One of the things we talk quite a bit about with Windows 8 is making sure Windows is a safe, secure, and reliable computing environment. We have always provided a broad range of solutions for achieving these goals and work closely with a broad range of industry partners. We continue to enhance these capabilities with Windows 8 while making sure you always have choice and control over how to protect and manage your PC. With Windows 8 we are extending the protections provided by Defender to address a broader range of potential threats. Jason Garms, the group program manager of our reliability and security team authored this post that represents work across several teams. --Steven

I’m excited to share with you some investments we are making in Windows 8 to better protect you against the constantly changing landscape of malicious software (“malware”). In this blog I will talk about enhancements to mitigation features that help protect you against exploits used by malware, improvements to Windows Defender to provide you with real-time protection from all categories of malware, and the use of URL and application reputation to help protect you against social engineering attacks.