"It is no exaggeration to say that the national security is also implicated by the efforts of hackers to break into computing networks. Computers, including many running Windows operating systems, are used throughout the United States Department of Defense and by the armed forces of the United States in Afghanistan and elsewhere."

--Jim Allchin, Microsoft

Summary: Amid highly misleading security-centric reports that rely on Microsoft's bogus number of vulnerabilities (Microsoft already admitted hiding many of them) Techrights presents recent news about Windows 'security'

WINDOWS is not a secure operating system. It's not intended to be, either (Microsoft's actions show that security is not the goal). One cannot ever patch NSA back doors safely. When these are patched, it's already too late and newer back doors remain in tact or are being added. Trusting Microsoft to secure Windows is misunderstanding the goal of Windows ('privileged' access) and as Stuxnet serves to remind us, the real owners of Windows are spy agencies, not people who use Windows (renting it from Microsoft in exchange for payments). See this new report titled "Stuxnet Redux: Microsoft patches Windows vuln left open for FIVE YEARS". It says that "[w]hile most of the attention this Patch Tuesday has been focused on the FREAK encryption vulnerability, Microsoft's latest batch of fixes also addresses another longstanding threat to Windows: Stuxnet." So they hadn't fixed it for so long and finally decided to do something about it? Knowing that espionage agencies were exploiting holes and taking control of PCs that have Windows installed? Wake up and smell the coffee. These actions speak volumes.

Adding insult to injury, last week we learned that "Microsoft RE-BORK[ED] Windows 7 patch after reboot loop horror". To quote the report itself: "Reports are emerging that a twice-issued Microsoft Windows 7 patch is still causing pain for users, with some claiming the fix is triggering continuous reboots.

"The patch was first issued as KB2949927 and withdrawn in October due to system faults, before being re-released this week as KB3033929."

So our conclusion is that even when Microsoft offers so-called 'patches' or 'security' there are negative consequences which are too risky to accept. For more information see this article titled "Problems reported with Microsoft patch KB 3002657, warning issued on KB 3046049". A lot of people are still using Windows XP, which receives no patches at all. Some genius, eh?

Some Web sites are now claiming that the NSA and fellow espionage operations have been largely responsible for the SSL hole someone dubbed "FREAK". Of course, despite media spin and a clear Microsoft role (perhaps inside knowledge becoming public), the flaw affects Windows as well (all versions) and Microsoft failed to properly address the problem when it was already known (advertised as public knowledge). "The response of Microsoft and cloud companies to the Freak vulnerability has been far too slow say commentators," according to one British news site/magazine which focused on security. CBS covered this only after it had been wrongly spun as a Linux and Apple issue. "Microsoft was late with the announcement so that the press could focus on Android and iOS and make it look like their problem," said iophk. Microsoft took many weeks to do anything, which gave enough time for passwords to be intercepted and for entire networks to be compromised. So again we are being reminded that Microsoft just doesn't take security seriously. While some reports try to frame Windows as most secure because Microsoft hides many flaws and games the numbers to make the competition look bad, anyone with experience in this area ought to see that Microsoft's encryption was always bogus, and very much by design! Here is another brand-new example of Microsoft 'security' in action: "Microsoft is scrambling to block a fraudulent HTTPS certificate that was issued for one of the company's Windows Live Web addresses lest it be used by attackers to mount convincing man-in-the-middle attacks."

Soon enough, based on some observers, Microsoft Windows-running "PC will become slower as it will serve the updates to another client."

It is a peer-to-peer approach that externalises cost and liability. Is Microsoft really trusting this to work better given the above reports about man-in-the-middle attacks and fraudulent HTTPS certificates? Platforms with back doors cannot ever be relied on for serving security to other systems. It's a collective compromise. Botmasters will love it!

Our last piece of relevant news deals with Pwn2Own. The headline says that "security [is] still a myth on Windows PCs" [via] and that it took just one day to crack Windows. To quote: "Day one of the 2015 Pwn2Own hacking contest in Vancouver, Canada, saw big wins for contestants and headaches for software makers: competing teams successfully exploited fresh vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash and Reader, Microsoft's Windows and Internet Explorer, and Mozilla's Firefox, to hijack PCs."

Was it Firefox on Windows as so often is the case? Not even Tor is secure on Windows. ⬆