Microsoft petulance over third party zero day security strange

Stan Beer
Monday, 25 September 2006 12:34

Opinion and Analysis

Thus, it is both surprising and disturbing to hear that instead of embracing efforts by organizations such as ZERT to protect Microsoft users from malware exploits, Microsoft is neither happy nor supportive of such efforts.

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Microsoft is big but the internet is much bigger and just about every malicious hacker on the net has made Microsoft software the prime target for exploits. The fact that Microsoft has to have a patch Tuesday each month, often issuing dozens of fixes at a time, shows that the task of keeping hackers at bay is beyond the resources of even the largest software company in the world.

This being the case, Microsoft cannot afford to be petulant about third party efforts that beat it to the punch with fixes for its vulnerabilities. In fact, quite the opposite, Microsoft should embrace efforts by organizations such as ZERT and, wherever possible, offer its assistance.

This is not about Microsoft protecting its turf. This is about Microsoft users being able to safely go online. Anything that any organization can do to further that aim is welcomed by users. It should also be welcomed by Microsoft rather than shunned. Not everything is about being king of the sand pile.