14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is providing guidance to developers building Metro applications for Windows 8 that want to take advantage of the Windows Network Isolation feature.
According to Microsoft, Network Isolation is designed to enforce the network boundaries actively discovered by the next generation of the Windows client.
With Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 Milestone 3 (M3) available for download since September 13, 2011, early adopters starting to build apps for the platform can also download a whitepaper set up to provide insight into Network Isolation.
“Network Isolation for Metro style Apps” is a resource focused exclusively on apps for the new Metro platform in Windows 8, and not for traditional desktop programs.
“With network isolation, developers can define the scope of the network access required for each process, which prevents a process without the appropriate scope from accessing the specified type of network or connection,” Microsoft explained.
“The ability to set and enforce these boundaries ensures that compromised apps have access only to networks they have explicitly been granted access to, significantly reducing the scope of their impact in other apps or the system itself.”
In the end, Network Isolation comes to help boost the security of Windows 8. The mechanism can be leveraged for new apps so that the operating system will actually be able to tell which security profile will best fit an application.
It’s not only Windows 8 that will benefit from the added security, but also the Metro app itself.
“The new Windows Runtime APIs enable a developer to control the security profile of an app under development. Network access is part of this application security model. Not all apps will require access to the network. However for those that do, Windows provides the appropriate level of granularity for apps to access the network securely,” the software giant said.
Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 Milestone 3 (M3) is available for download here.