News Microsoft honcho says Vista doesn't need anti-virus

[WilHarris]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/11...ed_anti-virus/

[quack]

Haha... that's gotta be a joke, right?

[Mother-Goose]

Well I don't need a new car, but I want one!

[JADS]

I believe the term is "fatally optimistic"

[fini]

link at the bottom of the article's messed up.

Can anyone remember that politician feeding his kid a hamburger around the time of BSE?

fini

[mclean007]

I'd be happy to do the same at the moment TBH, because the installed user base of Vista systems is tiny and the black hat hackers have had very little time to dig around for exploits. Come January, when everyone and his dog has Vista on his new PC (so (a) it's worth the hackers' time to write exploits, and (b) there will be lots of unsecured machines full of viruses trying to make their way onto my machines) and the hackers have unrestricted access to the final release version of the OS, there is no way on earth I'll be running an unprotected Vista machine.

[Matkubicki]

Some of us are perfectly happy running unpatched XP SP2 without a virus checker, its called taking care, using a NAT router and having a skin of your pants attitude!

[FooSai]

yeah... and in other news:
"microsoft have just opend a new bungee jumping platform at their head office.... no rope necessary."

[DougEdey]

Well, considering the AV companies couldn't get access to the kernel to do anything, I think the guy has been backed up before.

[specofdust]

Perhaps his faith is more in his son, than in windows Vista.

[Mother-Goose]

I'd like him to be right I guess, it would be nice, but the very nature of the internet means he wont be

[Buzzons]

im happy to run a PC with no AV, why does anyone need it? just dont click stupid links, dont visit porn/warez sites that force you to donwload crap and dont click on attachments in ur inbox.

not really that hard.


A firewall on the other hand, i run one on the cisco 837 i have, and a pix 501 behind that for added fun.

Oh and on NAT.. its not a security feature, never has been, never will be, you can bypass NAT in a few seconds by forging packets,its not really that difficult.

[perplekks45]

I'm sure the time Vista retail comes around hackers won't need more than 2 or 3 days to find a hole. I mean it has been hacked once before, hasn't it? By this polnish(?) girl...

[mikeuk2004]

But in my opinion, it is the most secure system that's available, and it's certainly the most secure system that we've shipped.

Like they havnt said that before on previous windows releases.

Yes he is 100% right that you wont need a AV software, well for the first few days its released anyway. As the hackers need time to purchase it and crack it.

Lets come back to this thread at the end of january when there has been 2-10 security updates released.

But then again it could be a few months that vista is safe from hackers as you need to sell an arm and a leg to buy a new pc powerful enough to use it, and to afford vista itself before you can hack it.

[Mighty Yoshimi]

O dear, more Microsoft fun

[Lowsidex2]

i haven't ran anitvirus for a couple years and my computer and my games are happier for it. Of course I am very careful about where I go online and run windows firewall and have a router firewall with never a problem. Every once in a while I run an online virus check but I'm still clean. IMO the net isn't that dangerous with a little common sense.

I have been victim in the past though, even with AV, when my surfing/DL habits were less innocent

[TheColdLord]

As mentioned above....it will be safe for a few days...until it is purchased by hackers and cracked. Of course I think it will take a little time to crack it, but not to long. The cracked version of the windows will probably be a bit tricky to install...seeing the little packege problems.

Sure hope that windows knows what its doing...) ) ) ) YEAH RIGHT

[DXR_13KE]

Microsoft honcho says Vista doesn't need anti-virus

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAAHA!!!!!!!!!!

"and this just got in, a flock of mangosepigdogcows have been spotted flying over frozen hell air space, more news at 9."

[Boswell]

So wait a second.. did they actually say "you don't need an Anti Virus Program".. or are you interpreting what they are saying - the parental controls can be so powerful that the child could not access the sites with virus on in the first place - to "Microsoft honcho says Vista doesn't need anti-virus". Or something else? Because the only quote I saw was someone explaining basicly that Vista is going to be a very secure operating system.

Ed
ps I'm not criticizing your article... I'm just questioning it because it could be slightly misleading.

Originally Posted by mikeuk2004

Like they havnt said that before on previous windows releases.

Sure but it clearly going to be more secure with every new release - it would seem a bit silly to release an operating system that isn't as good as the previous one.. then say it is better... doesn't really make sence - thats because it never happens, the newer OS will be an improvement -maybe ME was an exception but I don't know much about ME and why it was flawed etc. - all I have heard is that it was pretty bad...)

Originally Posted by mikeuk2004

Yes he is 100% right that you wont need a AV software, well for the first few days its released anyway. As the hackers need time to purchase it and crack it.

Unfortuanately they have had all year to "crack it" (I think you mean "hack" or exploit), due to them "testing" it (within the beta stages), therefore they can release their virus whenever they feel like it - or when it's ready.

[mclean007]

Originally Posted by Buzzons

Oh and on NAT.. its not a security feature, never has been, never will be, you can bypass NAT in a few seconds by forging packets,its not really that difficult.

No security is perfect - with enough time and effort, your machine could be compromised. The thing is, it's not worth a skilled hacker's time to spend hours cracking your machine's security when your next door neighbour has left his unpatched machine directly connected with no firewall or anything. A NAT router offers some protection insofar as it prevents an attacker from directly connecting to your machine by its IP address, which gives you some protection from port scanners, which will simply give up when there's no response and move on to the next IP address - it's not like there's any shortage of poorly defended PCs. Sure it's weak, but it's better than nothing. I use a NAT router in combination with a software firewall and a realtime AV scanner (with occasional full system scans), and have never had any kind of virus/malware related problem.