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.
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Member since:2005-07-06
I hope that everyone had learned the lesson once SP2 was released and secured things so much...
The latest MS exploit for which there's only a workaround works even if you have SP2 and all other updates.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/925444.mspx
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/753044
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/78793
exploit:http://metasploit.com/svn/framework3/trunk/modules/exploits/windows...
remedie:http://support.microsoft.com/KB/240797
But obviously not, people are still paranoid !
Rightfully so!
Long live ActiveX (not).
Edited 2006-09-28 12:02
Member since:2006-03-03
OK, let's all jump in the wagon and make a secure Linux distro, as everybody complains about Windows 
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Microsoft freak/guy/addict/fan/whatever, but why See-man-tech/Make-a-fee/Nor-tons/... are so willing to stick with an operating system that does not need them anymore ? Why not securing something else ? If Windows don't wanna be secured/patched/... and users installation gets bloated, I think it would cause quite some harm to Microsoft and people will soon switch faster than expected to another operating system (MacOS X for the most).
What I want to tell is that it's Microsoft's choice to release something secure or not, it's not third-parties' task to do this part of the job. If Microsoft don't wants to open this to other people, I think it's their right, and they'll suffer from it.
I also think there is not 'alternative' to Windows in term of usability, integration, support, ... When you buy your copy of Windows, of course everything isn't as polished as it could be (otherwise XP would have been released in 1985), but you still have a 10000-man task product in the hands. MacOS X is done with less ? Ubuntu is done with less ? So why people are still sticking to Microsoft ? I thought it's currently a case being trialed in EU...
Of course, Windows is such a big mess of code that flaws would ever exists. Which code isn't after all ? It's not by allowing third-party vendor that are as crappy or even more to replace Microsoft's components that you will secure things more. It's forcing Microsoft to stick and respect the standart and pass some unit testing to ensure these are respected. In this case we could ensure the code will behave in such a way that seems secured.
Kochise
Edited 2006-09-28 12:27
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