Gates on Winsecurity

xandroid writes "Just a couple days after talking about free hardware, Bill Gates has sent an email to customers saying that Microsoft will continue to focus on security, titled 'A Microsoft Progress Report: Security' (MSNBC story, PC Magazine story, Google News' related stories). The email mentions that fast-spreading and destructive viruses and worms are 'threatening the potential of technology to advance business productivity, commerce and communication', but says that to counter the threats, Microsoft will make 'major investments in customer education and partnerships that will help make the computing environment safer and more secure'. He also talks about the XP Service Pack 2, and says that Microsoft is 'working with microprocessor companies, including Intel and AMD, to help Windows...support hardware-enforced data execute protection (also known as NX, or no execute)'." Reader Zephyr_in writes "Macworld reports that the beta-release of Longhorn is likely to be postponed to early 2005 because Microsoft is concentrating first on a security-focused update (SP2) to Windows XP. Earlier this week Gates said Longhorn is 'not a date-driven release.' and said the speculation that the operating system will come out in 2006 is 'probably valid.'"

Comments

NX - Finally

[rdean400]

About freaking time. IBM's mainframe and midrange server architectures have been doing this for years. In OS/400, for example, the only things the processor will execute are program objects. Memory blocks marked as data cannot be executed, even in the event of a buffer overflow. The OS and hardware work together to ensure this.