Windows Vista - a Sterile Operating System

Have the restrictions introduced by Microsoft in Windows Vista for the sake of enhancing security sterilized the operating system? Yes, according to Kaspersky. Alisa Shevchenko, Virus analyst, Kaspersky Lab has criticized Vista's security features on the trade-off between security and usability.

"Security which is built on any principle except openness is always a double-edged sword. Security which is built around restrictions will always have a negative side: the restrictions themselves, which may make a system effectively unusable. Which is better - a 'fundamentally secure' system, which doesn't allow the user to do what s/he wants, or a vulnerable but functional system which includes specific services targeting concrete types of threat?" asked Shevchenko.

Kaspersky argued that Microsoft has succeeded in producing a less user-friendly operating system with security features that in the end will be overcome or even become attack vectors. Shevchenko's take on the additional security in Windows Vista is that it sterilizes the operating system with restrictions. In this regard, the user is most likely to turn off the protective features instead of accepting the restrictions.

"We should also remember that people are the weakest link in any security system. Email worms are still in existence, and they continue to spread, in spite of the insistent warnings of security professionals not to open attachments to suspicious emails. Given that these pronouncements don’t seem to prevent the majority of users from launching attachments, will alerts from the security system - for instance, requiring the user to enter the administrator's password - really help?" said Shevchenko.

Microsoft's ex Co-President of the Platform and Services Division discussed the aspect of security versus convenience and revealed that the final form of the security capabilities in Vista is a balance between the two. Vista has the vote of over 5 million testers, but the true test lies outside Microsoft.