Microsoft's own bug hunters should cut Windows Vista some slack and rate its vulnerabilities differently because of the operating system's new, baked-in defenses, according to the developer who is often the public persona of the company's Security Development Lifecycle process. Michael Howard, a senior security program manager in Microsoft's security engineering group, said that the Microsoft Security Response Center is being too conservative in its Vista vulnerability rating plans. Because Vista includes security techniques and technologies that Windows XP lacks, the MSRC should reconsider how it ranks Vista when a vulnerability affects both Microsoft's new operating system and its predecessor, he said.
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Member since:2006-07-04
But IE7 on Vista runs in protected mode, which has *fewer* privileges than "ordinary user". So an IE7 exploit on Vista would not allow the attacker to "delete all the user's files, and do all other kinds of mischief" because IE7 does not have access to the user's files. Whereas on XP, the same exploit in IE7 would allow an attacker to muck with the user's data (if running as ordinary user) or system files (if running as admin). So the IE7 exploit in question could receive "extremely critical" rating on XP but "not critical" rating on Vista.
(I doubt your "credit card numbers are often stored in the browser's history" scenario; I don't think browsers store https data in browser history, and even if the did, it's https data and so would be encrypted.)
Member since:
2006-01-11
A remote exploit that gives the attacker the privilege of an ordinary user suffices to install a spambot, steal the attacked person's credit card numbers (often stored in the browser's history), delete all the user's files, and do all other kinds of mischief. It's true that it's easier for malware to hide itself if it can be installed with administrator privilege, but it's good enough for most purposes.