Windows Vista Security

In Windows Vista we made numerous changes to our user account model. Standard users are now the default user type for new accounts created after initial setup. The Power Users group is effectively deprecated. In addition, we’ve made it much easier to...

Hello, I'm Scott Field , an Architect working on Windows Kernel Security . There have been a lot of questions recently about a Windows technology called Kernel Patch Protection (sometimes referred to as PatchGuard) so I wanted to provide some context...

I’m Chas Jeffries, and I’m the lead program manager for Windows Security Center (WSC) for Windows Vista. As I write this, we are working hard to prepare for the RTM release of Windows Vista. The past year has been an exciting one for the WSC team. We...

Hi, it’s Scott Field, Windows Security Architect, again. Microsoft recently became aware of a third party kernel mode driver named “Atsiv” which provides a deliberate means of loading code that conflicts with the Kernel Mode Code Signing (KMCS) policy...

The Windows Authentication Team works on the core Windows authentication components, such as the LSA, and is responsible for Windows authentication protocols, including Kerberos, SSL, NTLM, and Digest. The team has 5 program managers, 10 developers...

Hi, Austin Wilson here. Now that Windows Vista has been available to business customers for more than a year, it’s a good time to go back and look at how it’s holding up from a security perspective. I think that it’s fair to say that Windows Vista is...

Why Vista is better off without setuid or sudo....

Microsoft’s Solution Accelerator – Security and Compliance team is pleased to announce the release of the Windows Vista Security Guide , which is now available for downloading. The Windows Vista Security Guide provides IT Professionals like you with...

Windows Vista is the first major Microsoft product release that will be serviced with security updates throughout the beta process. We are committed to release Windows Vista updates for all MSRC critical class issues that may arise during the beta testing...

Hi, I’m Austin Wilson , Director of Product Management for Windows Vista security. Our first focus for Windows Vista security is engineering the operating system for security. Windows Vista is the first Windows client release to be developed end to end...

Hi: Russ Humphries here. There’s been a lot of attention this week paid to memory attacks against disk encryption technologies and I wanted to provide some commentary and thoughts. The focus of these conversations is centering on investigating the contents...

I’m Avi Ben-Menahem, the lead program manager for the PKI and smart card technologies in Windows Security. The PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) team in Microsoft is responsible for the different technologies related to digital certificates, these technologies...

We have identified an issue with version 1.1 of the Windows Vista Security Guide, which caused some of the group policy objects to not be created correctly. If you have downloaded version 1.1, which was available for download from December 4, 2006 through...

Hi, Austin Wilson here. Recently there have been some questions raised about the susceptibility of Windows Vista to malware – specifically, that it’s more susceptible to malware than Windows 2000. I’d like to show why we reject that claim. We study the...

One of the favorite enterprise features of Microsoft® Windows Vista™, USB device installations, gets even better in RC1. You may have heard stories of some IT departments going so far as to pour glue into USB ports in an attempt comply with data protection...

So I am reading a lot of stories that seem to have confused, or incorrectly aligned, Windows Vista driver signing and Kernel Patch Protection technologies. Whilst driver signing and KPP are complimentary, they are not conjoined. Driver signing provides...

Well, we’re back after an exciting week in Las Vegas presenting on Microsoft Windows Vista. There are plenty of reports out there recapping what we discussed, so I won’t go any further into that in this post. But there were many presentations outside...

Hi – everyone! I’m David Cross the Director of Program Management for Windows Security. It has been a while since I last posted to this blog during the Windows Vista beta cycle on UAC. I thought a new posting from myself was long overdue and I have...

Most anyone who has been in the security industry for a while is familiar with the term ‘security theater’. It’s a term used for security that is about show, rather than substance. Since I became the Product Manager for Windows Vista security I have...

Good day, Paul Cooke here. The Windows Vista Security blog has been a great avenue for us to talk with you about what has made Windows Vista the most secure client operating system Microsoft has ever delivered. However, hindsight is always 20/20...

The good news: The Windows Vista Security Guide Beta is now live! You can download it from https://connect.microsoft.com/InvitationUse.aspx?ProgramID=820&InvitationID=VSG-P74P-BFTH&SiteID=14 at any time during the three-week beta period. The...

Microsoft’s hard work in the area of security for the soon-to-be-released Windows Vista operating system is paying dividends for our customers, partners and – it seems – members of the blogging community! http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=141 http://blogs...

As you may have heard by now, Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is complete! See the announcement from Platforms and Services Co-President Jim Allchin. If you’ve been waiting for a Release Candidate to start your testing, the time is now. Since...

The Solutions for Security and Compliance team is currently developing the Windows Vista Security Guide v1 . Based on the Windows XP Security Guide , this new guide provides recommendations for dozens of Group Policy security settings that are designed...

This week I’m at the inaugural Security Standard conference in Boston Massachusetts. Security Standard is a new executive-level security conference designed for CISOs, CSOs, CIOs, VPs and Directors of IT. The principal sponsors for the event this year...