Professor
Mr. Louis Voit
Semester
Fall 2007
|
|
|
Net Criminals Will Evade Vista's Defenses
By Russell M. Cozart
Erik Larkin in PC World, August 2007 |
| + |
Windows Vista operating system has promised better security, and
Microsoft has indeed built stronger protections into its flagship
OS, but hordes of online criminals already have plans to keep their
malware alive and kicking. The main problem lies with Microsoft's
efforts to allow legacy XP programs to operate under Vista. This in
turns leaves little or no need to modify existing malware programs
that already do their dirty-work under XP's banner. Vista's User
Access Control has proved to be a formidable defense. But malware
designers have capitalized on the user's innate desire to simply
click "OK" and sweep aside bothersome UAC requests to allow or block
programs. UAC's main design flaw is that you have only two choices:
block the requesting program entirely, or to allow if free reign on
your PC (aka wreak havoc on your machine if, indeed, the program is
malware). The new Protected Mode in IE 7 is a smart approach that
limits the browsers ability to spread into other parts of the OS in
case a crafty malware program has attached itself to IE, but there's
little guarantee that users will choose to always operate under
Protected Mode, and malware designers have already devised malicious
JavaScript programs to steal information straight out of the
browser, and to disappear once the browser closes. |
| + |
I am just as security conscious as the next average PC user, but
I am skeptical of doom-sayers about the inherent vulnerabilities of
Vista. I was not always a Vista fan, but I have come to enjoy the OS
quite a bit. Vista has incorporated what I believe to be sufficient
security barriers to the attacks of would-be nefarious programs. I
think the defenses included in Vista have significantly improved
over those of XP already, and the new design of Vista alone has sent
many of the hackers back to the drawing board. No operating system
can ever claim complete security from such attacks, but I think that
Vista has done its job in our defense. I support the transition to
the OS, and firmly believe we will see even more security released
in the first of the service packs. |
Microsoft TechNet -
Windows Vista Security Improvements
Symantec -
Windows Vista Security
[ back to top ] |
