Consumers confused about Vista security

Stan Beer
Thursday, 12 October 2006 18:39

Opinion and Analysis

This is sort of like Firefox and Internet Explorer or Real Player and Windows Media Player. It’s the sort of thing that gets the European Commission upset but doesn’t seem to bother the US Department of Justice.

The real killer for Symantec and McAfee, however, is a security feature of Vista called Patchguard, which will deny the security companies access to the operating system kernel.

Microsoft’s argument is that locking up the kernel will protect the system from malware. The security companies say that this will only protect the system from known viruses, not new ones which will be able to breach the system.

In fact, say the security companies, only their systems have the level of sophistication necessary to recognize new viruses used in zero day attacks.

They say that Microsoft’s action in denying them access to the kernel will prevent them from protecting the operating system from the inside out and thus make Vista less safe than Windows XP, where they have such access.

Of course, it is in the interests of the security companies to have us believe this. It is also in the interests of Microsoft to have us believe that Vista will be inherently more secure and that its own security systems can do the job.

This presents a dilemma for consumers. However, there are certain things we can deduce.

One is that Vista is not necessarily as watertight as Microsoft would like us to believe. Recent Patch Tuesdays have revealed that vulnerabilities have already been identified in Vista.

Secondly, past experience has shown that it’s never a good idea to have a monopoly policing itself. Microsoft may never have come out with an early patch for the recent VML flaw in Internet Explorer if third party security companies hadn’t pressured it by coming out with their own patches.

Finally, Symantec and McAfee have been in the security game for a long time, while Microsoft is a newcomer. It would be hard to deny that they don’t have more experience and expertise in security.

Therefore, if Microsoft is serious about making Vista more secure for users, it will allow companies that make their living out of developing security systems to have access to its core. Otherwise, it will be hard to escape the conclusion that Microsoft is just trying to create another monopoly in the security space, while limiting the choice of its customers.