Microsoft receives security vote of confidence

Aug 22, 2005: Despite Microsoft's reputation for providing poor protection against worms and viruses, Forrester Research has praised the company for responding well to the recent Zotob worm, which brought networks to its knees.

Last week, the worm hit enterprises around the world, infecting machines running Windows 2000 by exploiting vulnerability in the plug-and-play service. It affected Visa and media companies such as the U.S.'ABC and CNN.

Analysts Paul Stamp, Laura Koetzie and Benjamin Gray, from Forrester Research, said that Microsoft was quick to respond with a security bulleting and a patch for the flaw.

"In previous releases of Windows, Microsoft enabled almost all features of the OS whether the customer needed them or not, attracting much criticism from security-conscious customers. In the last major OS releases, Microsoft changed direction and started disabling features by default, forcing customers to enable only the features that they needed.

"The vulnerability that Zotob exploits affects all Windows systems, but because only Windows 2000 systems have the anonymous logon feature enabled by default, most Windows 2003 Server and XP machines were Zotob-proof."

The analysts added that this is the first widespread worm to hit enterprises since MyDoom in January 2004. They believe that this indicated two things: 1). Users are getting better at protecting their systems and 2). Virus writers are turning their attentions to more profitable activities, such as density theft and attacks on specific companies.

The analysts also said that although security bugs will always appear, fewer services will be available to exploit in the future and worm writers will have a tougher time creating attacks like SQL Slammer and MyDoom that affect enterprises across the board and around the world.

"However, expect worm writers to step up to the level of focused activities targeting vulnerabilities known to exist in specific environments - and these will have much more serious financial consequences for the victim."

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