Balmer: With Vista spyware and other malware is history
Steve Balmer, chief executive of Microsoft, has made a statement about the securityfeatures in Windows Vista: “Windows Vista will deliver a level of security that could bring an end to traditional virus and worm attacks”, he claimed during a public speaking engagement in Silicon Valley yesterday. He claims that, when we take away the human error-factor, Vista is going to be so secure that all kind of malware should be history because by then Microsoft will have eliminated the known attack vectors that people use against Windows today.
Balmer argued that the enhanced security should be one of the main reasons to upgrade, together with the better searchabillities. Because of Windows, being the OS where most of all attacks are against, they where able to collect a huge amount of data, which they used to make the next version better.
One of the big changes is the fact that users aren’t being Administrator after installation, so malware shouldn’t be able to attack the whole system. Of course, Mac OS X, Linux, *BSD and other Unices are running in non-privileged mode by default (and running default as root on those systems is known as one of the biggest mistakes to make) for years, but the change to better security can only be encouraged.
The forthcoming Internet Explorer 7 also contains enhanced security features, including the ability to inform users when they visit a known phishing website.
But, while claiming that the operating system itself would be “bullet-proof” , Ballmer warned that criminals will find other ways to target computers.
“The next generation of attack vectors are more likely to be insidious, in the sense that instead of disrupting people it will try to steal your money and steal your identity,” he said.
“The battle moves more to malware and phishing than just the old-fashioned viruses.”
