Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

MS To Build Antivirus Into Win8: Boon Or Monopoly?

Posted by Soulskill on from the efficacy-to-be-determined dept.

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?"

23 of 748 comments (clear)

  1. Anti-Trust by 0123456 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I would love to see governments attacking Microsoft for making its software too secure. That would keep me laughing for years.

    1. Re:Anti-Trust by cptdondo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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....

    2. Re:Anti-Trust by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
    3. Re:Anti-Trust by 0123456 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

    4. Re:Anti-Trust by Karlt1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So how do you "secure" an OS and still allow users to run whatever they want to?

      And before you say "don't run as administrator", any app that can run with the users privileges has access to all of the users data -- which is harder to replicate than system files.

    5. Re:Anti-Trust by wisnoskij · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
    6. Re:Anti-Trust by blair1q · · Score: 5, Funny

      You're typing into it.

    7. Re:Anti-Trust by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    8. Re:Anti-Trust by Karlt1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why do applications need access to all of the user's data?

      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?

    9. Re:Anti-Trust by gmuslera · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    10. Re:Anti-Trust by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    11. Re:Anti-Trust by Mathieu+Lu · · Score: 5, Informative

      When was the last active Linux virus released?

      To be fair.. under Linux you do have userspace exploits that allow you to gain root, and from there install a rootkit. They tend to be really obscur and get patched quickly, but they still exist.

      So an attacker usually needs to combine, for example, a Firefox/Libreoffice/PDF/Mail/PHP exploit, userspace exploit, then rootkit. And there are tons and tons of servers out there with old versions of PHP and Linux kernel. Most of the time people discover it only because they are exploited by spammers.

    12. Re:Anti-Trust by jbolden · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Capability computing. You don't grant applications the rights of a user. Rather an application is granted the right to do X to thing Y. So getting access to a user's file doesn't mean access to all of them. Some other problem controls granting capabilities.

      As an aside the NT kernel 3.51 had an excellent capabilities and Windows still has it. Microsoft just never made their own software, including the shell / GUI work with it.

    13. Re:Anti-Trust by Dahamma · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    14. Re:Anti-Trust by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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
    15. Re:Anti-Trust by St.Creed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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)
  2. Perspectives by 4pins · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Perspectives by redmid17 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?"

      Did you have the same worries when MS put a firewall in XP with Service Pack 2 in 2004?

    2. Re:Perspectives by Enderandrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The reason I started using it on Windows desktops is I saw a fairly comprehensive review of 19 different popular anti-virus products.

      Security Essentials had the second lowest footprint, and the second best detection engine. And given the price (free and doesn't harass you to upgrade to a paid product) and I think it is hands down the best solution for the average user.

      You can blast Microsoft for a lot of products, but Security Essentials is pretty solid.

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    3. Re:Perspectives by JGuru42 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I started using MSE because of a story here on Slashdot talking about a review of a large number of antivirus products and I was amazed to see people on Slashdot putting their trust in a Microsoft product.

      I've been a hater of Microsoft for a long time now thanks to all the anti-competitive and backstabbing stories I've heard but also because of using their various products. And yet now that I've been using MSE I've turned a corner and started to recommend it to friends and family.

      I casually help fix computers for people that know me, sometimes going so far as to do it all over the phone when someone lives too far to visit. At first I tended to browse through their machine looking for the troublemakers and then after finding everything I could I would install and run MSE only to watch it detect and clean 100% of the things I had found and even some I had not, like a trojan hiding in the MBR. I've watched it catch different varieties of the TDSS rootkits, clean up all manner of other nasties and only once have I seen it make a mistake, with Chrome being reported as a virus. Yet, even with that flaw Microsoft had detected the issue and it was on the "More Information" page and had been fixed later that night. Since then I've come to trust MSE to do it's job well and I've started to run it first then clean up afterwords and it hasn't let me down yet.

      If Microsoft wants to provide a built in antivirus with Win8 but allows it to be disabled to run other things, just like Windows Firewall, then I am all for it. I would do almost anything to keep people from installing the nightmares that are Norton & McAffee (and these days sadly Zone Alarm Antivirus). I've watched both those powerhouse antivirus programs completely miss fake antivirus programs that sneak through Facebook and in Nortons case it turned a simple "Safe Mode/Delete/Remove Registry Startup Command" into a three day slog that only worked when I finally got mad an uninstalled Norton from the machine.

      Microsoft might still make some majorly boneheaded decisions but providing a built in antivirus does not seem to be one of them.

  3. Good for consistency; bad because of consistency by show+me+altoids · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think this would be a great idea as long as MS keeps it well updated and people don't rely just on it. It would immediately improve the security of the PCs of all the people who don't bother with antivirus, but it may lull others into a false sense of security and give them an incentive to not get any other antivirus which would put a target for virus writers squarely on MS's solution.

    --
    I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
  4. Bill was right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Bill Gates was right. Microsoft had every right to add whatever features and applications it wanted to its OSes. Look at Chrome OS, Android, Mac OS X, iOS. All have browsers and other applications "built-in". In fact, Chrome OS doesn't even allow you to use an alternate browser, while Windows always allowed this. Adding non-intrusive and automatic antivirus to Windows 8 is a step forward.

  5. The Technologist Perspective by hellfire · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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"