No Third Party Security Needed For Vista?

By Greg McNevin

November 13th, 2006: While spruiking its upcoming operating system, the head of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division Jim Allchin has said that the antivirus and security measures in Windows Vista are so good he let his young son to surf the internet without any third party security software.

The news will no doubt rouse the ire of security vendors such as Symantec, who have already had antitrust scuffles with Microsoft in European courts over Vista’s new features. They have already been locked out of the OS’s 64-bit core with no workaround due for at least a year.

Allchin declared his faith in Vista’s security features during a conference call to journalists, saying that Vista's security would frustrate hackers, particularly features such as parental controls and address space layout randomisation. The latter is interesting as it slightly alters each Vista install so one virus or exploit no longer fits all.

“That's to be proven, so we will see about that,” said Allchin according to bit-tech.net. But I need to say the following: Windows Vista is something that will have issues in security, because the bar is being raised over time. But in my opinion, it is the most secure system that's available, and it's certainly the most secure system that we've shipped.

“I feel very confident that customers are far better off by using Windows Vista than they are with anything that we've released before.”

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