Microsoft Releases Super-Secure XP to US Air Force

Wired is reporting that Microsoft is releasing the most secure version of Windows XP ever created, but only if you are the US Air Force. "The Air Force persuaded Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to provide it with a secure Windows configuration that saved the service about $100 million in contract costs and countless hours of maintenance. At a congressional hearing this week on cybersecurity, Alan Paller, research director of the Sans Institute, shared the story as an template for how the government could use its massive purchasing power to get companies to produce more secure products. And those could eventually be available to the rest of us. Security experts have been arguing for this "trickle-down" model for years. But rather than wield its buying power for the greater good, the government has long wimped out and taken whatever vendors served them. If the Air Force case is a good judge, however, things might be changing."

Comments

It's not a new version, it's just a configuration.

[YesIAmAScript]

'The Air Force, on the verge of renegotiating its desktop-software contract with Microsoft, met with Ballmer and asked the company to deliver a secure configuration of Windows XP out of the box. That way, Air Force administrators wouldnâ(TM)t have to spend time re-configuring, and the department would have uniform software across the board, making it easier to control and maintain patches.'

So if you'd like to do it yourself, you can secure your XP too.

http://nvd.nist.gov/fdcc/fdcc_faq.cfm

I'm not sure super secure is the right word for this version of XP though, given that there are a lot of security features it is missing that Vista, Windows 7 and some other OSes have.

Re:Obviously this can't work

[secPM_MS]

I am a security program manager at Microsoft. The article gets much of it wrong. The Air Force wanted the machines preconfigured to a secure configuration so that they did not have to do this configuration. Such configurations are not distributed to the general public because of the impact on generalized consumer useability. Microsoft always publishes a security guide which provides guidance on configuring systems for different threat environments. For example in the Windows Vista Security Guide, Chapter 5 is titled "Specialized Security - Limited Functionality". Such security guides exist for NT on.

Users are free to configure their systems for higher security. Note that doing so may limit functionality you are used to. For example, you can configure your system so that all users run as normal users (no administrative functionality). Running users as normal users is part of all security guidance. Not all XP software will run if you do this. You can set IE to high security mode by default and disable Flash, etc. Doing so breaks much of the web but is more secure. You can get security, but it will impact your user experience.

It is easier to secure Vista and 2K8 server systems.

Re:I bet the british wished they had this...

[anjilslaire]

let's see, Windows on hospital equipment recently got Conficker because Microsoft no longer provided security patches for Windows 2000 and NT.

Uh, no. The MS08-067 patch that addresses conficker was released for Windows 2000 at the same time as all the other OSes, with the exception of NT. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-067.mspx

Re:I bet the british wished they had this...

[j79zlr]

let's see, Windows on hospital equipment recently got Conficker because Microsoft no longer provided security patches for Windows 2000 and NT.

Extended support for Windows 2000 doesn't end unitl July of 2010. The patch that fixes the exploit on Win2k is here if interested.

As for NT, the long term support ended over 5 years ago.