Microsoft

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Sun 22 Mar 2009

Windows Vista Security Features-Introduction

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Windows Vista takes security seriously.It has been touted as the most secure Windows operating system yet. While that might not be saying much, the changes made to the system are indeed far-reaching and, well, secure back when Bill Gates was Chief Software Architect under Microsoft, he called on employees to make security the primary focus of present and future Microsoft products. The announcement was made in the atmosphere of distrust towards the organization’s products, as every day seemingly brought new exploits and malware to the Microsoft ecosystem.Windows XP SP2 was the first step to rectifying this problem. Microsoft also made a series of changes to its internal structure and to the manner in which the company developed software. A security-focused engineering process called Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) was established within Microsoft to move security into the very essence of software design; all widely deployed Microsoft products must follow these guidelines.Windows Vista Help people to work in a very secure environment.

Windows Vista is the first large project to be launched under the aegis of SDL. It includes new or upgraded inbuilt security technologies that actively work to detect and prevent security threats. The Windows Vista Support new User Account Control feature, volume encryption using BitLocker, code integrity verification,Windows Defender, Windows Firewall, and a new Security panel.

 

Fri 15 Aug 2008

Microsoft Silverlight 2 Beta 2 arrives

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Microsoft has now released Silverlight 2 Beta 2 for WindowsMac Intel (6.65MB). The Silverlight homepage does not yet have the new download links, but as things change, this post will be updated. Just like previous Silverlight betas, the installation is very quick and the browser may have to be restarted for the changes to take effect. Silverlight 2 Beta 2 is available for (browser versions in beta are not officially supported):

  • Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista and XP SP2
  • Internet Explorer 6 on XP SP2 and Windows 2000
  • Firefox 2 on Windows Vista and XP SP2
  • Firefox 1.5 on Vista and XP SP2
  • Safari on Mac OS 10.4.8+ (Intel-based)

There are supposed to be numerous changes and new features in this version; here’s a quick rundown of the major ones:

  • TabControl has been added to the SDK. Text wrapping and scrollbars for the TextBox and Autosize, Reorder, Sort and so on have been added for the DataGrid.
  • Many controls have moved from the SDK (the application) to the runtime and others have been brought in line with their Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) counterparts. Developers targeting both Silverlight and WPF for their applications should enjoy these changes.
  • Templating for controls has been simplified with the introduction of Visual State Manager.
  • Cross Domain is further improved over beta 1, the WebClient has been updated to allow uploads, and duplex communications (’push’ from server to SL) have been added.
  • Deep Zoom has received a major update: the file format is now XML instead of a binary format, so the ability to generate your own Deep Zoom images and collections server side will become easier. There’s also some nice new event models around zoom/pan state.

Developers will want to check out the SDK documentation which was uploaded yesterday. For a more detailed list of changes, check out the full changelog posted by Silverlight Product Manager David Pugmire. The final version of Silverlight 2 is still targeted for a “late summer” release.

Update

Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of the Microsoft Developer Division, has finally posted on his blog about Silverlight 2 Beta 2. Also, the following applications have been updated to support Silverlight 2 Beta 2 and have been posted on the Microsoft Download Center:

 

Fri 15 Aug 2008

Microsoft: Vista feature designed to ‘annoy users’

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A Microsoft manager has said that one of the security features in Vista was deliberately designed to “annoy users” to put pressure on third-party software makers to make their applications more secure.

David Cross, a product unit manager at Microsoft, was the group program manager in charge of designing User Account Control (UAC), which, when activated, requires people to run Vista in standard user mode rather than having administrator privileges, and offers a prompt if they try to install a program.

“The reason we put UAC into the (Vista) platform was to annoy users–I’m serious,” said Cross, speaking at the RSA Conference here Thursday. “Most users had administrator privileges on previous Windows systems and most applications needed administrator privileges to install or run.”

Cross claimed that annoying users had been part of a Microsoft strategy to force independent software vendors (ISVs) to make their code more secure, as insecure code would trigger a prompt, discouraging users from executing the code.

“We needed to change the ecosystem,” said Cross. “UAC is changing the ISV ecosystem; applications are getting more secure. This was our target–to change the ecosystem. The fact is that there are fewer applications causing prompts. Eighty percent of the prompts were caused by 10 apps, some from ISVs and some from Microsoft. Sixty-six percent of sessions now have no prompts,” said Cross.

Cross claimed it is a myth that users just turn UAC off, saying that Microsoft had collected opt-in information from users that showed that 88 percent were running UAC. Cross said it was also a myth that users blindly accept prompts without reading them.

“It’s a myth that users click ‘yes,’ ‘yes,’ ‘yes,’ ‘yes,’” said Cross. “Seven percent of all prompts are canceled. Users are not just saying ‘yes.’”

Security company Kaspersky has severely criticized UAC, claiming in March last year that it would make Vista less secure than Windows XP.

At this year’s RSA Conference, however, the security specialist seemed to have changed its tune. With Windows, “there is a large attack surface with a number of entry points,” said Jeff Aliber, Kaspersky’s U.S. senior director of product marketing. “Anyone trying to shrink that attack surface and promote secure apps development has to be a good thing.”

Prior to the launch of Vista, Kaspersky issued a report in January 2007 that said UAC would be ineffectual. The company claimed that many applications perform harmless actions that, in a security context, can appear to be malicious. As UAC flashes up a warning every time such an action is performed, Kaspersky said that users would be forced to either blindly ignore the warning and allow the action to be performed or disable the feature to stop themselves from going “crazy.”