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Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has forged deals with LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook to connect their networks through its popular email and personal information manager, Outlook.

The company introduced Outlook Social Connector when it rolled out a beta of Microsoft Office 2010 last November. The OSC connects emails, contact information and networking sites within the Outlook application.





Microsoft also introduced a public beta of LinkedIn for Outlook, according to a blog post by Dev Balasubramanian and Michael Affronti, Outlook program managers.

Office 2010 beta users can now connect the OSC to a public network -- in this case LinkedIn -- for the first time, they said.

Using the OSC, users can view their contacts' status updates and photos next to their email messages. The OSC automatically updates the latest contact information from LinkedIn and allows users to invite colleagues to join LinkedIn from Outlook. The beta app also synchronizes mobile phones with Outlook.

Similar functionality for Facebook and MySpace -- called Facebook for Outlook and MySpace for Outlook -- will be available later this year as the official release of Office 2010 approaches

As the 2010 Winter Olympics kick off in Vancouver, the games are on everyone's radar, including the cybercriminals who are looking to capitalize on this world event to spread malware and stage a few targeted attacks.

Spam campaigns featuring breaking news stories filter through to in-boxes faster than ever before, as automated scripts scrape headlines and the text of news stories from hundreds of Web sites. This year, cybercriminals are taking their attacks one step further, sending sinister emails using the Olympics as a guise to distribute malicious content in highly specialized, targeted attacks.

One example of Olympic-themes malware is an email with the subject, "Information and resources to help you travel during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. TravelSmart 2010.htm," as in the sample below.