Posted on 12/10/2009 10:24:00 AM PST by Gomez
Windows 7 is less secure out-of-the box than Vista, despite Redmond's protestations to the contrary, a top security firm has claimed.
Trend Micro said that the default configurations of Windows 7 are less secure than Vista. Raimund Genes, CTO of Trend Micro, said that Windows 7 had sacrificed security for useability - at least for default configurations.
"I'm not saying Windows 7 is insecure, but out of the box Vista is better," Genes told El Reg.
The User Account Control (UAC) feature that debuted with Vista was a security safeguard that asked users for permission before allowing applications to run. The nagware technology irked users and was blamed for producing numerous largely meaningless pop-ups that users blithely clicked past.
Even senior Microsoft execs, for example UK security advisor Ed Gibson, have taken to describing the technology disparagingly as "User Annoyance Control" over recent months. A toned down version of UAC has been developed for Windows 7, but Genes regards this and other changes as a step backwards.
"I was disappointed when I first used a Windows 7 machine that there was no warning that I had no anti-virus, unlike Vista," Genes said. "There are no file extension hidden warnings either. Even when you do install anti-virus, warnings that it has not been updated are almost invisible."
"Windows 7 may be an improvement in terms of useability but in terms of security it's a mistake, though one that isn't that surprising. When Microsoft's developers choose between usability and security, they will always choose useability," Genes argued.
Genes said the security of Windows 7 for consumers might be improved by offering virtual XP, a sandboxed version of the older OS, with Windows 7 home editions. The virtualisation technology (criticised by other security firms, most notable Sophos, as a security risk in its own right because it needs separate patching and security protection) was only released in enterprise versions of the operating system.
Trend's unfavorable default security comparison between Vista and Windows 7 was released alongside its Trend Micro 2010 Future Threat Report. The main focus of the report places the security implication of the wider IT industry shift towards cloud computing and virtualisation under the spotlight.
While offering significant benefits and cost-savings, the architectural shift means cybercrooks are likely to turn their sights towards manipulating the connection to the cloud, or attacking the data center and cloud itself, instead of trying to infect desktop or server systems.
"The focus for security firms has been protecting desktops or servers, but this needs to shift to providing security for the cloud, where sensitive information such as credit card records will be held. Using encryption to establish shielded containers for sensitive data and improving the security and back-up of cloud computing systems needs to be improved so that we can have safe cloud computing," Genes explained.
So you just post more sarky comments from Apple corporate goons?
You're getting your politics and your computers mixed up... LOL...
Rush talking about his Macs... :-)
You know, I'm a big Mac guy. I love Macs, and I've got four Mac Pros. They're the top-of-the-line Mac Pros, maxed out. And they just had a new system upgrade, went to 10.5 Leopard, and they've had two upgrades since October. Yesterday brought 10.5.2, which was loaded.
NB: All right, I've got just one more quick question for you. Last time I saw you, you'd just gotten an iPhone. How's that working out for you?
ROVE: I love it. My life has changed. I have a shred of coolness. I've got my 3,500 people in my addressbook on the phone, I can sync my calendar. I keep track of my modest little stock investments. I can check the weather of my house in Washington, my house in Florida, my boy at school, my hunt-lease in south Texas. I can surf the web, I'm justI get part of my email there.
I mean it is just shocking how much better, how much more productive I am. I no longer carry around a giant address book, if I don't have my calendar close at hand, I can quickly check it out of my I don't have to carry, I used to carry several notecards, now it's just as easy to scribble on my little notepad, I can take photographs and forward them on immediately, it's just remarkable.
How did I know even before I clicked that they’d say UAC slightly lower nuisance factor would be why it’s “less” secure? The reality of use is that because UAC was so painfully annoying before the first 4 clicks most users made was turning the damn thing off, Windows 7’s UAC while defaulting to less secure is actually usable enough that people might leave it on. So really it’s more secure.
I think the point of UAC was to be annoying. UAC made for a very secure environment, it truly does create the difference between Admin and Root that is one of the keys to security in other OSes. But Windows users just don’t operate like that, so then people turn it off, but once it’s turned off MS is no longer responsible for the stupid things people do logged in as god-like root level admins all the time. They get the “hey we tried” excuse.
I’m pretty sure that if you want to run OSX on your G3 you’ll need to get a G4 processor upgrade. It’s my understanding that Apple compiled OSX without G3 support.
But, I know a guy that’s says he got Leopard to run on a G3 by installing Leopard on a separate hard drive, and then installing that in his G3 and it boots and runs. He told me that in Leopard it’s just the installer that checks the for the processor.
That's not what I'm seeing. On my Win 7 test box I'm running into a problem with how the AV software I threw on it isn't "talking" to Windows security center fast enough so I'm getting warnings on both conditions (no AV then out of date) every time I boot.
Simply an annoyance since it's rectified in 10-15 seconds after WSC gets the message but certainly it's flagging it.
Odd.
An OS shouldn’t have to be annoying as hell and be a miserable experience to run to be secure.
At the same time, users need to get smart about using a computer. People shouldn’t NEED annoying pop up messages to know whether or not they have AV apps installed. They should also know not to run potentially dangerous files from untrusted sources. They should also know better than to use IE...
i purchased win 7 and find annoying that
neither firefox nor explorer work correctly.
in fact, both crash often.
Though Mr. Ballmer is a jerk and not nearly as bright as he imagines, I’m in agreement that the criticism of many is unfair. There’s nothing wrong with pointing out that the defaults are toned down; what’s wrong is criticizing both sides of a trade-off.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.