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Hack in the Box Meets Windows Vista
Strange_Brew writes "It appears Microsoft is really going all out to get Windows Vista secured before its release date in 2007. There's an article on PC World which talks about Microsoft's plan to give Asia's largest hackers conference an inside look at the new security features in Windows Vista this coming September." From the article: "The Hack In The Box conference will host two speakers from Microsoft. The first, Dave Tamasi, a lead security program manager at Microsoft, will give a presentation on security engineering in Vista. The talk will include a discussion about features suggested by hackers and other security conscious members of the computing community, in addition to security improvements made on Vista. The second speaker, Douglas MacIver, a penetration engineer at Microsoft, will review Vista's BitLocker Drive Encryption and the company's analysis of threats and attempts to penetrate the security feature."
...when companies "invent" some home brewn encryption and offer $100,000 or so to anyone who can crack it.
When noone does the company calls his product uncrackable. These events and claims are without credibility, security doesn't get manufactured this way.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I remember the days before the release of XP SP2 - it was announced to be a security update that will make Win XP the most secured OS out there. Since then who can count the number of patches, updates and vulnerabilities. I wonder if it will be different with Vista...
Omgili - Find out what people are saying.
This is probably true. On the other hand it has been claimed about every version of MS Windows since Windows NT 3.1. The bottom line is: will it be as secure (out of the box) as competing products such as Linux, BSD, Solaris and OSX? I personally doubt it. Microsoft has built itself into a box, through decisions taken years ago, from which it is hard for them to escape. I am trying to keep an open mind though.
So MS delays Vista in order to fix security problems. Erm isn't this good? I'm assuming, of course, that no self-respecting slashdot reader has much intention of actually running Vista themselves, and that the less time you guys spend fixing your parents' Vista-crippled PC the better...
Windos security problems were seldom rooted in theoretical shortcomings, but in what we call the "real world". You know, the one where people are too lazy to create a second, non-admin account. Where IT staff is too busy to bother with the full feature set of Active Directory, and where developers are too careless and still write software that doesn't work unless you run it as admin.
There's a 95% probability that Vista will fall into the same traps, and will be just about as insecure as any other windos because of these problems and because Outlook still executes binaries sent by mail, and users can still be tricked by calling your virus.exe virus.jpg.exe and providing the proper icon.
(the other 5% are that Vista doesn't ship at all)
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Sure, whatever system is the dominant one is the primary target for hacks, trojans, exploits and whatnot. I'm convinced that there is a lot in store on Linux, if people would spend their time searching for overflows, exploits or other weaknesses. Hell, it's even easier in Linux. Grab the Source, have a blast!
Yes, it simply "does not pay" to dig into Linux insecurities. What for? First of all, there are very few "clueless" users. Linux still has the "geek system" halo, users that consider themselves "normal users" without any ambitions to run servers or who just want to browse the web and write the odd letter or two won't even go near it.
And they tend to be the prime targets for spammers, trojan injectors and other malware. The clueless, gullible people.
But let's assume, just for a moment, Linux was the dominant system. Let's say it had a nice, clean user interface that lets even the most inapt monkey set it up and use it. Then we would, of course, start to see a lot of Linux based malware.
In Linux, though, you can actually implement a complete, useful and enforceable security model. You can use every kind of software that you might need without compromising the security of the whole system. Something that is by its very design impossible with current versions of Windows. In short, it is not necessary to give the average user administrator privileges, something that is simply a necessity in Windows with a fair lot of programs.
I guess, was Linux the dominant system, the blame would shift. From the system, as it is now, to the clueless user who dared to go online as root.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's why there are so many Apache worms and so few IIS exploits, I guess.
Whoever modded parent "Insightful": Please shoot yourself. Thank you.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
No OS is ever 'truly secure'. You get to a middle ground, where you can do most of the stuff you want to, without making it too easy to break into. Thing is, all this exploit/patch cycles are just putting out the fires you get by living next to a volcano. The real problem with Windows is that it started from a single user 'integrated' environment. Unix had the luxury of being pretty much multi-user from day one. So the design model reflects things like concurrent access, and has the security foundation that are just vital for that to happen. Unix is fairly modular kernel shell GUI application. And when you have that sort of thing, you end up with something that's _fairly_ easy to keep straight, and you keep things that need to 'do stuff' in their sandbox. Windows is getting better, but I still get the impression that that's more because it's covered in sticky plasters sealing up the holes.
While it is true that architecture has a great deal to do with security and that architecture still poses a problem for Microsoft, it is also still true that over 80% of security problems are a direct result of bad coding practices dealing with input data. Stuff that we learned how to do 30 years ago is still the bane of our existence. (Ref. CERT ).
"If all the American people want is security, let them live in prisons." Eisenhower
I think after Vista Microsoft needs to seriously revamp their existing code. Forget backward compatibility. They could include virtualization technology to allow users to run most legacy applications and offer an easy to use dual boot wizard like Apple provides for those instances where virtualization won't cut it. The Windows code base has been to big and bloated for quite some time and attempting to maintain backward compatibility, while a noble goal, is the primary culprit preventing serious innovation. Would Windows lose some market share in the short term? Probably but IMHO it's necessary in order to really move the product forward. From a users perspective there weren't that many compelling reasons to upgrade from Windows 2000 to Windows XP and it would seem as though there are even fewer compelling reasons to move from XP to Vista. The added security features will probably help the uninformed casual user maintain a more secure system but let's face it, most advanced users don't have virus, spyware or malware problems because we run the software and do the preventative maintenance necessary to prevent them and anyone who thinks Vista will be so secure as to not require additional software and preventative maintenance is crazy. The support for legacy applications practically guarantees that there will continue to be all kinds of security issues. All of the coolest features promised at the beginning of the Vista development cycle have been removed. We're left with a hodge podge of various things that, while interesting for Windows users, have been available in OS X and other operating systems for quite some time and those other operating systems don't have the inherent security issues and other baggage that Windows has. In short, I don't see much of a reason to upgrade to Vista. In fact, I don't ever plan on upgrading to Vista unless a game comes out that I want to play that requires it. After buying a Mac Mini in December and absolutely loving it and with Apple's switch to Intel and the subsequent release of Bootcamp and Parallels Desktop for Mac, I'm making the switch.
I think you are under the false assumption that all the mainstream OS's out there (Windows, OS X, and *nix) are all equally flawed with regards to security, and it's just that whoever happens to be on top has all their flaws exposed to the world. Such a position assumes that, just by creating a polished and fully-featured OS, it is inherently unstable or insecure.
I for one am sick of this argument, because it simply isn't true. It IS possible for the primary OS publisher out there - be it Microsoft or someone else - to release a secure OS for the masses. While being top dog does expose you to the most flak, it doesn't a priori prevent you from doing a good job in the first place.
my $.02: The problem with windows security is primarily one of legacy support. In the beginning noone even slighly cared about security, because computers were such a small part of the overall 'picture'. Of course, times changed and we all grew more dependant on these machines. An operating system is really only as valuable as it's application base. From the start, inter-processes communication was flawed lacking any authentication method, kernel / userland seperation was virtually nonexistant, and multi-user support was severally lacking; to name just a few problems. In almost all cases these issues persisted right up till XP when microsoft started to take security seriously with SP2. Microsoft just like the rest of us is new to the whole OS design thing. We've all thought of ways we can do things differently to make a more secure / better OS, and microsoft is right there with the rest of us; learning as we go. Remember all the broken legacy apps when NT4.0 came out? Hell, the only reason I still have a windows box in my home is because of the vast library of applications available to me. Now if they go changing the underlying fundamentals of how their OS works, they are going to break their greatest strength. What needs to be done is to find a way to write binaries that are more platform independant, let the application support for this grow for a few years, and then break away from the mold and implement a version of windows that incorporates everything we've learned over the last 20 years or so. Just my $.02
0) receive pre-release Vista to look for holes 1) identify 3 or 4 holes in Vista 2) report 1 or 2 of them to microsoft 3) ??? = exploit remaining, unreported flaws 4) Profit!
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
I'm no OS master, but it seems to me that the root of all Window's virus problems stems from COM and DCOM. (OLE Automation, ActiveX...whatever you want to call it..) IIRC, you could install a DCOM component on some machine on your network, connect to it from some other machine via straight-up tcp/ip and you could pretty much do whatever you wanted with the machine running the DCOM component. I mean, you could have the DCOM component do whatever you wanted it to do...delete files...format stuff..whatever you could do with any other Windows program. All it has to do is just sit there waiting for a connection and a command from your "master" application to start it's nasty-not-niceness. Just the IDEA that you could install an ActiveX control(when you get down to it, is just a small application that just needs a container), which has full access to your machine, just by visiting a website or opening an e-mail just seems incredibly stupid to me.