Microsoft security guru wants Vista bugs rated less serious

By Gregg Keizer

March 16, 2007 12:00 PM ET

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Oliver Friedrichs, senior director of Symantec Corp.'s security response team, agreed. "If past history is any indication, exploitation is more like an art and less like a science," Friedrichs said. "Attackers have found ways around defenses in the past to exploit vulnerabilities. [User Account Control], for example, doesn't present as much of a hurdle to attackers as once thought. Even Microsoft is saying that."

Microsoft has also been saying that Vista will prove to be more secure than any earlier version of Windows, an opinion Howard shares. "Here's my prediction: We will see significantly less critical vulnerabilities in the operating system over the next two years, as compared to Windows XP, perhaps by a factor of as much as 50%, and a 30% reduction of important vulnerabilities."

Howard's forecast is in line with other recent estimates by Microsoft executives, including Ben Fathi, the former head of Microsoft's security group and now the chief of development in the Windows core operating system group. Last month, Fathi set a goal of half as many Vista vulnerabilities in its first year as XP had in its first 12 months.

"Why am I making these claims?" said Howard. "I know that SDL works, and we will continue to evolve SDL over time as we learn of new vulnerability types and new defenses."

Ullrich is counting on Vista's vulnerabilities to be few and far between, too -- but for a very different reason. "The limited pickup of Vista installs [means that] until Vista is more popular, it will enjoy the same limited attention from hackers as OS X."

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