Microsoft Delays Stirling Security Suite

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's long-awaited integrated security suite, codenamed Stirling, has been delayed by months and will now not be available until the fourth quarter 2009. According to Microsoft, the delay is due to the further development of the firm's behaviour based technology, the Dynamic Signature Service, 'to help deliver more comprehensive endpoint protection for zero-day attacks,' and efforts to add interoperability with third-party solutions, as per customer requests. When completed, the suite will combine a number of tools, such as the ISA Server and multiple Forefront products."

Comments

In other words

[NaCh0]

It doesn't work yet.

There is so much legacy cruft in Windows I doubt it will ever be secure. MS has too many conflicting priorities.

Re:In other words

[saleenS281]

No, in other words they've got so much extra work to make sure they don't violate anti-trust they've had to go back to the drawing board 30 times to satisfy symantec, mcafee, etc.

Because hey, it's horrible that I have to buy anti-virus software, but it's even worse if MS gives me something to replace third-party for free!

Re:In other words

[hairyfeet]

The problem with making the OS more secure is the dancing bunnies which is of course a PEBKAC problem. No matter how secure you make the OS ultimately it comes down to the user. If the user happily clicks through your warnings and does something stupid, well stupid is as stupid does. Unless you are ready to allow MSFT to hand out thin clients that THEY control and manage then extra security just won't work. I have many customers as well as this going on 9 years old Win2K box I'm typing on that has NEVER had a bug. Not one. Zilch nada squat. Why? Because I don't open email attachments, or go to warez or pron sites, or allow stupid folks on my machine, that's why.

And all the security in the world won't save MSFT from the seriously fucking dumb users you have out there. Believe me, as a Windows repair man, I know this. I have found this can be broke up into 3 main categories. 1-The "my BFF Jill sent me this so I know it is safe" 2- The "I'll click on anything that'll give me teh hot lesbos" guy, and 3- The "Kid running some P2P that will click on any .mp3.exe if it is labeled as whatever trashy pop hit of the day they want to hear".

Notice a pattern there? In all 3 of those major cases of Windows pwnage extra security would NOT help. They would bitch and moan and keep right on clicking through warnings until they got the dancing bunny and a nice infection to boot. But I do know the feeling, I too once believed that "if it was just made secure" but then I learned the hard way. I have a customer that is one of the "I'll click on anything for teh hot lesbos" types, so i talked him into trying Linux. I can't remember which distro off hand but I think it was either PCLOS or Mepis. Whichever one had released a new version later. Anyway, Linux is more secure, right? Surely that will fix the problem, right? WRONG. He STILL managed to completely bone the system to beyond bootability in less than a week. How? Because he didn't like getting software through the package manager so he typed in "Linux Software" into Google and downloaded a bunch of stuff off Freshmeat and ended up in dependency hell. So now I just keep him in a locked down XP account and clean it out a couple of times a year when he fills it with malware.

The point is you just can't build foolproof anything, much less a foolproof OS where the users have the right to install software, because the fool will out dumb you every single time. It doesn't matter about education level either, as I had a buddy that manages a fairly big company have to go to the regional head because his PHB was threatening to fire him because "You WILL stop blocking my emails from Melissa right this instant! I am your boss and you have NO RIGHT to tell me who I can talk to!". And the simple fact is more and more attacks on Windows is using the SOCIAL engineering tricks to get installed. because you will never write a virus that will be able to jump through as many hoops as a user trying to see the bunny. All you can do is try to clean up the mess. Just as I think JavaScript is a mistake of ActiveX proportions but I can holler that on the roof tops until hell freezes over but it ain't gonna keep places from using it. And if you look up "JavaScript infection" in Google the amount of hits you get is simply staggering. But as long as places like Youtube use it I can't block it on my customers because they want the bunny. All the security in the world ain't gonna help if the user happily turns it off.

OneCare for Business?

[KBlommel]

It looks like this is Microsoft's security suite for the business/enterprise environment, much like their OneCare is for the consumer market.

I'd be careful buying any security software from Microsoft, not only because of their "track record" when it comes to security, but because it's not their main focus. When you've got such big priorities as Windows, Office, xBox, ect, you can't expect them to produce and support a security suite very well.

They need to learn to leave the security products to those companies who specialize in it. They're the ones who do it day in and day out, and they're the ones who you can trust in an enterprise environment.

Privileges

[number17]

All it does is removes your user from the "Administrators" group and adds you to the "Users" group.

Windows virus devastates millions of idiots

[David Gerard]

A computer worm that spreads through low security networks, memory sticks, and PCs without the latest security updates is posing a growing threat to users blitheringly stupid enough to still think Windows is not ridiculously and unfixably insecure by design.

Despite many years' warnings that Microsoft regards security as a marketing problem and has only ever done the absolute minimum it can get away with, millions of users who click on any rubbish they see in the hope of pictures of female tennis stars having wardrobe malfunctions still fail to believe that taking Windows out on the Internet is like standing bent over in the street in downtown Gomorrah, naked, arse greased up and carrying a flashing neon sign saying "COME AND GET IT."

Microsoft cannot believe people have not applied the patch for the problem, just because they keep trying to use Windows Genuine Advantage to break legally-bought systems. "Don't they trust us?" asked marketing marketer Steve Ballmer.

Millions of smug Mac users and the four hundred smug Linux users pointed and laughed, having long given up trying to convince their Windows-using friends to see sense. "There's a reason the Unix system on Mac OS X is called Darwin," said appallingly smug Mac user Arty Phagge.

"It can't be stupid if everyone else runs it," said Windows user Joe Beleaguered, who had lost all his email, business files, MP3s and porn again. "Macs cost more than Windows PCs."

"Yes," said Phagge. "Yes, they do."

Ubuntu Linux developer Hiram Nerdboy frantically tried to get our attention about something or other, but we can't say we care.