12.11.09

Trend Micro: Vista 7 Less Secure Than Vista

Posted in Microsoft, Security, Vista, Vista 7, Windows at 4:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Trend Micro’s assessment of Vista 7 concurs with previous analyses which say that Vista 7 is a step back when it comes to security

ON several occasions in the not-so-distant past, experts warned that Vista 7 is even less secure than Windows Vista. To give previous examples of security issues in Vista 7:

Now comes yet another firm, Trend Micro, claiming that Vista 7 is less secure than Windows Vista:

Windows 7 is less secure out-of-the box than Vista, despite Redmond’s protestations to the contrary, a top security firm has claimed.

Trend Micro said that the default configurations of Windows 7 are less secure than Vista. Raimund Genes, CTO of Trend Micro, said that Windows 7 had sacrificed security for useability – at least for default configurations.

We shall continue to keep track of such important claims.

In other (in)security news yesterday:

i. Scareware slingers flaunt fake MS endorsement

Surfers visiting the URL on the Windows Support site referenced in the scareware from a clean PC will get a 404 ‘page not found’ message. Hacked PC victims will see an apparent endorsement.

ii. Potent malware link infects almost 300,000 webpages

A security researcher has identified a new attack that has infected almost 300,000 webpages with links that direct visitors to a potent cocktail of malicious exploits.

iii. How many people fall victim to phishing attacks?

According to a recently released report, based on a sample of 3 million users collected over a period of 3 months, approximately 45% of the time, users submitted their login information to the phishing site they visited.

The important point to remember is that Vista 7 changes nothing as far as security is concerned. Microsoft and/or its apologists love to defend Windows using the talking point that security issues are the fault of people who do not migrate to the latest version of Windows. It’s a sales pitch. █

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12 Comments

Yuhong Bao said,

December 12, 2009 at 11:32 pm

“To give previous examples of security issues in Vista 7:“
I already explained or debunked some of the previous ones. On this one, it is about default configurations of Vista and 7, and I am sure that most of the defaults can be changed.
Yuhong Bao said,

December 12, 2009 at 11:34 pm

On Linux default configurations, one of the most famous disasters was to allow any local users to install packages by default:
http://lwn.net/Articles/362771/

your_friend Reply:
December 13th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
That article in LWN is surprisingly rude and ill informed. It is rude because it paints the changes as ignorant and arrogant if not malicious. It is ill informed because the result is not really a big deal. I would not configure my system that way but I would not be so rude to a software maintainer about it. We’re talking about free software here, love it or change it. Outrage is only proper in the non free software world, where the user has traded their rights for promises of care. Why do you equate the obligations in two models which have such clear differences?

More fundamentally, why do you try to equate Microsoft and Unix insecurity? Both systems have 30 year security histories and one is obviously better than the other which requires a useless, often abusive, monthly patch. Microsoft’s insecurity is a blight on the internet. Vista and Windows 7 are just as bad as any previous version of Windows. Claims of better security have been made of every previous version, usually with detailed technical descriptions that ignore fundamental flaws that allow attackers remote, root level access. With so long a history of failure, it is unreasonable to expect a change.

Malicious claims of flaws in competing software is part of Microsoft’s criminal behavior. Their agents religiously defend Windows and make vague threats of doom for others. They have said the same things about Netscape, Mac OS, Unix and GNU/Linux. This has gone on for so long, it is surprising to see that Microsoft credibility lives on.

Yuhong Bao Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 4:16 am
“Both systems have 30 year security histories and one is obviously better than the other which requires a useless, often abusive, monthly patch.”
It is not that simple.
“Malicious claims of flaws in competing software is part of Microsoft’s criminal behavior. ”
One of the most recent is when MS tried to FUD Chrome Frame.
“usually with detailed technical descriptions that ignore fundamental flaws that allow attackers remote, root level access.”
Really, is NT really that fundamentally flawed? I don’t think so, look at ReactOS

Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 4:39 am
“Malicious claims of flaws in competing software is part of Microsoft’s criminal behavior. ”
One of the most recent is when MS tried to FUD Chrome Frame.

Or Google search.

your_friend Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Yes, NT was fundamentally flawed. The security record speaks for itself. I know people who had NT hosed over like any other version of Windows. It’s all the same.

Yuhong Bao Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
http://www.reactos.org/en/about.html

Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
I’ve taken a look. You have to remember their bias though; they need to justify their own choices.

your_friend Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
NT as is flawed as it and it’s descendents are worse. That is the well established record. A free software implementation of NT will be better than the thing that Microsoft’s team of poached VMS engineers could throw together but it won’t be NT if it fixes NT’s fundamental and implementation flaws. I consider access control lists poor design, but what do I know? So here are words of wisdom from people who do know. Michael Feathers,

a willingness to live with a little less to avoid the bigger mess and a willingness to see elegance in the real rather than the vision

and the famous words of someone who knows all about legacy code, Michael Feathers

Those who don’t understand UNIX are doomed to reinvent it, poorly.

Reactos is a nice effort but it’s hard to take seriously anyone who’d say the crazy things on that about page. It would be nice to have a free implementation of Windows to run other user hostile legacy programs. The about page, however, reads like something from Microsoft’s “Get the facts” pages. Someone who knows better should clean that embarrassing mess up.

your_friend Reply:
December 20th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
NT is flawed as it is. That’s how the last one should have started. I’m not sure what happened to make it so incoherent looking.

Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 13th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Wasn’t this reversed?

Yuhong Bao Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 4:11 am
Yes, it was.

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