Monday, 7 August 2006

Microsoft Invites Hackers to Check Security Flaws in Vista

Microsoft has handed out a beta version of its Vista to about 3,000 experts in the Black Hat security event to scrutinize its product any security flaws and vulnerabilities. Microsoft which has been most criticized for its previous operating system got a positive response from experts.

The response though a mix was heavier on the positive side. Some experts said that the product looks good but any conclusion can be drawn once it hits the market.

At the event Microsoft showed off some features such as requiring programmers to add extra annotations to Vista's code, enabling debugging software to more easily locate potential vulnerabilities, and encoding function pointers to make it more difficult for malware to cause damage.

"We're here to show our work, you need to touch it and feel it," Andrew Cushman, one of the security directors of Microsoft, said at the Black Hat security conference.

Microsoft Vista is build from the ground up using the SDL development model. Every bit of code is scrutinized for Common Criteria Certification and security compliance checkpoints must be met along the way.