Star Microsoft: Sophos Windows 7 Malware Test 'Sensationalised'
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 10th Nov 2009 09:31 UTC
Windows Last week, security vendor Sophos published a blog post in which it said that Windows 7 was vulnerable to 8 our of 10 of the most common viruses. Microsoft has responded to these test results, which are a classic case of "scare 'm and they'll fall in line".
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Not the right persons to judge...
by bsdfreak on Tue 10th Nov 2009 09:40 UTC
bsdfreak
Member since:
2009-10-22

Dont the use sensationalism themselves to sell their own products? Windows has never been a secure platform, but they have improved alot since windows vista.

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kragil Member since:
2006-01-04

No, default install is just a lot more insecure than Vista. You have to manually set UAC to always prompt otherwise it is easy to circumvent.

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bsdfreak Member since:
2009-10-22

ok i didnt know that, i dont use windows at all. i've only tried win7 for a few weeks. But i wasnt really satified to use it as my default os.

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Thom_Holwerda Member since:
2005-06-29

This isn't entirely true. UAC is less secure, definitely - however, the operating system itself also has other new security features. In other words, calling the entire OS less secure is a bit premature.

Doesn't negate the fact the changes in UAC are braindead.

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kaiwai Member since:
2005-07-06

No, default install is just a lot more insecure than Vista. You have to manually set UAC to always prompt otherwise it is easy to circumvent.


And the whole UAC could be avoided if Microsoft refused to support poorly written applications and bundled Windows XP Virtual Machine with every copy of Windows 7. If they did that then the whole malarkey with UAC would be a non-issue. It is end users complaining about their 20 year old application to work perfectly with the latest version of Windows and the vendors who refuse to update their software knowing full well that Microsoft will never force them to make their software run properly in a limited privileged environment.

Each layer of backwards compatibility adding more complexity and possible area that criminals can target. Microsoft could sort it out tomorrow, like I said. They could move backwards compatibility into virtualised Windows XP sessions and hold back Windows certifications from software vendors who refuse to get their software up to standards - the cold hard reality is that when push comes to shove and the difficult decisions need to be made - they crumple.

Edited 2009-11-10 12:05 UTC

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