|
Microsoft - No Antivirus - New WMF Flaw |
|
|
|
|
Friday, 10 February 2006 |
Microsoft has announced that no antivirus software will be bundled with Windows Vista but that it will be available via their OneCare Live service, for which they have released pricing details. The Redmond giant also issued a warning regarding a newly-discovered security hole in their Internet Explorer browser affecting the .wmf image file format.
So Windows Vista will be a landmark product for computer security, weve heard that before, but it wont bundled with antivirus software, that all pervasive security problem. If you want antivirus security youll need to stump up $49.95 a year on Microsofts OneCare Live subscription service. You could, of course, just continue using Symantec or McAfee security products. OneCare Live was announced last May and has been in beta testing since November, it comes with a personal firewall, antivirus scanning, PC tune-up utilities and recovery tools.
The sceptical amongst you may be cursing Microsoft right now over their desire to make a quick buck out of security problems relating to their own software, but hold your horses. Microsoft touts business reasons as to why they havent bundled antivirus in to Vista and were sure these business reasons are to avoid being chastised by U.S. prosecutors and more worryingly actually punished by the European Union, for anti-competitive behaviour. You see, Microsofts error is not in not bundling antivirus software with Vista, its in not bundling it with Windows 3.x, when viruses started appearing on a mass scale, spread on 3.5" floppies. A vast business has grown up around the failings of their operating system and they cant fix the failings because theyll be destroying that business in the process.
Microsoft is at least challenging the security business. For your $49.95 you will be able to install OneCare Live on up to three machines which, Microsoft says, covers 98% of homes. Its not clear what the business costs will stack like as yet. Its also software-as-service, you stop paying you lose your protection, all of it. The current model Symantec and the like use is a subscription service for updates, if you stop subscribing your software still works but in this day and age your antivirus software is only really as good as your last update anyway.
The predicament Microsoft has found itself in is that Windows users are now always going to feel like they are being levied against, charged extra for a secure operating system that they should have had in the first place.
And on that note, a new WMF flaw has been found. The flaw affects older versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer but by visiting an infected site the flaw would allow a hacker to execute arbitrary code in the security context of the logged on user.
The affected software includes Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4; and Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 2 on Microsoft Windows Millennium. |