“Four years ago, Bill Gates dispatched a companywide e-mail promising that security and privacy would be Microsoft’s top priorities. Gates urged that new design approaches must ‘dramatically reduce’ the number of security-related issues as well as make fixes easier to administer. ‘Eventually,’ he added, ‘our software should be so fundamentally secure that customers never even worry about it,'” Adam L. Penenberg writes for Slate.com. “Microsoft customers haven’t stopped worrying. A year later, Windows was hit with several nasty worms, including Slammer, Sobig, and Blaster. The viruses caused major traffic bottlenecks throughout the world, which cost tens of billions of dollars to clean up. Vulnerabilities deemed “critical” have forced the company to release an almost unending stream of patches and fixes to the Windows operating system, Microsoft Office, and Internet Explorer. Just last week, another problem reared its head—a security hole that could allow Windows users to become infected with adware, spyware, or viruses by simply viewing an e-mail, instant message, or Web page.”
“While the company claims that Vista will be more secure against hack attacks, the computer security professionals I talked to are skeptical. ‘We hear this each and every time Microsoft comes out with a new operating system,’ says Brian Martin, an independent computer security consultant. ‘It is still built on the same legacy code, it is still written without adhering to secure coding practices, it is still thrown to the masses without adequate security testing.’ Richard Forno, a principal consultant for KRvW Associates and a former senior security analyst for the House of Representatives, believes that Microsoft is a threat to national security,” Penenberg writes.
“Microsoft’s security problems are only going to get worse. The company designs its products to work together, creating a Microsoft monoculture. Because there are so many shared paths from Internet Explorer, Outlook, and Windows Media Player into the operating system, if you exploit one, you exploit them all. Vista promises to continue this consolidation by making the operating system the glue that connects users to their PCs, televisions, PDAs, and portable music and video players,” Penenberg writes. “What can you do to protect yourself? Besides avoiding Microsoft products, one way would be to use substitutes whenever possible. If you run Windows or the upcoming Vista, use a different e-mail program, browser, and/or media player than the ones that come in the box. Stay up to date on patches and anti-virus software. And the next time Bill G. promises to make software that is so fundamentally secure that customers never have to worry about it, ask him what decade he plans to release it.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Macintosh. Because life’s too short.
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Microsoft as a company might not be a threat to national security, but widespread adoption of the Windows OS and associated applications definitely puts us at risk. We all know it. We all cringe when we think of a Department of Homeland Security “standarizing” on Windows.
But when we, as technical professionals, try to push for a proper analysis of the risks associated with a Windows monoculture, we typically get blank stares. When we push for alternative components – say, Firefox instead of IE – we as typically hear about “cost of conversion”.
But anyone whose been in IT over the years knows we’re converting all the time: Windows 3.1 to ’95 to NT 3.51 to NT 4.0 to Windows 2000 to XP. Mainframe app to local app to client-server to web and java. Netscape to IE. Desktop to laptop. Old PC to new. Each such change presents an opportunity to migrate to an alternative platform.
But large organizations reliant on specialized home-grown apps won’t migrate away from Windows until those apps are rearchitected to support an alternative environment, and small businesses reliant on specialized apps (say, real estate agents, or opticians) won’t migrate until they have, or become aware of, viable non-Windows alternatives.
Until then, they’ll continue to be at risk.
If I had a nickel for every broken promise and delayed release from Microsoft Bill Gates would be fetching me coffee.
“if you exploit one, you exploit them all”
“Just last week, more digital content providers were announcing additional deals with competitors like Microsoft and others that use the software giant’s Windows operating system.”
I can see it now–PlaysForSure iPod killers…THAT GET INFECTED!!!!!
Threat to national security is too soft a take on it! When M$ continues to collapse over the 2-3 years, and starts to drag down stock portfolios all over the country…
SJ once said that he never met an HR type “who was worth a damn” to a person he was interviewing for the job. I will gladly add IT people to that list–because I’ve never actually seen a Mac IT person. (If you are one and read this WAY TO GO!)
iVlad:
I am blessed enough to be a Mac IT person. I have the utter joy of running a small network of 7 macs most of which are running Tiger, a Tiger server, and a laptop that is VPN’ed in from half way across the country and “It just works”. The only issues I’ve had (Except when I was upgrading the equipment) are with my one and only PC that I need to run one app and if I could get virtual PC to run reliably I would ditch the PC hardware in a heart beat to run it on a mac.
So basically what I’m saying I guess is, don’t give up. It will change. Apple will take the #1 spot from Microsoft. Apple is doing a planned assult on the status quo, it’s a war out there… A media war, where the fighting is done in the news papers, radio, tv, word of mouth…. But if Apple sticks to there guns and does what is right, they will WIN!
Seems to me that Apple releases regular security updates but no one notices because everyone pays attention to the OS that has 90-odd percent of the computing market.