Products fail real life test

Feb 14, 2007 08:29 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has lived up to its reputation. And most of all, the Redmond Company has lived up to its reputation in the security field. Moreover, it has done so with its... security products. "By default, Microsoft solutions are perceived as being insecure or full of security loopholes," was the statement of Natalya Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky Lab from the article "Security from Microsoft - the door to a brave new world?"

And it looks like Kaspersky's position on the protection delivered by Microsoft was legitimate, as the Redmond Company makes its baby steps into the security industry. Natalya Kaspersky was right on the money when she said that the solutions exiting Microsoft's campus are perceived as insecure. But the bottom line is that they are insecure. The description fits perfectly, and the perception of insecurity is based on facts.

Of course that when Kaspersky was talking about Microsoft's security solutions not becoming a leading presence on the security market, and its solutions not delivering the door to a brave new world, Microsoft hadn't yet acknowledged vulnerabilities in its security products.

But with Security Bulletin MS07-010, Microsoft has patched a critical vulnerability in its Malware Protection Engine. The problem at this level is not a single vulnerability, but the fact that it reverberates across the suite of Microsoft's security solutions.

Windows Live OneCare, Microsoft Antigen for Exchange 9.x, Microsoft Antigen for SMTP Gateway 9.x, Microsoft Windows Defender, Microsoft Windows Defender x64 Edition, Microsoft Windows Defender in Windows Vista, Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server and Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint are all affected by this vulnerability.