Is Microsoft's Firewall Secure?
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Some say Win XP SP2 enhancements cause conflicts, don't protect as claimed.
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Description: A new Microsoft upgrade tries to make Windows XP more secure against attack. Service Pack 2 contains a program -- known as a firewall -- that keeps out some destructive computer worms.
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By Ryan Blitstein, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Feb. 7--Computer security is often about keeping the bad guys out. On Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled a series of technologies that make it easier to let the right people in.
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A software patch to protect your system is available from Microsoft.
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Microsoft on Thursday flatly denied reports that one of Windows XP Service Pack 2&#39;s most touted features leaves users open to possible attacks.
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But some progress has been made Review Microsoft has gone out on a limb to promote Vista not merely as "the most secure version of Windows ever" (every recent version is marketed with that tired slogan), but for the first time as an adequately secure version of Windows. "We've got the message and we've done our homework", the company says. So let's see if the reality lives up to the marketing hype.â¦
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As other attacks surface Doubts have arisen about the effectiveness of a Windows key generator package that allegedly offered a means to circumvent Microsoft's anti-privacy protection.â¦
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&quot;The most secure version of Windows today is Windows XP with SP2,&quot; Microsoft explained in a statement it issued. &quot;We recommend that customers upgrade to XP and SP2 as quickly as possible.
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Following Microsoft's lead, software maker opts to issue fixes on a monthly timetable. But does that make customers more secure?
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Security researchers Tuesday said they&#39;d discredited Microsoft&#39;s claim that the year&#39;s first critical Windows vulnerability would be &quot;difficult and unlikely&quot; to be exploited by attackers.On Tuesday, Immunity updated a working exploit for the TCP/IP flaw spelled out Jan. 8 in Microsoft&#39;s MS08-001 security bulletin, and posted&#160;a Flash demonstration of the attack&#160;on its Web site. The exploit, which was released to customers of its CANVAS penetration testing software -- but is not available to the public -- was a revised version of&#160;code first issued two weeks ago.&quot;This demonstrates conclusively that the MS08-001 IGMPv3 vulnerability is highly exploitable,&quot; said Dave Aitel, Immunity&#39;s chief technology officer, in a message to his Dailydave security mailing list.Aitel&#39;s assertion challenged Microsoft&#39;s earlier assessment that &quot;there are a number of factors that make exploitation of this issue difficult and unlikely in real-world conditions.&quot;Immunity did acknowledge that its newest exploit was not 100 percent reliable, however.Other security companies reacted to the revamped attack code and Flash proof by issuing new alerts. Symantec, for instance, sent a new warning to customers of its DeepSight threat network. &quot;The exploit demonstrates remote code execution,&quot; noted Symantec. &quot;The exploit works against Windows XP SP2 English Default [and shows] two Windows XP SP2 computers on a local subnet with firewall enabled being compromised.&quot;It urged users who have not already deployed the patches Microsoft issued Jan. 8 to do immediately.Previously, Aitel had called out the IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) vulnerability as a potential blockbuster for 2008. In a detailed analysis of the flaw and its exploitation, Symantec agreed that the reward to hackers would be large even if replicating Immunity&#39;s work might be tough.&quot;Although exploitation of a remote kernel flaw is considered quite difficult, over the past few years numerous papers have been released on the subject,&quot; the Symantec analysis noted. &quot;Examples of exploits successfully leveraging such flaws have also been released to the public. Therefore, we assume that this issue will be exploited in the wild to execute arbitrary code. Deploy patches immediately.&quot;Successful attacks by the Immunity exploit -- and any similar to it developed by others -- allows arbitrary code to execute within the context of the Windows kernel, said Symantec, an especially egregious scenario for Windows Vista.&quot;This is especially critical on Vista, due to its enhanced kernel security mechanisms,&quot; said Symantec. &quot;A local user, even an admin, may have difficultly introducing unsigned code into the kernel, but in this case, it can be done remotely without any authentication whatsoever.&quot;This vulnerability presents an opportunity to not only execute arbitrary code on the system, but also to install backdoors and other malicious tools as well as a rootkit, which may normally be more difficult with a typical remote userland vulnerability.&quot;In its Jan. 8 MS08-001 bulletin, Microsoft ranked the IGMP flaw as &quot;Critical&quot; for Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, Windows Small Business Server and Windows Home Server. On other versions, including Windows Server 2003, the bug rated an &quot;Important&quot; label.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.&#160;
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(InfoWorld) - Nearly a year after Microsoft introduced Windows Live OneCare, the company's first foray into the security market is still getting low marks from analysts and users. A recent report comparing the antivirus products of various vendors ranked Microsoft's product at the bottom in terms of detecting potential security threats. At the same time, users are complaining that OneCare, which includes firewall, antivirus, backup, and antispyware software, quarantines the entire mail store of their Outlook and Outlook Express programs, making it impossible for them to retrieve e-mail. AV-Comparatives, a project in Austria overseen by security researcher Andreas Clementi, published the antivirus comparison report, which also looked at products from Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky Lab, BitDefender, Fortinet, F-Secure, and several other antivirus products from smaller vendors. In detecting Windows viruses, worms, macros, scripts, and other OS threats, Microsoft ranked last out of the 15 vendors tested, detecting them 91 percent of the time. G Data Software AG's Anti-Virus Kit (AVK) ranked first with 99.6 percent detection, while products from three vendors -- Kaspersky Anti-Virus, MicroWorld Technologies eScan, and F-Secure Anti-Virus -- tied for second with 99 percent detection. TrustPort Antivirus Workstation from AED came in third with 98.9 percent detection. In preventing intrusion through backdoors, Trojans and in other malware detection, Windows OneCare also ranked last out of 13 vendors, with 79.6 percent detection. TrustPort came in first at 99.5 percent detection; AVK came in second with 99.4 percent detection; and AVIRA GmbH's AntiVir Personal Edition Premium came in third with 98.9 percent detection. If ranking low in its rates of malware and virus detection isn't enough to irk users, a recent update to the product has been quarantining the Outlook.PST file, which stores mail in Outlook and Outlook Express, users reported recently on a Microsoft Windows user form. "This is the most unacceptable act Microsoft has ever committed," groused one user on the forum. "I run a small business, and I am screwed. I have no way to respond to e-mails because I made the mistake of trusting Microsoft ... and all of my e-mails and contacts are gone." Microsoft confirmed the problem Friday and said it will update the Windows Live OneCare engine to fix the problem as part of its monthly patch release cycle. The company also offered the following step-by-step fix to recover lost e-mail in the meantime: *Â Close Outlook or Outlook Express *Â Click change OneCare settings in the main OneCare user interface *Â Click on the viruses and spyware tab *Â Click on the quarantine button, and then select the pst or dbx file, and then click on restore. To ensure that the problem does not continue until the next update, Microsoft said users should also do the following: *Â Click change OneCare setting in the main user interface *Â Click viruses and spyware tab *Â Click on the exclusions button *Â Click on the add folder button *Â Navigate to the specific folder that contains the .dbx or .pst file to be excluded. *Â Click OK.
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A Microsoft security executive said his company has made substantial progress on  security under its Trustworthy Computing initiative. But users at this week's Security Standard conference were more cautious in their assessment.
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Opinion: Internet Explorer is insecure junk, and it&#39;s time for Windows users to move to Firefox if they want to protect their systems.
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Could integrating antivirus software into Windows be the key to solving Microsoft&#39;s security woes or could the technology create more problems than it solves?
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MOICE and sleazy Microsoft's attempts to protect against the growing range of attacks targeting unpatched flaws in its Office application suite are only likely to be partially effective, according to security experts.â¦
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QUESTION: What is the best approach to protecting me from ID theft and related activities? Will a software package work best, or must I go to a hardware firewall?
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Despite reports to the contrary, Microsoft has confirmed to BetaNews that it has made no changes to its Windows Genuine Advantage program to lock out users with invalid or pirated keys. "Microsoft has no plans to lock users out of their PCs, nor does it have the technical capacity to do so," the company told BetaNews.