Microsoft's own antivirus fails to secure Vista

[kazuya]

This was a little read from 1 hour ago. The page fails to make it easy to get the actual results without logging in or having an account. In summary, Microsoft's own antivirus software, Live OneCare, is unable to fully protect Vista users against viruses; and one of McAfee's antivirus software packages also fails to protect users, according to independent research released on Friday.



Follow the link:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39285807,00.htm

[Rodneyck]

Oh Linux, how I love thee. :lolflag:

[SunnyRabbiera]

Of course it would be ironic if McCaffee would kill the virus while the thing will be around forever with MS's precious AV...
Nice goin MS, nice goin :lolflag:

[Adamant1988]

Meh, both are lackluster AV programs, IMO.

I'm a bigger fan of kaspersky (or Active Virus shield, which is made from it and is free).

AVG gets my runner up.

[kazuya]

This may change in the future ofcourse.It is good news for the anti-virus software companies. It shows the need for their services. It promotes more business. The good thing for MS is that, I believe they may start putting better emphasis on security and secured usage of the MS operating system.

In Linux, contrastingly, the user is less skeptical and worried as the system is designed more securely and less attached perhaps.

I believe the same thing that makes linux not to win market share {its diversity} and openness is what keeps it so secure.

I believe that Vista would be more secure than XP if alone by design. For those who are already good with securing their XP install, Vista may take some of their control or safety efforts from them. The majority of users of strictly XP would benefit from this should they be able to afford new machines and waste the old. The ones already fortunate to know of Linux would not look back to Vista.

So I conclude by saying Vista would do well by some users not aware of the equivalent or for hard core gamers or folks looking to have the most powerful machines run resource-hogging apps.

I know most companies and informed users would cling to their XPs or go to Macs or Linux or BSD, etc.

[Adamant1988]

This may change in the future ofcourse.It is good news for the anti-virus software companies. It shows the need for their services. It promotes more business. The good thing for MS is that, I believe they may start putting better emphasis on security and secured usage of the MS operating system.

In Linux, contrastingly, the user is less skeptical and worried as the system is designed more securely and less attached perhaps.

I believe the same thing that makes linux not to win market share {its diversity} and openness is what keeps it so secure.

I believe that Vista would be more secure than XP if alone by design. For those who are already good with securing their XP install, Vista may take some of their control or safety efforts from them. The majority of users of strictly XP would benefit from this should they be able to afford new machines and waste the old. The ones already fortunate to know of Linux would not look back to Vista.

So I conclude by saying Vista would do well by some users not aware of the equivalent or for hard core gamers or folks looking to have the most powerful machines run resource-hogging apps.

I know most companies and informed users would cling to their XPs or go to Macs or Linux or BSD, etc.

Microsoft has done a lot to increase the safety of their systems, UAC for instance. Unfortunately, in a dazzling display that can only give Microsoft the leverage later to say "Our users are intentionally doing this" people want to turn UAC off because it gets in the way of their usual practices.

Microsoft put the right things in line to make Vista so much more secure than XP. Now Users are intentionally disabling those features that were put there to give them the security they asked for.

[RAV TUX]

moving to windows forum

[DirtDawg]

If I remember correctly, Microsoft tried hard to make Vista a secure environment. However, McAfee and Norton complained that secure Microsoft would amount to a monopoly(!). In the end, they won.

It's unfortunate that their lousy cottage industry can screw everybody else over because they feel they have the "right" to also take our money.

[Trebuchet]

I use AVG, so I don't really care about MS's anti-virus. It's not like it comes installed with Vista anyway. I don't depend solely on my AV software, but also on practicing safe computing.

I think many Linux and Mac people depend far too much on those OS's having few or no viruses in the wild as of yet. Sooner or later that's going to bite them in the ***.

[steven8]

I believe MS was not allowing outside vendors access to the kernel, thus blocking McAffe and Symantic from working on protecting it. I use Avast and the SP2 firewall to protect my XP installation. It's been pretty good.

I'm not so sure hackers want that badly to attack Linux in general, as the type of people who seem to create virus's are doing it because they want to hurt 'the man', so to speak. If Linux were to ever succeed like MS, AND seem to do it at the expense of the little guy, then I believe virus creators would start gunning for it.

Apple is it's own animal altogether. Steven Jobs has not historically been a good man to work for, and their systems are zipped up tighter than a duck's behind. . .yet people do not hate them as they do MS. I do not know why, but something about Apple touches people in a different way. Folks just don't want to 'take them down'.

The whole problem about virus protection is the fact that people who fight virus's can't 'anticipate' the next virus. They can only react after people have been hurt by it.

[Trebuchet]

I'm not so sure hackers want that badly to attack Linux in general, as the type of people who seem to create virus's are doing it because they want to hurt 'the man', so to speak. If Linux were to ever succeed like MS, AND seem to do it at the expense of the little guy, then I believe virus creators would start gunning for it.Let's hope that's the case, although I think if Linux ever really goes mainstream it'll lose a lot of its "rebel" image and could become a target for hackers. Apple has almost as bad a rep as MS (just read the Apple OS forums here) and I could see hackers going after Apple too if it gets much bigger.

While I think "hurtin' the man" is a major part of the hacker anti-MS meme, I also think the fact that getting a virus into Windows has 50X the effect that scoring against Apple and 100X than against Linux is a major factor. Simply put, hackers get more bang for the buck attacking Windows. An attack against Windows makes national news, an attack against Linux only rates comment on geek websites. It'll be interesting to see if commercial Linux distros like Red Hat and SUSE or China's Red Flag Linux (as a government-controlled distro) come under greater fire than free distros

[steven8]

Let's hope that's the case, although I think if Linux ever really goes mainstream it'll lose a lot of its "rebel" image and could become a target for hackers. Apple has almost as bad a rep as MS (just read the Apple OS forums here) and I could see hackers going after Apple too if it gets much bigger.

While I think "hurtin' the man" is a major part of the hacker anti-MS meme, I also think the fact that getting a virus into Windows has 50X the effect that scoring against Apple and 100X than against Linux is a major factor. Simply put, hackers get more bang for the buck attacking Windows. An attack against Windows makes national news, an attack against Linux only rates comment on geek websites. It'll be interesting to see if commercial Linux distros like Red Hat and SUSE or China's Red Flag Linux (as a government-controlled distro) come under greater fire than free distros

Oh yes. No doubt about the bang-for-your-buck on the windows virus thing. With the internet and intranets around the world, -all on windows machines- a hacker can do major damage if they get past the defenses. I don't see the thrill in it, and I was a MAJOR anti-establisnment guy growing up in the 70's and 80's. I'm still a liberal, but I have learned to respect people and what they have. I take no pleasure in destroying anothers property or information.

[Trebuchet]

Back on topic: While it's amusing to mock Microsoft for its failure to protect Vista with its own AV software, I couldn't help but notice that McAfee and another big AV vendor (Kasparsky?) also failed. While MS is new to AV software, McAfee is probably the biggest AV software company in the world. Another reason not to put sole trust in AV software, but to also practice safe computing.

[Adamant1988]

I believe MS was not allowing outside vendors access to the kernel, thus blocking McAffe and Symantic from working on protecting it. I use Avast and the SP2 firewall to protect my XP installation. It's been pretty good.

I'm not so sure hackers want that badly to attack Linux in general, as the type of people who seem to create virus's are doing it because they want to hurt 'the man', so to speak. If Linux were to ever succeed like MS, AND seem to do it at the expense of the little guy, then I believe virus creators would start gunning for it.

Apple is it's own animal altogether. Steven Jobs has not historically been a good man to work for, and their systems are zipped up tighter than a duck's behind. . .yet people do not hate them as they do MS. I do not know why, but something about Apple touches people in a different way. Folks just don't want to 'take them down'.

The whole problem about virus protection is the fact that people who fight virus's can't 'anticipate' the next virus. They can only react after people have been hurt by it.

A lot of actual virus writers are just testing their own skills with code. This has been noted in many examples where an arrest has actually been made. You'll find a teenage who essentially says "I just wanted to see if I could do it". About Apple, they have had more reported security flaws over the last couple of years than microsoft, they just fix them very quickly it would seem, and the severity of the flaw wasn't mentioned in that article, they could have been very minor.

Unfortunately, as someone said, Big AV companies were getting upset with just how tightly Microsoft locked down the windows kernel. I believe it was Symantec (producers of Norton) that openly admitted they were having to use "black hat" techniques to access the kernel to install their wares. Microsoft, at this point, should be allowed to secure their systems as they see fit, it's sad when an improvement on their product is considered a violation of antitrust law.

[uNmentaLogic]

Back on topic: While it's amusing to mock Microsoft for its failure to protect Vista with its own AV software, I couldn't help but notice that McAfee and another big AV vendor (Kasparsky?) also failed. While MS is new to AV software, McAfee is probably the biggest AV software company in the world. Another reason not to put sole trust in AV software, but to also practice safe computing.


I've been using Kaspersky anti virus and I have had no trouble, mind you I don't know if it's working properly. (using the beta version)

I have tried Avast in Vista but I found that it was buggy and kept the cpu at 100% while idle which is annoying because I have used it for years on XP and not had a single virus infection.

[steven8]

I've been using Kaspersky anti virus and I have had no trouble, mind you I don't know if it's working properly. (using the beta version)

I have tried Avast but I found that it was buggy and kept the cpu at 100% while idle which is annoying because I have used it for years on XP and not had a single virus infection.

Yes, Avast works great on my XP, and doesn't hardly touch the CPU. Looks like they have some tweaking to do for XP. Did you report it to Avast?

[uNmentaLogic]

Yes, Avast works great on my XP, and doesn't hardly touch the CPU. Looks like they have some tweaking to do for XP. Did you report it to Avast?


Unfortunately not, I wanted a Virus scanner on asap and removed it after I found out what was causing the strain on the cpu.

[Trebuchet]

I've been using Kaspersky anti virus and I have had no trouble, mind you I don't know if it's working properly. (using the beta version)

I have tried Avast in Vista but I found that it was buggy and kept the cpu at 100% while idle which is annoying because I have used it for years on XP and not had a single virus infection.I tried Avast! a little while ago, but stopped using it because you can't schedule anything on the free version. I much prefer an AV product which self-downloads definitions daily and scans automatically, which is why I went back to AVG.

[steven8]

I tried Avast! a little while ago, but stopped using it because you can't schedule anything on the free version. I much prefer an AV product which self-downloads definitions daily and scans automatically, which is why I went back to AVG.

Avast does do all that. It gives me a little popup from the icon tray to let me know when the virus database has been upgraded, and to let me know when new versions of the program itself are available. It scans constantly, and has caught stuff on the fly several times. I had AVG, but like the fact that Avast was more user friendly. Weird, huh? :-)

[Rodneyck]

Here is another interesting piece...

New Windows Vista hacked already

The Norman Transcript

The marketing propaganda touting Microsoft's new Vista operating system as "the most secure version of Windows yet" has done nothing to stop both white and black hat hackers from discovering Vista vulnerabilities. Unless you simply enjoy acting as an experimental Microsoft guinea pig, it's best to wait before trying to run Windows Vista.

Quite disturbing were recent revelations that Microsoft's own Live OneCare antivirus program, tailored specifically for Vista, is unable to block many well-known computer viruses. Another antivirus package from McAfee also fails to do the job. This fulfills predictions made in early 2006 by antivirus firm Symantec (maker of Norton AntiVirus) that, because of Microsoft's failure to provide ways for antivirus programmers to fully integrate their products with Vista, many antivirus programs would have a hard time protecting Vista users. I guess that includes Microsoft, as well.

Russian hackers posted instructions to an underground forum describing how to implement "privilege escalation," which could bypass some Vista security measures. This hack could escalate the "privileges" of a normal Vista user into that of a "superuser," allowing him to change anything he desired on the system. This would be particularly dangerous in a corporate environment where normal computer users have limited privileges, in that they cannot install programs, visit certain Web sites, etc. This threat is considered so serious that Microsoft has scrambled its "Security Response Center," which is ostensibly still trying to figure out what to do.

Microsoft also recently acknowledged that Vista's built-in speech recognition software could be exploited by bad guys to delete files and even shut the computer down. This wacky (and quite clever) hack works something like this: A Vista user downloads and plays a malicious audio file, probably thinking that it's the latest Toby Keith song. Instead, the audio file begins barking commands through the computer's speakers, such as, "Delete all files in the 'My Documents' folder," or, "System shut down." These verbal commands are picked up by the computer's microphone, processed by the built-in speech recognition software, and the computer obeys. Crazy, huh?

Research done by Tokyo-based security vendor Trend Micro, makers of the popular PC-cillin antivirus products, has uncovered the existence of ongoing eBay-style black hat hacker auctions where attack programs that can be used to compromise Vista computers are being bought and sold for as much as $50,000. Reports are that, in order to steal as much money as possible, computer criminals are biding their time and building their arsenals, waiting for Vista to be installed on more computers around the world before unleashing their most powerful Vista-busting weapons.

In the face of known Vista security holes, Microsoft spokesmen have been unapologetic. Stephen Toulouse, senior product manager at Microsoft's "Trustworthy Computing Group," told CNN, " We know from the outset that we won't get the software code 100 percent right ... but Windows Vista has multiple layers of defense." Another Microsoft representative told ZDNet, " It's important to remember that no software is 100 percent secure."

Still, I wonder, "Why is it important for me to remember that no software is 100 percent secure? Oh, yeah, so I'll remember to hold off on installing Windows Vista."

Said one very irritated and frustrated Vista early adopter, "I should have bought a Mac."

Dave Moore has been repairing computers in Norman since 1984, when he borrowed $1,200 to buy a Commodore 64 system. He can be reached at 919-9901 or www.davemoorecomputers.com.

http://www.normantranscript.com/cnhi/thenormantranscript/commerce/local_story_040004515