The Road to Vista, Part III

Wes Henry

Security in Windows Vista

One of the marketing messages Microsoft is sending regarding the new version of Windows called Vista is that it’s the most secure version of Windows yet.

But what makes it more secure, and how secure is it? And how does this impact the way you’d work with Vista at home or at the office?

Vista has many changes that are designed to improve security. The ones we’ll talk about here include:

• User Access Control (UAC)
• Internet Explorer protected mode
• Windows Defender
• Network Access Protection

User Access Control (UAC)

User Access Control (or UAC) is the feature that Apple pokes fun at in one of their Macintosh ads. In the ad, there’s bodyguard-looking man standing between the Mac and the PC. Every time the Mac wants to communicate with the PC (Windows computer), the bodyguard relays the message to the PC and then says, “Allow or Deny.” In the end, this constant interfering by the bodyguard becomes frustrating to the PC and the idea which the ad is hinting at is that the UAC feature in Vista is frustrating and burdensome.

In actual use, I don’t run into that many situations where I have to answer this security prompt. So in my opinion it’s not a burden. The only time Vista actually prompts like this is when you’re doing something that requires administrative control over your computer. Things like accessing the control panel, installing software, and running software as the administrator.

Most users typically don’t do those things very regularly and it could even be looked on as a benefit as that extra message serves to remind us that we’re now doing something that changes how our computer works and we should think about our actions a little more carefully.

The idea behind Vista’s UAC is to make it impossible for malicious programs (like viruses, worms, trojans, spyware and the like) to do their dirty work invisibly any more. If a Vista user opens that email attachment they shouldn’t have and it tries to install a virus or spyware, it can’t do it now until the access control prompt has gotten permission.

Internet Explorer protected mode

Internet Explorer running on Vista is able to utilize a new security feature called protected mode. Internet Explorer protected mode builds upon UAC to allow Internet Explorer to have just enough power to browse the Internet, but not enough that malicious web sites can use it to push their bad programs on us.

Internet Explorer also has a new enhancement that helps identify criminal websites which disguise themselves as normal websites in order to trick us into entering our bank account information, credit cards, passwords, and so on. This type of attack is called “phishing” and Internet Explorer now has a phishing filter.

Windows Defender

Vista also includes Windows Defender which is a technology that helps your computer fight off problems caused by malware such as pop-ups, spyware, and other unwanted programs. It features real-time monitoring that automatically suggests actions to take against spyware when it’s detected.

Network Access Protection

Network Access Protection is a fantastic feature which blocks computers from accessing your network if they don’t meet security requirements such as having the correct security patches or up-to-date anti-virus definitions.

Network access protection keeps machines that are vulnerable targets from weakening your whole network.

How secure is Vista?

It’s still too soon to tell how much more secure Vista is, but there’s no doubt that it is more secure than any version of Windows Microsoft has released before.

The features we discussed in this article are just a few of the many changes made to the way Vista works which are all designed to improve the overall security of Vista and therefore our computers, files, and networks.

However, even Vista has already had security vulnerabilities found, including a very serious one related to cursor and icon files (the .ANI vulnerability) that also affected Windows XP and 2000.

How does this affect you?

Once you have Vista up and running, you won’t really notice the new security features working in the background to protect you. Other than the extra prompt that requires acknowledgement when installing software, it’s rare that I even think about the security features in Vista.

Where you might notice a difference though is how older programs work with Vista. Because of the security improvements and a few other Vista changes, some programs may not run on Vista or may work differently. Also some older hardware may not operate correctly with Vista.

Unfortunately that’s a tradeoff that Microsoft had to make in order to improve Windows and is part of the price of progress. In fact, we’ll go through some similar challenges with the migration to 64 bit processors so this isn’t unique to Microsoft or Vista.

What you will notice if you upgrade to Vista is that it’s definitely different. But once you settle into it, the enhancements and improved security features are great.

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