01.08.09
The Cost — and Cause — for Security Failure, Data Breaches
Windows Vista is not a secure operating system and Vista 7 is the same. The ramifications can be very serious and no level of censorship can hide it. According to this report from the Identity Theft Resource Center, the leaking of sensitive data is rising sharply due to inappropriate means of securing it.
More than 35 million data records were breached in 2008 in the U.S., a figure that underscores continuing difficulties in securing information, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC).
Each and every one of us pays for the damage, as costs are collective and our data is centralised not only on our personal computers*. Even our medical records can be compromised.
“Each and every one of us pays for the damage, as costs are collective and our data is centralised not only on our personal computers.”What is responsible for this and who is to blame? Well, based on empirical evidence, it’s Microsoft that has failed. It failed not because it’s an impossible task to secure software but because, as the manager of Windows said a few years ago, “our products just aren’t engineered for security.”
Let’s consider GNU/Linux for a second. The platform runs in an environment that’s highly connected; it runs on a very large number of boxes endlessly. In September 2008, said Steve Ballmer: “Forty percent of servers run Windows, 60 percent run Linux…”**
If GNU/Linux was not secure, wouldn’t many of the Web servers out there be compromised? Evidently, they rarely do. Software that’s installed on them with uploaders is a vector of weakness, but that too has not caused much harm.
On the other hand we have Windows, which is once again under a worm attack, according to this new report.
Business systems are being attacked by a worm exploiting a known Microsoft vulnerability, IT security experts have warned.
Sam Varghese, a GNU/Linux user, wrote about “worms, worms, worms” a few days ago. Security troubles under Windows have more of his computers migrated to GNU/Linux right now.
It would have been good to have some equivalent of Delilah on Windows to negate the role of this browser, but, sadly there is none. There are some third-party applications like XPlite , developed by Australian Shane Brooks, which do remove most of IE but then which browser do you use to update Windows? Only IE supports ActiveX.
You can, of course, move from XP to Vista where the updates are done through the control panel but that would be the equivalent of offering a man a choice between arsenic and cyanide for breakfast.
Sam mentions ActiveX, which was probably designed and implemented for anti-competitive reasons (making Web sites operating system-dependent), despite it’s obvious dangers. As Bill Gates put it on numerous occasions, they needed to leverage standards-hostile extensions. In this one E-mail [PDF] he wrote: “Another suggestion In this mail was that we can’t make our own unilateral extensions to HTML I was going to say this was wrong and correct this also.”
Where do Windows users end up because of this? Well, merely visiting a Web site can be dangerous because it gives the site great control over the entire operating system (access to local files even). At the moment, there are reports about Windows-only features in LinkedIn… malicious ‘features’
[T]he sort of social media trouble quotient appears to have risen a bit as fake LinkedIn profiles are trying to send users towards malware.
We all reap what they sow. █
“In one piece of mail people were suggesting that Office had to work equally well with all browsers and that we shouldn’t force Office users to use our browser. This Is wrong and I wanted to correct this.”
–Bill Gates [PDF]
Hostility towards (X)HTML came from the top
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* Where else are they centralised? Well, a lot of people don’t know where or how their medical records are kept or how susceptible those records might be to data theft. Are medical records kept only on private networks? or are they reachable by the outside world (Chinese or Russian crackers, for example). Ordinary people pay more attention once they realise exactly how this situation can cause them harm in a very personal way.
** This is an important point, and it should probably be made even stronger. If GNU/Linux was not more secure, wouldn’t its 60 percent of the Web servers be compromised at least as often as Windows 40 percent? Yet evidence shows that they rarely are.
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Needs Sunlight said,
January 9, 2009 at 5:43 am
MS Windows allows many options for data to be compromised not just illegal access. Data corruption or loss is a big risk. Sheeple have been so browbeat into accepting the crashes and down time that they don’t notice or admit to noticing, however, if that down time comes at a time-critical moment when medicals staff need to access your record, that’s not good either.
Since the new, incoming US administration will be looking at economic initiatives, it will be of great value to get rid of M$ products. That’s just treating the symptom and not curing the problem. What also needs to happen is that the MSFT boosters who have operated as if part of a larger organized crime ring need to be called to task. Damages need to be recouped, dues to society need to be paid, and places where the cannot make further harm need to be found.
David Gerard said,
January 9, 2009 at 1:09 pm
When we have MS software taken out and shot, can we shoot MySQL as well? Bl*sted piece of crap … why couldn’t Postgres have become popular. Gah.
AlexH said,
January 9, 2009 at 1:10 pm
@David: because of PHP
Roy Schestowitz said,
January 9, 2009 at 1:29 pm
MySQL is all right.
David Gerard said,
January 9, 2009 at 3:55 pm
It’s “all right” for Windows 2000 values of “all right.” It’s a bloody pain to administer for a living. It’s also popular.