Anti-malware company Symantec has accused Microsoft of withholding key information about its upcoming Vista OS, in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage in the security market. Symantec claimed this week that Microsoft is refusing to hand over the APIs for Windows Defender, its anti-spyware product which will be included in Vista. Without the APIs, Symantec claims that it isn't able to ensure that its own security products are compatible with Vista. Microsoft, though, insisted on Wednesday afternoon that the APIs are now available.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-01-09
> I'm interrested to see how many trojan/worm/virus will
> appears and exploit these APIs once they are divulged
> by Microsoft, even under NDA with Symantec 
Perhaps
> Microsoft better not to make them public, if they want
> to ensure some kind of security...
Ooooh goody - security by obscurity - all over again.
Security by obscurity is a disproven concept - even inside MS.
API obscurity is about artificial competitive advantage by a possibly malign monopolist. There does need to be a decision of legal principle as to when disclosure should occur - after all Vista has not gone on sale yet.
Member since:2006-03-03
Oh, I not meant "security by obscurity" let me assure you I think there are rooms in Vista for everyone to be happy I think there would be a public API to use for security third-party supplier, so I don't understand the point to open-up some sort of hidden places Microsoft keeps in the shadow to avoid too much bloating
See, why not complaining that Microsoft hasn't release the APIs of Windows Update so that everyone could make a paying replacement, and also provides updates, gadgets, whatever... Who knows, trojan/worm/virus ? People can scream out-loud, some things have to be close sourced, otherwise everybody will start complaining again that Microsoft's Windows is unsecure, and thanks to McAfee/Symantec/Norton/... to secure thightly the whole thing
I hope that everyone had learned the lesson once SP2 was released and secured things so much... But obviously not, people are still paranoid !
Kochise
Member since:
2006-03-03
I'm interrested to see how many trojan/worm/virus will appears and exploit these APIs once they are divulged by Microsoft, even under NDA with Symantec
Perhaps Microsoft better not to make them public, if they want to ensure some kind of security...
If Symantec wants to get some sort of control over an operating system (security), why do they not write their own, or bloat a Linux distro ?
Kochise