14 DAY TRIAL // After the first six months on the market for Windows Vista, security company Kaspersky has presented its conclusion related to the operating system. Vista is safe, for now... But safe nonetheless. Unless the latest operating system from Microsoft falls victim to legacy Windows threats, Vista users can breathe just as free as if they were running Linux and Mac OS X. The reason for this is simple. Alexander Gostev, Senior Virus Analyst, Kaspersky Lab revealed that the threat environment is stagnating. Usually, the evolution of malicious code has kept security companies, users and operating system makers on their toes. This seems to no longer be the case.
"The virus writing "crisis of ideas" that we wrote about at the close of last year (and which we feared would end in a crisis in the near future) is still in full swing. The current period is characterized by the lack of any real new threats and an upswing in the commercialization of the virus writing environment. As I previously confirmed, the ball is now in our court - for the first time in many years, the antivirus companies have the upper hand," Gostev explained.
Vista is essentially Microsoft's new standard in terms of operating system security, at least as far as the Windows platform is concerned. But as a newcomer, despite having pushed in excess of 60 million licenses worldwide, Vista enjoys the same obscurity as Linux and Mac OS X, in direct correlation with small market shares. But despite predictions that the threat environment would immediately react to Vista, evolving to embrace the new operating system, the malware authors seem to be completely ignoring the platform focusing instead on traditional attack methods and on the good old Windows XP.
"Despite the emergence of new operating systems (such as Windows Vista), new services (mobile content) and devices (the iPhone), the cyber criminal underworld continues to lack initiative and use tried and true ways to cause harm to Internet users. Innovations are limited to a small number of proof-of-concept threats that are not developed further. Furthermore, we are observing a significant return to "the sources": computers are increasingly targeted by DDoS attacks and attacks that use browser vulnerabilities to penetrate the system," Gostev added.
Microsoft's goal with the security level of Vista was made clear from the get go. The company applauded an operating system designed to be impacted by less than half the volume of vulnerabilities affecting Windows XP. From January until July 2007, the Redmond company has apparently achieved the standard of security initially advertised.
"The threats are not becoming "smarter". Innovation has stagnated as development is now focused on cosmetic changes, and we still don't know what may ultimately serve as a catalyst for changing the nature of viruses in the global arena, events comparable to the launch of Windows95, the emergence of the LoveLetter and Melissa worms, the first macro virus, and Lovesan and Mydoom epidemics," Gostev said.