Microsoft Drafts Vista Security APIs

December 22nd, 2006: In a bid to avoid antitrust penalties in Europe, Microsoft recently agreed to develop application programming interfaces (APIs) to give security firms access to Vista’s core, now it is making these APIs available.

Microsoft claims that its new security features need to lock down the operating system’s kernel for complete security. Firms such as Symantec and McAfee, however, were unhappy with this as it stopped them from developing parts of their own security solutions.

Microsoft’s delivery of the first draft of the APIs comes just two months after it promised to do so, however, the final versions still will not be released until the first major Vista service pack update, currently expected in 2008.

The APIs "have been designed to help security and non-security ISVs develop software that extends the functionality of the Windows kernel on 64-bit systems, in a documented and supported manner, and without disabling or weakening the protection offered by Kernel Patch Protection," said Microsoft's corporate vice president of its Security Technology Unit, Ben Fathi, in a statement on the company’s website.

The APIs will also help security firms stamp out malicious manipulation and image loading operations as they will control whether or not applications can be loaded or modified.

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