’re at risk.

Nearly 82 percent[1] of small business owners think their business does not have data that hackers would be interested in stealing, yet 61 percent[2] have suffered a cyberattack and over half[3] have had a data breach.

What’s even scarier than not knowing your business is vulnerable to a cyberattack is finding out your business has been hacked.

Identifying Vulnerabilities

Small business owners may not know the appropriate steps to protect themselves, and others may find the topic can be daunting.

This was the case for Quants Bakery, a six-employee catering and subscription-based vegan bakery in Glendora, California. Sean Etesham, CEO, started the online-based business in September 2017 after he saw a need for more vegan options at his local coffee shops. Like so many first-time small business owners who are strapped for resources, he launched the business and operated it without a dedicated IT person or cybersecurity software.

“Our worst nightmare would be if someone broke into the back end …and took all of the customer credit card information…and posted it online,” shared Sean.

Microsoft Store recently teamed up with a Microsoft cybersecurity expert to take Sean and his now CIO, Richard Idigo, through a lifelike simulation of a common phishing scam, giving them a firsthand look at the damage that can be done in mere minutes. Sean and Richard were shocked at how easily a hacker can create a false site to access passwords and compromise their data.

“I’ve made a lot of sacrifices in terms of my time and energy that could’ve been spent elsewhere,” explained Sean about starting his business. “I cashed out my retirement accounts, and my investment accounts, and put all that money towards the business.”

Any small business owner can attest that success and health of their business is of utmost importance, so addressing cybersecurity vulnerabilities should be a top concern.

The simulation helped Sean to understand the type of security protections and other actions he needed to have in place to safeguard his business and avoid phishing attacks. He worked with a business solutions specialist at Microsoft Store to decide on Microsoft 365 Business as the right solution for their productivity, collaboration, and security needs.

By understanding cybersecurity risk factors, every small business owner can put an affordable, actionable plan in place to mitigate risk and save time and money it takes to recover from a breach.

Addressing Vulnerabilities

Many small business owners do not have IT departments to turn to in the case of a cybersecurity emergency. During National Cyber Security Awareness Month, Microsoft Store is offering small business owners the opportunity to understand the risks of cyberattacks and will be the go-to destination for personalized guidance from in-store business solutions specialists.

If you’re a small business owner, visit Microsoft Store and online to discover cybersecurity solutions like Microsoft 365 Business that are customized for the needs of small businesses to more effectively navigate the cybersecurity landscape and mitigate cyber risks.

[1] SMEs and Cyber Attacks, by Towergate Insurance

[2] 2017 State of Cybersecurity In Small & Medium Sized Businesses, 2017 by The Ponemon Institue

[3] SMBs Are Vulnerable To Cyber Attacks, 2016 by The Ponemon Institute

[4] HACKED: Just Because It’s in the Cloud, Doesn’t Mean Bad Guys Can’t Reach It, 2017 by UPS Capital

Politics and international relations may be fraught with acrimony these days, but the tech world seems a bit friendlier of late. Last week Microsoft joined the Open Invention Network and agreed to grant a royalty-free, unrestricted license of its 60,000-patent portfolio to other OIN members, thereby enabling Android and Linux device manufacturers to avoid exorbitant patent payments. This week, Arm and Intel kept up the happy talk by agreeing to a partnership involving IoT device provisioning.

Arm’s recently announced Pelion IoT Platform will align with Intel’s Secure Device Onboard (SDO) provisioning technology to make it easier for IoT vendors and customers to onboard both x86 and Arm-based devices using a common Peleon platform. Arm also announced Pelion related partnerships with myDevices and Arduino (see farther below).

In another nod to Intel, Arm unveiled a new, IoT focused Mbed Linux OS distribution that combines the Linux kernel with tools and recipes from the Intel-backed Yocto Project. The distro also integrates security and IoT connectivity code from its open source Mbed RTOS.

When Pelion was announced, Arm mentioned cross-platform support, but there were few details. Now with the Intel SDO deal and the launch of Mbed Linux OS, Arm has formally expanded Pelion from an MCU-only IoT data aggregation platform to one that supports more advanced x86 and Cortex-A based systems.

Mbed Linux OS

The early stage Mbed Linux OS will be released by the end of the year as an invitation-only developer preview. Both the OS source code and related test suites will eventually be open sourced.

In the Mbed Linux OS announcement, Arm’s Mark Wright pitches the distro as a secure, IoT focused “sibling” to the Cortex-M focused Mbed that is designed for Cortex-A processors. Arm will support Mbed Linux with its MCU-oriented Mbed community of 350,000 developers and will offer support for popular Linux development boards and modules. The Softbank-owned company will also supply optional commercial support.

Like Mbed, Mbed Linux will be “deeply integrated” with the Pelion IoT System in order “to simplify lifecycle management.” The Pelion support provides device provisioning, connectivity, and updates, thereby enabling development teams to update the OS and the applications independently, says Wright. Working with the Pelion Device Management Application, Mbed Linux OS can “simplify in-field provisioning and eradicate the need for legacy serial connections for initial device configuration,” says Arm.

Mbed Linux will support Arm’s Platform Security Architecture and hardware based TrustZone security to enable secure, signed boot and signed updates. It will also enable deployment of applications in secure, OCI-compliant containers.

Arm did not specify which components of the Yocto Project code it would integrate with Mbed. In late August, Arm and Facebook joined Intel and TI as Platinum members of the Yocto Project. The Linux Foundation hosted project was launched by Intel but is now widely used on Arm as well as x86 based IoT devices.

Despite common references to “Yocto Linux,” Yocto Project is not a distribution, but rather a collection of open source templates, tools, and methods for creating custom embedded Linux-based systems. A Yocto foundation underlies most major commercial Linux distributions such as Wind River Linux and Mentor Embedded Linux and is often spun into custom builds by DIY developers, especially for resource constrained IoT devices.

We saw no mention of a contribution for the Arm-backed Linaro initiative for either Mbed Linux or Pelion. Linaro, which oversees the 96Boards project, develops open source embedded Linux and Android software components. The Yocto and Linaro projects were initially seen as rivals, but they have grown increasingly complementary. Linaro’s Arm toolchain can be used within Yocto Project, as well as with the related OpenEmbedded build environment and Bitbake build engine.

Developers can sign up for the limited number of invites to participate in the upcoming developer preview of Mbed Linux OS here.

Arm’s Pelion partnerships

Arm’s Pelion IoT Platform will soon run on devices with Intel’s recently launched Secure Device Onboard (SDO) service, enabling customers to deploy both Arm and x86 based systems controlled by the common Pelion platform. “We believe this collaboration is a big step forward for greater customer choice, fewer device SKUs, higher volume and velocity through IoT supply chains and lower deployment cost,” says Arm.

The SDO “zero-touch onboarding service” depends on Intel Enhanced Privacy ID (EPID) data embedded in chips to validate and provision IoT devices automatically. SDO automatically discovers and provisions compliant devices during installation. This “late binding” approach reduces provisioning times from 20 minutes to an hour to a few minutes, says Intel.

Unlike PKI based authentication methods, “SDO does not insert Intel into the authentication path.” Instead, it brokers a rendezvous URL to the Intel SDO service where Intel EPID opens a private authentication channel between the device and the customer’s IoT platform.

The Pelion IoT Platform offers its own scheme for provisioning and configuration of devices using cryptographic identities built into Cortex-M MCUs running Mbed. With the new Mbed Linux, Pelion will also be able to accept devices that run on Cortex-A chips with TrustZone security.

Pelion combines Arm’s Mbed Cloud connected Mbed IoT Device Management Platform with technologies it acquired via two 2018 acquisitions. The new Treasure Data unit supplies data management services to Pelion. Meanwhile, Stream Technologies provides Pelion managed gateway services for wireless technologies including cellular, LoRa, and satellite communications.

The partnership with myDevices extends Pelion support to devices that run myDevices’ new IoT in a Box turnkey IoT software for LoRa gateways and nodes. myDevices, which is known for its Linux- and Arduino-friendly Cayenne drag-and-drop IoT development and management platform, launched IoT in a Box to enable easy set up a LoRa gateway and LoRa sensor nodes. Different IoT in a Box versions target specific applications ranging from home and building management to storage lockers to refrigeration systems. Developers can try out Pelion services together with IoT in a Box for a new, $199 IoT Starter Kit.

The Arduino partnership is a bit less clear.  It appears to extend Arm’s Pelion Connectivity Management stack, based on the Stream Technologies acquisition, to Arduino devices. The partnership gives users the option of selecting “competitive global data plans” for cellular service, says Arm.

More details on this and the other Pelion announcements should emerge at Arm TechCon in San Jose, California and IoT Solution World Congress in Barcelona, both of which run Oct 16-18. Intel also offers a video overview of the Pelion/SDO mashup.

Join us at Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference Europe in Edinburgh, UK on October 22-24, 2018, for 100+ sessions on Linux, Cloud, Containers, AI, Community, and more.

Microsoft has partnered with AARP since 2015 to build awareness around tech support scams and has developed a joint booklet encouraging AARP members to report these incidents.

“One of the reasons we’re thrilled to be working with Microsoft is that it’s one thing for law enforcement to give advice for crime prevention, but when Microsoft says they don’t initiate these calls, it’s very powerful,” Shadel says.

But anyone can fall prey to these schemes.

Similar to the 2016 results, Generation Z and Millennials fall prey to tech support scams more often, and also men. They may be more likely to engage in riskier online behavior, such as visiting torrent sites and giving up their email in exchange for downloading videos or images. But because they can be more familiar with technology companies than older generations, it may lead to overconfidence in their web and device expertise.

Each month, Microsoft receives about 11,000 complaints from people across the globe who have been the victim of a tech support scam with fraudsters pretending to be from reputable tech companies, including Microsoft, Dell and Apple.

To help protect consumers from online scams, Windows includes security features and updates with free real-time protection, and the SmartScreen filter built into Microsoft Edge helps protect against malicious pop-ups. In addition, the Bing Ads team took action to block 25 million ads in the tech scam category in 2017 as part of its ad quality work.

Microsoft also fights back through advanced analytics and investigations of thousands of customer complaints received annually, thanks to its Digital Crimes Unit, which identifies key players perpetrating these scams. Collaborating with enforcement agencies globally, they take action to disrupt these fraudulent enterprises and hold them accountable under the law.

For example, Microsoft provided critical information for the May 2017 sweeping enforcement action “Operation Tech Trap” in which the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and law enforcement partners announced 16 new actions against tech support fraudsters. While the UK National Fraud Investigative Bureau reports the number of instances of consumers reporting tech support scams using the Microsoft brand has dropped from 76 percent to 17 percent after a string of successful joint Microsoft and law enforcement operations.