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Microsoft Plans To Sell Anti-Virus Software
EvilCowzGoMoo writes "From the makers of our favorite OS comes: Anti-Virus! Yes you heard me right. According to an article on Reuters.com Microsoft is developing its own brand of anti-virus software. Asked if that would hurt sales of competing products, such as Network Associates' McAfee and Symantec's Norton family of products, Nash (chief of Microsoft's security business unit) said that Microsoft said that it would sell its anti-virus program as a separate product from Windows, rather than including it in Windows. My only question is: If they can't seem to patch their OS fast enough, what makes them think they can keep their AV software up to date?"
Ahh! You didn't even read the whole news post! MS isn't going to bundle this!
It's not that you didn't RTFA... I mean... all you had to do is read another sentence or two:
Asked if that would hurt sales of competing products, such as Network Associates' McAfee and Symantec's Norton family of products, Nash (chief of Microsoft's security business unit) said that Microsoft said that it would sell its anti-virus program as a separate product from Windows, rather than including it in Windows.
Casual Games/Downloads
Microsoft actually made an anti-virus programs back in the days of DOS/Win 3.11. My first computer came bundled with it. However, the only virus I ever got back then(Doom2 death), it couldn't remove. Though it did alert me to the fact that the files grew by 666 bytes(they don't write 'em like they used to, do they). It also had this nice little 16 color doctor you could watch as your files were being scanned.
Like all "Great" Microsoft products, they didn't develop anything. They bought someone up and slapped their name on it. http://www.ravantivirus.com/
Hello? 10.x upgrades were not for security purposes. If you do some fact finding, you'll see that every security fix that's come from Apple for 10.3 has been released for 10.2 and earlier if it applied. Be a little more careful, your analogy falls apart when you're incorrect about the componenent involved.
You know, Outlook has been pretty much "fixed" -- it's the only major mail client that just blackholes EXE/PIF/VBS/SCR/etc executible files. You can bet the vast majority of click-n-run trojans are not being spread through Outlook.
Most of (now pretty rare) "Outlook" exploits are really attacks against the IE HTML engine.
Of course this is slashdot, where the vast majority of people seemed to have stopped learning anything new about IT when they got fired from their dotcom job in 1999.
It's interesting considering that Symantec was considering (or at least said they were considering) switching to linux recently.
Well, Microsoft released VSAPI and VSAPI2 in Exchange for this purpose, kind of. Vendors can use these API's to scan email messages that are in the store (the Exchange message database) and disinfect them. Instead of incorporating the functionality of a AV product into the OS, I'd rather see VSAPI improved (specifically to allow deletion, and some performance enhancements, although performance issues maybe more related to the AV products) and something like it included at the OS level to improve the file disinfection/deletion/quarantine functions of existing products.
That works until everybody cries "anti-trust!" Damned if they do, damned if they don't. There's a lot of lightening up that needs to happen.
I agree for the most part. Microsoft bought Central Point Systems in the 1990s to integrate Scandisk and Central Point's antivirus scanner (msav) with DOS, but other file system checkers continued to work well and differentiate themselves. As long as Microsoft doesn't keep Symantec, McAfee, et al., from having access to APIs necessary for them to continue their own innovations in Virus Scanning, they will likely innovate features to make some users prefer to buy their product instead of buying Microsoft's. Remember, Microsoft will not be bundling it in with the OS. The problems come when Microsoft strong-arms OEMs to bundle it, especially if they use price pressure to encourage exclusivity (see also MSN vs. AOL, Windows Media vs. Real Player, etc.).
"Exchange I can understand, but you show me a version of Windows 2000/XP that doesn't come prepackaged with IIS."
IIS that comes with 2k or XP only allows 10 connections. Though a fair shade better than GeoCities, you still can't use it for web serving. At best, it's a 'lite edition'.
"Derp de derp."
Anyone else remember MSAV for DOS?
Speak truth to power.
Outlook and Outlook Express do not let you open attachments by default. This was fixed about two years back, and it is about time that Slashdot took notice.
In typical MS fashion they bought out this company a while back for this express purpose. The only thing that wasn't known is when and this article doesn't enlighten us any further. So like I said, this is old news.
Microsoft loves to make money. They would love to be in a situation where you buy a product from them, and then you just keep sending them money on a nice, predictable basis.
Antivirus software is perfect from that point of view. I'm actually kind of surprised it took them this long to do it. I suspect they just didn't want to annoy Symantec and the other companies.
Antivirus software is one of the few products where I think paying an annual fee really makes sense. You need constant, continuous updates to make sure that your protection is good, so you feel like you are getting something for your money.
Despite the above, the free software community has actually shown that it can provide effective antivirus software for free. ClamAV was originally designed to be a server-side antivirus solution only, but there is a Windows version available now (file scanning only, it doesn't yet intercept downloads and scan them automatically). ClamAV works and it has a good track record of getting updates quickly to dectect new viruses.
http://www.clamav.net/
I run Debian GNU/Linux on my server and on my desktops, and I'm not too worried about viruses and worms. But I do have ClamAV running on my mail server, and it intercepts dozens of viruses per month. I have not seen any email containing a virus or worm ever get past it.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Mwehehehe... I remember that. MSAV was like THE most buggy DOS TSR in existence. Although FASTOPEN (DOS command to irreperably damage all the files on your HDD in one step) was probably worse :^D
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Where to begin? Code available via internet, running outlook, not firewalled (enough), not patched (enough) and the list just keeps on going.
Nah, it would be all too easy to answer that question.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
By default, OE6 also warns you when applications attempt to send e-mail in your name.
Last time I looked the latest version of office still can run on windows 98, or are the MS Office team working on Office 2010 and get tweaks they need put into Windows XP? I beleive that the office team is in exactly the same position that OpenOffice is (except OpenOffice is multi platform). I can see the people building utility apps (eg windows movie maker) for windows XP being able to get a tweaks added to the windows code.
Go out and get sailing!
I worked at Microsoft during the Win2k development cycle, testing the (then NT5) user interface. There was a LOT of screaming from the Office 2k people, who wanted to roll their stuff into the core OS, so that they could hook into it with the suite.
The NT5 team told them to get stuffed, at least as far as I know. I was also a peon at the time (and I no longer work there) so I can't say for certain that was the case.
InThane
However, people are using viruses to install things like open-relay SMTP servers on computers. The POSIX security framework will make it harder to launch executables that perform that type of action.
What's more, in order for a mailer to launch an executable program, you'd need a mailcap entry that included a reference to /bin/sh. The real problem is Windows' broken way of launching applications, by treating them as just lost cousins of document files.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
Defrag from XP is by Executive Software Diskeeper. Norton's NT defragger is different (although I believe the defragging method is the same - MoveFile API or something like that?).