Microsoft Eyes PC Isolation Ward To Thwart Botnets

CWmike writes "In a paper published Wednesday (PDF), Scott Charney, who heads Microsoft's trustworthy computing group, spelled out a concept of 'collective defense' that he said was modeled after public health measures like vaccinations and quarantines. The aim: To block botnet-infected computers from connecting to the Internet. Under the proposal, PCs would be issued a 'health certificate' that showed whether the system was fully patched, that it was running security software and a firewall, and that it was malware-free. Machines with deficiencies would require patching or an antivirus update, while bot-infected PCs might be barred from the Internet."

Comments

A better PC health idea

[h4rr4r]

I have a simpler pc health idea, stop installing the disease that is windows.

Re:A better PC health idea

[Moryath]

While your response was flip, I can see a number of ISPs - who already have policies of "sorry all we support is Windows" if you call in because of trouble on the line, and who have script-following Indian monkeys who will demand to know your OS before talking about anything else to replace ACTUAL customer service - using this at Microsoft's behest.

"Ohh, sorry. You're running OSX or Linux? We can't scan those for their patches so we're just going to block you off. Come back when you have a nice Win7 box. Oh, you signed a contract for a year of service? If you read the 4-point fonted small type on page 37 you'll see it clearly states in paragraph 18 line 3 that only systems with fully updated Windows 7 and an active virus scan package from an approved vendor such as Symantec or McAfee will be allowed access to the internet in order to keep the service trouble-free..."

Maybe Apple would be able to cry foul and get their systems allowed too, but home Linux users would pretty much be out of luck. And so much for anyone who responsibly has a home system with a hardware NAT and their ports properly firewalled too...

Re:A better PC health idea

[jc42]

I have a simpler pc health idea, stop installing the disease that is windows.

Except that if you aren't running Windows, your machine will be declared totally infected and not allowed any access at all.

Remember that it'll be Microsoft software doing the checking.

Re:A better PC health idea

[postbigbang]

I double dog dare you to vet a wifi-connected smartphone. No bases covered *at all*. Your idea only works on flat networks, rather than multi-tiered, as well. It isn't as easy as it looks.

And when you get close, your help desk lines light up with people that can't get logged on because you set your criteria too tightly and they don't have remediation for their Ubuntu 10.10.... or even their freaking Macs. The whole rubric here is to sell more Microsoft stuff underneath the perceived goodwill proffered by trying to vet then shackle machines whose state is unknown.

Re:A better PC health idea

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"Microsoft only clients" pretty much adequately describes the malware-bearing portion of the Internet!

You only need to block access to a protected resource - who's management ELECTS this level of defense.

The real play is NOT to protect the Online Bank or Payment Portal.

It is to create a "forcing function" by which the customer remedies his client - also to helpfully cooperate on making those remedies accessible.

Why? Because Internet business models rely heavily on trust and reputation. As occurrences like "account takeover" and fraudulent transactions become more common, consumer trust in online modes for business and commerce will erode.

Your AmEx's, Amazon's and Turbo Tax's (Names from a hat - not my customers) are vested in margins that are supportable through online delivery. Their CSOs are charged with not only safeguarding their own applications and infrastructure, but mitigating the negative effects of client vulnerability on the online business model. This is a big enough problem that it drives enterprises together, at the CSO and CTO levels. They want a solution that raises the general level of trust and confidence in Internet uses.

They all see this as a problem with Microsoft - if not at fault - at its hub.

Now, Corporate Microsoft wants to use this reasonable, cooperative approach to deny service in the broadest possible way. In light of this week's failure of the Internet blacklist bill (COICA) to be ratified, without vote, in committee? I smell an agenda.

Microsoft are just the stalking-horse for Congressional supporters of COICA to use: "See, if we don't act with responsible legislation, then Industry will take the matters into its own hands!"

Trust me. I have seen how these guys work.

Re:A better PC health idea

[bloodhawk]

isolating different machines has never been a problem, the problem is that isolation is not what people are after, they want to read documents and access their apps on their portable devices, they want to use whatever they prefer external to the organisation and still have their connectivity. isolating and blocking is easy, safely permitting is the problem here.

Re:A better PC health idea

[postbigbang]

Sounds good on paper.

Now user Magee needs to access his email on his iPad. First, there's the pop3 account. Then there's gmail. He surfs. A complex page cites more than a dozen (often dozens and dozens) of other IP addresses.

You gonna shut him down? I don't think so.

Re:A better PC health idea

[technos]

They've seen the horrible uptake numbers from Vista continue with Windows 7.

Step 1. Convince everyone to get behind the idea of black-holing insecure or infected machines.
Step 2. End support for all versions of Windows other than the current.
Step 3. Wait for a new remote vulnerability in older versions.
Step 4. Refuse to patch the issue.
Step 5. Profit as everyone either has to buy a new PC or a newer operating system to access the internet.

Just think about it. Something like two thirds of machines running a Microsoft operating system are still running the end-of-life Windows XP.

Re:A better PC health idea

[DAldredge]

Windows 7 isn't have "horrible uptake numbers" It is actually doing very well.

Re:A better PC health idea

[Moryath]

Obviously not an American ISP.

Re:A better PC health idea

[Your.Master]

After three years? Are you posting from a time warp? Windows 7 general availability was October 22, 2009. It hasn't even been 1 year. And yet its install base is about a third of a product that has been on sale for almost *9* years, of which for less than 3 of those years there was another OS product (which did not do so well in the marketplace).

Even if you decided to change the subject by combining Vista and Windows 7, they combine to well over 1/3 of XP's marketshare in well under 3 years.

So let's replace that by something that makes more sense:

"Failing to replace more than a third of a previous OS product before 1 year".

I'd say that this does not contradict doing well *at all*.

Re:A better PC health idea

[mysidia]

however you can restrict it to known-good hosts

That's no good, when you need to connect to your machines from your laptop in the hotel room or coffee shop wireless.

Remote management technologies are for remote management.

Of course public key / certificate based authentication is the proper mechanism to use for remote access using SSH, and you need the server's public keys pre-installed on your client as well.

But it really does no good to limit SSH to known hosts, when you actually can't know what IP address you will be accessing from a-priori.

Pay for it?

[headkase]

And who exactly is going to pay for this? If your system is not infected can you be exempted from a "monthly fee" or is it punishing everyone when Windows is the majority of infections? Maybe Microsoft should pay for it all?

Further proof

[Darkenole]

There is no cure for stupid.

Re:ahem

[marcello_dl]

I don't think they are after linux but after XP equipped old pcs, whose users are more likely to buy a new pc if they have issues with "health certificates".

File under "Dumb Ideas"

[vtcodger]

If Microsoft or anyone else were capable of certifying a computer to be malware free, and being right about it, malware wouldn't be much of a problem, now would it?

File under "Dumb Ideas"

Re:File under "Dumb Ideas"

[MightyMartian]

Not if the core idea is to cripple any competing operating system by depriving them of Internet access, under the guise of "security".

Re:File under "Dumb Ideas"

[adjuster]

It's worse than that. The idea is to introduce pervasive and potentially legally-mandated "trusted computing".

ok, then: a couple questions

[Dhrakar]

First; who will be administering this program? Under what authority could an organization possibly 'certify' systems that are located around the world?
Next; How often would these certificates need to be updated? Every time a vendor issues a new patch?
Third; What kind of crazy-ass DRM would be needed to keep folks from just spoofing the certificates?

    Unfortunately, this is the kind of simplistic easy-to-follow proposal that our congress-critter really go for... yeesh.

Re:Modelling real disease?

[girlintraining]

Sigh. They don't want vaccinations. They want their client base spending money on half-baked security solutions. So in addition to the license, you have to pay for a certificate, pay for software certification (goodbye open source), pay for the software, pay for the bandwidth to keep your system online all the time, pay pay pay pay pay....

And nothing will change except you'll be paying more.

This would get abused

[erroneus]

Being anti-virus protected and updated sounds like a great idea until you ask questions like "which vendors of antivirus are excluded?" and "which updates will Microsoft push as critical that are just another piece of crapware or something that would break compatibility with something important to the user?"

Microsoft should be responsible. They should push out adblockers and javascript blockers. It makes browsing a lot safer. Oh no... commercial interests would be pissed and we know those interests are of more importance/significance than the end users are... remember Vista and all that DRM encumbered crap? We all know they had the consumer in mind when they did that.

Predicated on "trusted computing"...

[adjuster]

It seems like most everybody doesn't understand (or notice footnote 14 on page 5) that, in order for this to work, all the subject devices must have trusted processing capability. That means "TPM" chips, signed OS kernels / hypervisors, and the inability to run untrusted root-level code. Take a second to laugh at the idea that anyone will be able to introduce a bug-free hypervisor / TPM environment that can't run unsigned and untrusted code. After you're done laughing at that I'd recommend being angered at the notion of such a thing, since it will effectively eliminate control of the devices owned by consumers.. turning every device with a "clean bill of health" into a walled-garden appliance. As long as consumers own and control their general purpose devices there will never be a way to do what this paper describes. Frankly, I'm alright with that. We'd do a lot better to just assume that every device is untrusted and act accordingly.

Re:ahem

[similar_name]

At least in the U.S. it's hard to see how MS can justify anything because of pirates. Unless you build your own PC you are paying for Windows anyway. Even if you specifically look for a prebuilt PC without Windows it's hard (it is a small fraction of the market) to find one where you don't pay for Windows whether or not it's already installed. It is a travesty how hard they make it for legitimate users to reinstall Windows.

In countries where MS doesn't already have a contract to license Windows for every PC sold by a company it's hard to argue that people would pay for Windows separately if they couldn't pirate it.

My roommates laptop came with Vista Home. It has a COA key sticker on the bottom. Unfortunately he didn't make a restore disk before his computer crashed. He got a Vista Home CD from a friend. It installed fine(fine meaning I had to find wireless drivers that would work. Ubuntu sees it out of the box :) ) and then one day came up with the WGA crap. He typed in his valid COA key on the bottom and Vista rejected.

Now I have a few options to help him.

Call MS for support I should never need to activate a valid license.

Install a cracked version of Windows

Give him another reason to use Linux.

Why would MS even create a situation where 2 and 3 look like the least hassle? In the many closed vs open debates that go on here I often see people ask why anyone would complain about a system that is closed and marketed as such. I don't care how it's marketed closed proprietary systems are bad for technology and society. No matter how you market cigarettes they are bad for you. No matter how you market closed proprietary systems they are bad for society. Won't anyone think of the children? Our culture is being DRM'd, manipulated, and controlled by the golden calf instead of by people.

Two Words: "Microsoft's trustworthy"

[tomhudson]

They lost me at "Microsoft's trustworthy $INSERT_ANYTHING".

Sorry, but Microsoft lost my trust more than a decade ago. Microsoft is like an abusive boyfriend who says "Trust me - I've changed, this time is really different ..."

The only right response to both is "Drop dead!"

-- Barbie

Re:Two Words: "Microsoft's trustworthy"

[Hylandr]

What this really boils down to is:

We are sorry, XP is no longer supported and a patch is not available. You will not be allowed to connect to the Internet. Here's a $7 Rebate for Windows 7.

- Dan.