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MS To Build Antivirus Into Win8: Boon Or Monopoly?
jfruhlinger writes "Microsoft has quietly announced that it's planning on baking anti-virus protection right into the Windows 8 OS. Users have been criticizing Windows' insecurity for years — but of course this move is raising howls of protest from anti-virus vendors, who have built a nice business out of Windows' security holes. Is this a good move by Microsoft, or a leveraging of their monopoly as bad as bundling Internet Explorer?"
So making an OS more secure (I know, they could get rid of security holes... but...) is also monopolistic?
To me, this is kinda like saying IrfanView should sue because MS includes Paint or Picture Viewer or whatever they include.
IE was a bit trickier, because they did their own thing with HTML and stuff and you HAD to use IE in order to view some stuff, so it was a bit nastier. But a virus detector? What are they going to do, write viruses that only their software can find... but then they wouldn't work on other OSes... so it wouldn't be much of a lock-in.
The capitalist in me screams, "Anti-competitive!"
The IT guy in me exclaims, "It is about time."
The consumer in worries, "How will this impact performance?"
I will not mourn that which I never had to lose. - Unknown
I look at anti-virus as a compression bandage. It staunches the bleeding, but does nothing to prevent the injury....
Maybe a more secure OS from the get-go might help? Although Win 7 seems to be a step in the right direction....
And also - what kind of anti-virus will be first on the list of the malware producers to circumvent?
Today there are many different AV solutions and it's almost impossible to evade them all, but now there will be one main target.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Because there are no virus scanners, rootkit detectors, etc. for Linux, right? Oh wait there are...
Linux virus-scanners are primarily used to detect Windows viruses on servers so the Windows machines accessing those servers don't pass their infections around.
When was the last active Linux virus released?
This whole Microsoft witch hunt is ridiculous.
MS does lots of things that should get people and governments mad but including necessary software is not one of them.
First off you need a browser on OS install, and you really really should have a antivirus so that you don't get infected while searching the internet for one.
Whats next, MS is evil for including paint and notepad?
Or it is unfair for the game industry that solitaire is installed along with the OS?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
You can't have an OS that is secure against viruses, so long as 1) it allows the user to install software, and 2) it does not provide a strict sandbox for said software.
Linux, for example, permits viruses to be written. So does OS X. The reason why viruses do not proliferate on those systems is because they're not a particularly interesting attack target, and because (specifically in case of Linux) they are typically run by competent users who don't run random binaries off the Net.
iOS, on the other hand, does not have viruses, because 1) all software comes from a trusted location with no way to circumvent this, and 2) software is sandboxed such that it cannot modify other binaries on the system or create new ones, even in directories otherwise writable by the user who runs the software.
TL;DR version: the kind of security that you want is called a "walled garden". Furthermore, you're going to get just that in Win8. When there'll be the next Slashdot story on the horrors of iOS lockdown, keep that in mind.
The Technologist in me screams: "Spend more time making your OS secure and less time trying to band-aid it with virus protection!"
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
An application doesn't "need" access to all of the user's data. But how do you prevent code that runs at the users' access level from being able to access all of the data that the user has access to? If the app developer can get users to grant access to their data (not hard to do) how can the OS prevent them without having a locked down environment?
How else would you do it? What if you have a file you want to open up in more than one application? In entirely plausible to have multiple processes operate on a file in series. For instance, you use a photo editor to manipulate an image. Then you insert that image into a document. Then you compress that document. Then you send that document via email. That document has been around the block through several applications. What are you supposed to do, give each application individual permissions to access the document? Is this the height of productivity?
Remember to maintain your supply of
Linux, for example, permits viruses to be written. So does OS X. The reason why viruses do not proliferate on those systems is because they're not a particularly interesting attack target
LOL you must be new to this "internet" thing or channeling 1995.
because (specifically in case of Linux) they are typically run by competent users who don't run random binaries off the Net.... iOS, on the other hand, does not have viruses, because 1) all software comes from a trusted location with no way to circumvent this,
The linux and ios situation are closer than you seem to think.
I would guess than 99.999% of Debian installs have nothing but debian.org packages and perhaps a handful of nvidia drivers, multimedia repo files, and maybe some weird firmware files. All my "server" type boxes are 100% nothing but Debian packages, only my desktops and mythtv frontends have anything else.
Make it impossible to circumvent, people get annoyed at the restriction, simply because it is a restriction, regardless if they intend to actually go beyond it. Make it really inclusive, easy to add, as open as possible, and inconvenient to avoid, and people are OK with it. Golden handcuffs, sorta.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
In Linux you have a "default walled garden" that is your distribution and related repositories. You can jump out the garden, but is not so trivial for the casual user and gives time to think what they are really doing.
Still, nothing forbids you to install a .rpm/.deb that as root do evil things in your own system, if you really try and accepts all warnings, root passwords questions and install the needed certificates. There is nothing foolproof if the fool is smart enough.
Linux, for example, permits viruses to be written. So does OS X. The reason why viruses do not proliferate on those systems is because they're not a particularly interesting attack target
LOL you must be new to this "internet" thing or channeling 1995.
No, he's completely right. Windows is still 90%+ of the desktop usage and so is the most interesting target for that reason alone.
The fact that it's also historically been an easier target is gravy.
Advice: on VPS providers
I would guess than 99.999% of Debian installs have nothing but debian.org packages and perhaps a handful of nvidia drivers, multimedia repo files, and maybe some weird firmware files. All my "server" type boxes are 100% nothing but Debian packages, only my desktops and mythtv frontends have anything else.
That's because you're not in the "casual user" category. Any sane Linux user would use his distro's package repository first and foremost, and yes, this does reduce the risk of infection down to practically zero. But, so long as you can manually install a downloaded package - and in most Linux distros you can do so by e.g. downloading an .rpm/.deb file and clicking on it (and elevating) - you have to convince non-tech-savvy users that, no, "BARELY_LEGAL_THREESOME.rpm" or "Angry_Birds_2.deb" dropping into their mailbox is really not from some mysterious but benevolent stranger, and they shouldn't try to install it.
In short, you need to make installing software not from repositories so hard that a casual user wouldn't know how to do so, and any instruction for him would be too complicated to be follow on a whim.
He's right about the "typically run by competent users" (or in the case of embedded devices, typically built by competent engineers) but "interesting attack target"?
Hackers and botnet owners would love to have access to the millions of always-on Linux servers (often in colos with huge bandwidth available) or the hundreds of millions of TVs, BD players, and (again, always-on) DVRs that run Linux.
You're serious?
Including a default browser is one thing. Compiling *your* browser into the innards of *your* OS tends to put the competition at a disadvantage. Not to mention opens your OS up to even more security hacks.
If one could remove IE from Windows it would one thing, but you simply can't. It's baked in. Even if you remove the interface for it, the innards and all it's security issues still remain.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
They already have one: Security Essentials, and it's actually pretty good. Well, for one, I doubt it's significantly worse than a commercial AV package, and two, it doesn't constantly pester me with upgrade or renewal offers/warning/persistent, annoying popups.
How the hell is making your OS behave the way your customers expect anti-competitive?
What if MS made their OS inherently secure, such that it didn't need AV? Would that also make it anti-competitive? That would completely eliminate the AV software companies!
Ridiculous...
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
But the sooner the anti-malware "ecosystem" disappears the better.
You should not have to purchase third party software to keep an operating system secure or from eating itself (all the snake-oil "registry cleaners" and "application uninstallers"). Such functions should be part of the OS at worst, or better yet, unnecessary.
--
BMO
Personally, I don't care much about the user. I care about the system. I have no control over the user. He can delete every single file in his workspace, for all I care. He can download and run viruses intentionally, for all I care. My concern is, he doesn't compromise the system, the network, or his fellow workers. The user is responsible for his own stuff. Kinda like, the guys I work with are all responsible for their own tools, their own desks, their own housekeeping. I'm not vacuuming cookie crumbs out of their desks, but I'll make sure that the workspaces are locked after hours.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Too true! Capability computing has for so long been neglected but it could solve many of the current security issues.
For instance: I would love to grant any new app the following rights:
- interact with my screen
- interact with folder X and subfolders (read-only) in the program location
- interact with folder X and subfolders (read-write) in the data location
- interact with folder X in the registry (read-write)
For games additional rights would be:
- interact with my graphics card directly
- interact with my soundcard directly
Actually, there isn't a single reason why programs shouldn't be sandboxed like that as a default, and only getting additional rights when specifically requested and granted by the OS. Combine that with transparent redirects and most programs should run okay. Sandboxie (http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php) already does it so how hard would it be for the Windows engineer to incorporate something like that into the OS?
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)