McAfee joins Symantec protesting Vista kernel lockout

Stan Beer
Monday, 02 October 2006 16:22

Business IT - Security

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"The second example is Patchguard. They have taken the core of the operating system and put it in a locked box to prevent malicious software from entering the core and corrupting it. We agree with that but the problem is that they are refusing to make exceptions for security software to be able to access the core and protect the operating system from the inside out.

"Microsoft claims that they're also not making exceptions for their own software. That raises two scenarios. If Patchguard is hacked which has been the case already then that person is free to roam around the core and do all the damage that they want and nobody can get to them and clean it up. Secondly, it is disingenious for Microsoft to say that even their software won't access Patchguard because they invented it and they're the ones who wrote the code for the core.

"So what you will see is two things. One is that customers will not be able to use the security solutions they want to have the best technology. Second I have no doubt that Microsoft will create a security solution that can access Patchguard and they will be the only ones that offer that solution. So they are leveraging the monopoly they have with their operating system to gradually force users to use Microsoft solutions. The first step, however, is to cut them off from being able to use the security solutions of their own choice."

Paden says Symantec is not asking Microsoft to take Patchguard out but to make exceptions for security vendors so that they will have access to the operating system kernel.

"Patchguard is not sound from a security perspective in a very fundamental way, which is customers, particularly enterprises, have to have as many combinations and varieties of security solutions as possible to react to the different threats that show up every day.

"What Microsoft has said is that if anyone hacks Patchguard that they alone will come up with the solution and distribute the patch. There are a ton of technologies out there that can prevent threats ahead of time. A person's information should not be stolen first and then Microsoft reacts. That approach to security is four years old."

According to Paden, Vista will be less secure than Windows XP if Microsoft gets its way and locks out other security vendors.

"When you do not allow customers to use the widest variety of choices of security solutions on an automated basis then you are leaving them vulnerable to today's threats. Looking at Windows Security Center, we know that today's biggest security threats are spyware and phishing. Yet Windows Security Center doesn't even monitor phishing."


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