McAfee Warns Against Vista Security Features

With the release of Microsoft’s next operating system ‘Vista’ still several months away, McAfee is cranking up the noise:

“McAfee top executives went on the offensive Monday against Microsoft, saying Vista will be even less secure for customers than previous versions of Windows. The day after McAfee took out a full-page advertisement in the Financial Times to publicly air its grievances over the security of Vista, McAfee Chair and CEO George Samenuk, Vice President and Chief Scientist George Heron, and Chief Security Architect John Viega delivered the same message in person (…)”

Two security elements in Vista are among the chief concerns:

• Limited System Access: In Vista, Microsoft is locking down the kernel of the OS through a feature called PatchGuard on 64-bit versions. Microsoft’s argument is that this will keep miscreants out of the OS and prevent the incidence of attacks, and it is something for which customers have been asking.
• Squash Third Party Products: The other big concern with Vista for McAfee lies in a new security interface called Windows Security Center. Microsoft will not allow this interface to be turned off, so McAfee and other developers can’t install their own security-management consoles on Vista machines, executives said. McAfee’s argument is that third-party security products can better detect potential or existing security problems that Vista inherently can, and unless those can be surfaced through the interface, users will not be alerted to them (…).

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