Windows Security

Many computer users believe that Windows operating systems are much more insecure than other types of operating systems. But are they? And if they are, how come that so many people around the world are still using it, and how come that so many businesses around the globe still rely on Windows for their daily business usage? Well, the answer to this question may not be that simple afterall.

There was a time a few years ago when a lot of people did blaim Microsoft for having the most insecure operating system ever. We can say that at the time, indeed the Windows operating systems did have a lot of flaws that were easily exploited by hackers or worms, like the well known Sasser worm for example, which was using such an operating system flaw to cause havoc worldwide. Microsoft was already in a battle against all these security issues their operating systems were having; the outbreak of such deadly viruses and worms actually helped, since they were causing a lot of trouble to a lot of businesses and Windows users around the world, and this has put even more pressure on Microsoft not only to fix such security holes, but also to make critical improvements to their operating systems. This is a process that still continues today and fortunately visible improvement can be observed in terms of Windows security in new releases of such operating systems.

There were several factors affecting security that were causing these issues. One was the presence of exploitable flaws within the operating system. Microsoft addressed this by releasing improved versions of their Windows Update website and/or automatic installation of such critical updates on Windows based computers. However, there were also design problems with Internet Explorer that had to be addressed, like the ability to automatically open certain executable files from remote websites through a special crafted malitious script. Such security issues were addressed properly in Windows XP, especially through the SP2 update. But there is more about Windows security to be thought over.

One of the main security issues of fresh Windows installation was the default configuration. Basically, a fresh Windows installation was quite insecure; a lot of services were active, no firewall installed, no tool to detect the absence of needed security software, like antivirus, firewall and Windows Updates. Indeed, Windows was likely designed to be an operating system aimed at the end user, when judging from the default configuration standpoint; if default configuration would have been strictly configured to use the most secure settings, many Windows users would probably having trouble with running particular programs due to these enforced security settings, preventing programs from being installed or running properly. Microsoft probably opted for relaxed security settings, but this has proven to be a huge mistake in practice. So later they switched the other way around, and proactive security now seems to be getting top attention as well.

With the release of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, Microsoft has introduced the new Security Center that makes easy for the user to monitor the presence and configuration of the most necessary security protection measures and software, like Windows Firewall and Windows Updates for example. This service pack also contains a lot of configuration settings and file updates, aiming at improving security 'under the hood'. Although this service pack does not solve everything, it proved really useful and improved security for many Windows installations.

It is to be observed that a Windows machine is not automatically insecure, as many users may believe. If properly configured, updated and firewalled, a Windows server can be as secure and difficult to hack as any other operating system. There are many companies using windows servers and they work properly in terms of security as well. However, we must observe that configuring a server in order to protect it properly from being hacked, requires hundreds of configuration settings, time, proper Windows management skills and a proactive attitude involving constant monitoring and testings. This is however valid for any other operating system.

With the release of Windows Vista, all hopes are pointing at much better security. The new Internet Explorer coming with Vista has internal protection against malitious scripts and other such things that can harm your computer; also the user itself will work in a protected enviroment and unauthorised acess to certain files is prevented and protects the user and the machine software. This type of improvements will probably make Vista much more secure and no doubt that users will like to know they are protected. How well will these protection measures work, it is to be seen. Technology is constantly evolving and software has to evolve as well to keep up with changes in the computing world and the fast evolution of the Internet. Windows operating systems are evolving as well, and hopefully future versions will contain all the needed things to make such operating systems the most desirable tools, like performance, reliability, strong security and user friendly interfaces that we all would really like to have.