Microsoft's antivirus package makes a splash

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not really

Patchgurad does incorporate some programming which makes it unique to the machine as integrated. You will not be able to reliably load anything other then another Microsoft product. In an excerpt:

?On top of this, PatchGuard blocks features to protect against tampering with security tools, McCorkendale said. Malicious programs increasingly try to disable security software, and the tamper-protection features aim to prevent that. "There is a whole bunch of companies out there that have pioneered next-generation security, that are limited by PatchGuard," McCorkendale said. There's another "disturbing side effect", according to a Symantec blog posting. While legitimate security vendors can no longer make extensions to the Vista kernel, attackers have already found ways to disable and work around PatchGuard, it says. Sana Security and firewall maker Agnitum sounded a similar alarm. "Bad guys can bypass PatchGuard today," said Vlad Gorelik, chief technology officer at Sana Security, which makes host intrusion-prevention software. "Microsoft has this assumption that if you put a shield in, the bad guys will stay out. That is not the way it works. But now they force security vendors to bring a knife to a gun fight." The barrier to the Windows kernel forces security companies to adopt hacker tactics, Gorelik said. "We will have to come up with alternative mechanisms for doing the same thing," he said. "In some cases, we can actually take a page out of the bad guys' text book and bypass PatchGuard."

Patchgurad is already known to block third parties but it should also be noted that it?s already been hacked. What I fail to see is through testing from Microsoft over any issue that locks down the core. I?m all for security but we need reliability. Only days after release of Patchguard was a crack found. And should it lock down the core, what steps do us IT guys have of circumventing it should a system require maintenance? Once a root password has been set, it?s not like IT where, for security reasons, the company forces all it?s users to adopt new passwords on a monthly or semi monthly basis? Once a root admin password gets out, it?s hard to change the local admin rights on 65k boxes.

My other concern is how will Patchguard react with other programs, most noted, backward compatibility? According to these reports, backward compatibility is an impossibility due to the fact that many programs wrote directly to the system and kernel. By restricting that access, you inherently lock out backward compatibility. And when running Office 2003, if access is blocked, I?ve had the pleasure of witnessing that the program would try to reinstall itself each time the user wanted to use Word or Excel. This held true for IE 6. It wouldn?t launch when the user was not an administrator on the local box.

My other concern is that Microsoft can?t protect you from viruses. Microsoft?s antivirus program in the past has not only been flawed, but reportedly allowed a host of known spyware full access as a default to it?s rules, most notably, GATOR, a product of P2P networking and a belligerent source of insane pop-ups, and other spyware (http://netrn.net/spywareblog/archives/2005/07/01/microsoft-antispyware-ignores-claria/) and a main venue for virus, Trojans and other malware. With the launch of Vista slated for whenever, I?m sorry to say, it will be a mixed blessing on so many levels.

In terms of making a splash, it will only be the sound of it?s face hitting the floor as it stumbles out the door.

Posted by: mypl8s4u2   Posted on: 08/14/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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