Microsoft Begins anti-virus Software Development

An anonymous reader writes "From the article: Microsoft's announcement that it will enter the AV market next year, with initial trials starting next week, could be a sign of many things to come, says SecurityFocus's Kelly Martin. " Not unexpected, given their recent purchase.

Comments

Start the week with a dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft To Offer Virus Defense

Masterplan!

[Libor Vanek]

1, Sell OS which enables viruses to spread very easily
2, Create AV SW
3, Profit on selling AV SW AND new OS updates! Muhahaha...

Jeez, we're screwed...

Re:Masterplan!

[moviepig.com]

Do airlines try to rent you parachutes?

geez

[Wordsmith]

MS developing anti-virus software to find the same viruses the company's own shoddy programming allowed to propogate is like the Slashdot editors developing a dupe search to find the same duplicates their own shoddy editing allowed to be posted.

Physician, Heal thyself !!

[fluffywuffy]

But don't pass the cost to your patients ...

Resistance is futile

[gelfling]

I guess the most depressing aspect of this is that I put almost no credibility in most of the statements MS makes. If they are succesful then it will be a weak middling product that probably focuses on protecting MS OS's and applications exclusively, probably will interfere with everyone else's products and will most likely be several years and several releases late. On the other hand it will probably wind up being 'free' as in you don't have to pay for it directly but because it will be cancerously embedded in the OS it will help keep the price of MS products absurdly high. And last but not least, the list of security patches for the AV tool itself will be extensive. Plus you can figure that it will absolutely crash Firefox and Openoffice.

... in other news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

slashdot.org has announced that they will begin development of anti-dupe software sometime in 2006.

slashdot.org has announced that they will begin development of anti-dupe software sometime in 2006.

slashdot.org has announced that they will begin development of anti-dupe software sometime in 2006.

MSAV?

[jack_csk]

Does it mean our favorite MSAV from DOS 6.22 finally has an update?

Re:MSAV?

[laffer1]

lol.. guess i'm not the only one that remembers Microsoft Antivirus from back in the day...

My first pc, a packard bell (very sad) included dos 6.22 and windows 3.11 for workgroups. Microsoft antivirus had a dos and windows graphical interface and basically did a checksum test on all the files. It created files to remember what it checksum'd in each directory as I recall.

It took forever to scan and obviously didn't catch much and had many false positives. Imagine using tripwire to check for viruses except on a dos partition with nothing to check but byte size and maybe the modify date!

It was credited to symantec in the about box I think.

This is nothing new.. just a comeback!

Goals?

[Sierpinski]

Perhaps instead of "getting into the anti-virus market" maybe they should reconsider how they might make the underlying infrastruture less vulnerable.

There's a reason for user mode and kernel mode. Just because the "system" CAN have full permissions to everything, doesn't mean that it should!

Besides just think of all the money they can make selling books/classes on how to configure their newfound security!

Re:Goals?

[dioscaido]

There's a reason for user mode and kernel mode. Just because the "system" CAN have full permissions to everything, doesn't mean that it should!

And MS has agreed with this since NT4. Remove your user account from the Administrator group and. surprise, your system is fully protected, and spyware/viruses aren't a problem because executables cannot modify system folders or system registry. In fact, Win2k/Xp/2k3 have much richer access implementations than the unix filesystem protection in vanilla linux distribution -- you'll need to get the ACL kernels for matching capabilities.

The real problem is the MS marketing dept, which opted to not confuse Grandma and make accounts Admin by default. Longhorn will make accounts limited by default, and in addition when logged in as admin it will drop priviledges of all apps that don't need admin priviledges (like IE), which is pretty cool.

Re:Goals?

[Craig Ringer]

The ability to run as a limited user is, in my experience, nigh useless. Users will regularly encounter things that require admin priveleges to install, even things like browser plug-ins, and then won't run except as the user they were installed as. This requires temporarily modifying a user's account - always fun - to get them to install and work.

Even better, some apps won't run except as admin because they try to fiddle bits of the registry and/or filesystem they assume they'll have access to, because "everyone runs as administrator". Games are the #1 culprit here, but a large proportion of general use software has that problem too. It's not Microsoft's fault that app developers are idiots, but it still makes the limited privelege accounts nigh useless. Unfortunately, they can't conjure a long history of least-privelege-by-default so they're stuck with breaking compatibility with old apps (90% of users would equate "need to change user account to run program" with "broken OS") or retaining the current braindead defaults.

I do agree with you on the fine-grained priveleges in NT, though I wish they were consistently inherited instead of propagated through the filesystem tree. The issue with ACLs is that unless very carefully administrated they tend to become a hideous and unmanageable rats nest where nobody can clearly state what happens in a given case. This is as true on UNIXes with ACLs as it is on NT. I've always been way happier with the groups-within-groups model, which lets you get 90% of the benefits of ACLs with 10% of the complexity. It never seems to have become all that popular, though :S

Wake me up...

[Vo0k]

...when the first virus spreading over the Microsoft Antivirus system is written...

BTW, will it be free? If not, I'd say, brillant strategy. First sell them system vulnerable to viruses, then sell them protection against them. Microsoft should start charging for security updates downloads too.

Much more important point

[say]

The point of this security focus article - if you actually read it - is that MS might be going for a subscription-based licensing in the long run. See, you don't pay for Windows, MS Anti-Spyware and MS Anti-Virus, you pay to subscribe to all these, software upgrades and security patches.

That means MS could: a) make people more aware that they are paying for patches, making it more probable that they will use them; b) be able to roll out new OS upgrades instantly, and avoid having to support WinXP far into the 2020-ies; c) hunt pirates more effectively; and d) make shitloads of cash also on people who don't need cutting-edge updates.

It's really just the RedHat model coming to Windows, and I think there are compelling reasons for Microsoft to make it this way. After all, MS can't live with the fact that many home users still use Win98 (think of all the lost revenue!)

Re:Much more important point

[HuguesT]

Sorry, I'm throwing away all of my mod points just to respond to this nonsense.

This is **NOT** the RedHat model coming to Windows. Redhat's subscription is 100% voluntary. You can still get all of their software, including the Enterprise stuff, without spending a single cent in subscription. Redhat's software is GPL, it is guaranteed to remain Free forever.

With RedHat, you pay if you believe their service actually add value to your business. With Microsoft, if you *don't* pay, your business can't run. Period.

Re:Now we are really

[It doesn't come easy]

All Slashdot posts are redundant by definition, since only certain stories are posted on Slashdot to begin with, and all of the comments are repeats from some earlier post. In about 15 years, the only moderation you will see is redundant...redundant...redundant, cause there will be no new stories by that time. This will be the sign that the Singularity is upon us, as Slashdot posts begin to come from an artificial intelligence faster and faster, then comments, then redundant moderation, then posts, then comments, then redundant moderation, then posts, then comments, then redundant moderation...eventually the virtual world is filled with Slashdot posts moderated redundant...

Such is the fate of mankind.

Is it just me?

[voudras]

or is microsoft getting into the anti-virus market sorta like self fullfilling?

I mean really. I guess they dont make enough money just keeping thier products secure

3 words for you

[FidelCatsro]

Conflict of intrests

Re:3 words for you

[FidelCatsro]

I see this got moderated a troll for some god unknown reason.
Ok i better fill it out a little

Microsoft develop an operating system with bugs which allow worms and viruses and trojans to propagate .
Microsoft then continue to build an anti virus system to either sell with or give away with the system.
It is not a troll its a statment of fact , this is a conflict of intrests .
It would be better if they give it away for free but then that is incredibly anti-competitive and a conflict of intrests still to a lesser degree though.
if they sell it then they are creating a conflict of intrests because fixing bugs in their OS then becomes something which could detract from sale of the anti virus software.
it is a conflict of intrests plain and simple , i do not say this to troll only to point out that this is very much an unethical practice .

Re:3 words for you

[Tibor the Hun]

Don't worry about troll mods. These newfangled mods wouldn't know a troll if it bit them in the ass.

You know what scares me?
I thought with Longhorn MS would develop a somewhat virus secure system, that wouldn't need a full fledged AV.
Now, with this they don't have to. It pretty much means, in the Windows world, it's gonna be more of the same with respect to viruses... You're not safe without a good AV product.

Can you see how they're gonna spin this one? "We're so commited to our secure computing initiative, we've developed our own AV product, and made sure it "Just Works" with your current operating system!"

Different

[mattmentecky]

To offer up a different (aka unpopular and hated) perspective, Microsoft isn't alone in the field of companies that offer up an imperfect product or a product that will break with intention of selling more. And they shouldnt be treated like they are some super new-bread of evil, it has been around for a while.

Technology in industry has come to a point (heck, a while ago) that can produce never-dull razors, lifetime long light bulbs and lifetime appliances (has anyone had a refridgerator/washer/drier last more than 5, 10 years nowadays?) but we see none of these. Why? It benefits a company more to make broken-products or sub-par or eventually-break products than something of quality. Microsoft is no different. I guess thats just Capitalism? More money == 'good'

Microsoft business model

[infernalC]

1. The anti-viral software will be made available for XP, but will be built-in for Longhorn (if Longhorn ever happens - we're still waiting).

2. The subscription cost will be built into the Longhorn price for retail copies.

3. OEMs will have a choice of becoming .dat file distributors or retailing subscriptions to MS' direct service. Distributors will either have to pay massive up-front fees or massive MS taxes. The initial subscription is mandatory (bundled) either way.

4. After you will pretty much be forced to pay for this software, you will quickly realize that it is INCOMPATIBLE with your third-party ftp client, web browser, etc. This thing is gonna be tied to IE (probably intentiontionally crippled).

5. Microsoft, respecting anti-trust laws, will provide an API for you to Microsoftize your Internet applications. The API specs and the library itself will of course be made available for a $10,000 licensing fee and signature on an NDA (Microsoft will disguise this as an effort to protect users' security). The API/library will not be available on OSS-compatible (much less GPL-friendly) terms.

6. Microsoft will sit back as they rape their userbase, who will believe that Microsoft is doing them a favor; even if they don't, vendor lock-in is a beautiful thing.

7. Profit!!!!

Don't tell me you don't see this coming.

Now if they could just fill in the missing step... wait a minute...

No kidding...

[koko775]

It's a rare thing for me to be able to find something I'm searching for, and I often find that my searches come up with irrelevant results. IMO the search needs some rethinking.

Re:No kidding...

[jamie]

We're working on it. Right now Slash just uses MySQL's MyISAM FULLTEXT indexing, which is kinda 2001. It's a cheap solution that we've limped along with for quite a while. But we've rewritten our search code to be modular, anticipating a better solution that we can plug in, once we find one we like. Our top contenders right now are Lucene and Kinosearch.

SELL SELL SELL!

[Big Nothing]

Note to self: sell all shares in Symantec.

Re:You meant this?

[Oktober Sunset]

no its:

1) Sell OS with lots of vulnerabilities enabling viruses
2) Profit!
3) Profit!
4) Profit!
5) Create anti-virus software
6) Profit!!
7) Profit!!
8) Profit!!
9) Profit!!
10) Profit!!
11) ??? (while making profit!!!)
12) Profit!!!
13) Profit!!!
14) Profit!!!
15) Profit!!!
16) Profit!!!
17) Profit!!!
18) Profit!!!
19) Profit!!!
20) Profit!!!
21) Profit!!!
22) Crush competitors
23) Profit!!!!
24) Profit!!!!
25) Profit!!!!
26) Profit!!!!!!
27) Profit!!!!!!1!
28) Profit!!!!!!11!!!
29) Profit!!!!!11!!!!!11!!!!!!!!111!!one!!!1!0ne!!!!!!
etc...