Experts View Windows Vista as Malware Prone

The CEO of Kaspersky Lab, Natalya Kaspersky, believes that Microsoft isn't likely to be at the frontline of anti-virus in spite of the security updation of Vista and its unique anti-malware item 'OneCare'. She finds the reason to be the lack of security for Microsoft software in the past, and anticipates that the trend will also continue in future.

In a cautiously written but occasionally incisive attack on the security plans of its bigger US competitor, Kaspersky said that there was no sign that Microsoft would take over the anti-malware market in the same proficient manner it could fend off its operating system rivals.

She added, "Microsoft products still continue to be seen as unsafe or containing security flaws. These flaws are primarily the result of their stunning success. Hackers across the globe were bound to be drawn to the most popular programs. As a result, Microsoft's new anti-virus products might go down the same road since creators of viruses would design malware meant to escape notice by OneCare."

Microsoft fails on the score of the speed at which anti-virus dealers must confront new threats. Kaspersky said that all such dealers had to either catch the largest number of harmful programs at the cost of false positives or ignore false positives at the cost of letting malicious programs go free. Microsoft maintains that OneCare works better with the operating system. The company asserts that the anti-malware product uses uncharted possibilities in Vista, whereas autonomous vendors cannot do this. The CEO said that this was a myth.

She stressed upon detection rates to be as critical to the market success of any anti-virus ware. When OneCare was recently tested twice; once in September and then in November by AV-Test GmbH at the University of Magdeburg, both the results suggested a capture rate that was quite low by the standards of the majority of anti-virus items.

Kaspersky says that the security upgrades to Vista do not mean that anti-virus for PCs should be discarded. She counsels consumers that a standalone anti-virus solution is a necessity.

Related article: Experts Find Two Vulnerabilities in Firefox

» SPAMfighter News - 12/26/2006