10 November 2006
No Anti-virus needed?
Maybe it was not intentional, but Jim Allchin of Microsoft seems to have challenged virus writers and security professionals to disprove his claims that Vista is very difficult for a virus to move from one Vista machine to another.
He stated in a telephone interview how his son is using Vista with parental controls and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) and he is completely confident in his son's safety as well as the computer's improbably of getting a virus without having any anti-virus software on the computer.
This is completely against what every security and IT professional will tell you. No computer should be run without some anti-virus. The operating system is not even running in the 'wild' yet, until that happens the security is not truly put to the test. The true stability is unknown. The only thing that is know is that in a controlled environment it is fairly safe from attack.
With comments like this from Microsoft, it is even more likely that a virus or other exploit will be created sooner and will be able to pass between computers with no difficulty. It probably won't be for malicious purposes. It will just be for the challenge and to prove that it can be done. I do repeat though, just because one person is overly confident and foolish enough to run a computer connected to the Internet with no real security, do not follow suit. Run anti-virus software, a firewall, and adware protection at the very least.
He stated in a telephone interview how his son is using Vista with parental controls and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) and he is completely confident in his son's safety as well as the computer's improbably of getting a virus without having any anti-virus software on the computer.
This is completely against what every security and IT professional will tell you. No computer should be run without some anti-virus. The operating system is not even running in the 'wild' yet, until that happens the security is not truly put to the test. The true stability is unknown. The only thing that is know is that in a controlled environment it is fairly safe from attack.
With comments like this from Microsoft, it is even more likely that a virus or other exploit will be created sooner and will be able to pass between computers with no difficulty. It probably won't be for malicious purposes. It will just be for the challenge and to prove that it can be done. I do repeat though, just because one person is overly confident and foolish enough to run a computer connected to the Internet with no real security, do not follow suit. Run anti-virus software, a firewall, and adware protection at the very least.
