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September 9th, 2002
   Corporate Voices       Home     Linux.Com     Reports     NewsVac      
 
 
  Microsoft: "Our products aren't engineered for security"  
Friday September 06, 2002 - [ 07:29 PM GMT ]   Print this Article
Topic - Security
Read article at - c.moreover.com

NZheretic writes: "Brian Valentine, senior vice-president in charge of Microsoft's Windows development, has made a grim admission to the Microsoft Windows Server .net developer conference in Seattle, USA.
"I'm not proud," he told delegates yesterday (5 September). "We really haven't done everything we could to protect our customers. Our products just aren't engineered for security," admitted Valentine, who since 1998 has headed Microsoft's Windows division"

( Post a new comment )

I think I speak for everyone when I say...      (#25077)
by Anonymous Reader on 2002.09.06 14:58

DUH!!!!
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Their biggest problem      (#25084)
by Anonymous Reader on 2002.09.06 15:48

Microsoft's biggest problem is that they will add a piece of functionality to software because they think it will attract more customers because of what that functionality will allow the customer to do, but they won't take into consideration any security risks or holes that might be introduced with that new functionality.

Isn't it swell that all of MS Office has scripting support built in? They would say that the usefullnes of this feature outweighs the obvious risk of exploitation, but in the mean time, whole corporate messaging systems are being shut down because of emails viruses that exists because of this nifty scripting support.

I am not a Microsoft cronie nor do I really care about Linux, I only choose software based on if it works the best for my needs. But I have have to say, enough is enough. And Microsoft digital security with Palladium? Right.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Question: Where do you want to go today?      (#25085)
by NetSentry on 2002.09.06 15:48   | User Info |

Answer: The local unemployment office.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Hmmmm....      (#25091)
by Rocky on 2002.09.06 18:49   | User Info | Home Page |

And the news is????

Nothing like pointing out the obvious..... but then again MS doesn't engineer for reliability either so why should this be any different?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

So they're going through Windows line by line...      (#25096)
by ssavitzky on 2002.09.06 21:20   | User Info | Home Page |

which means that they'll catch most of the buffer overflows, but leave in the major design flaws like ActiveX (or whatever they're calling OLE these days). Plus the fact that Windows was never designed as a multiuser OS the way Unix was -- and never will be as long as it has the Registry.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

How honest of Microsoft!      (#25106)
by OwlWhacker on 2002.09.07 4:10   | User Info |

They're admitting that they suck! However, you'll note that this only comes out at a time when there's been a good few news articles about how poor Microsoft's security is. It's not honorable of Microsoft to admit they're wrong, it's just their way of pacifying everybody, "Hey folks, we're working on it! We love you, and we're doing this for your benefit!". And the poor suckers believe them too.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

And now the question is...      (#25141)
by Anonymous Reader on 2002.09.07 15:01

... what exactly are Microsoft products engineered for?

This proves it's not security. Any fool can see it's not reliability, scalability or cost-efficiency. So what is it?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

... what exactly are Microsoft products engineered      (#25142)
by Anonymous Reader on 2002.09.07 15:26

... what exactly are Microsoft products engineered for?

The garbage!
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

So they realize they have a problem..      (#25143)
by Anonymous Reader on 2002.09.07 15:51

Isn't that Step One in a twelve step program :-)

For those of you wanting to make a living in IS, don't get religious about any of it. Many years ago, the world was Unix, VAX/VMS and a few IBM O/S's and oh yes, C/PM and DOS. They were netiher 'good' or 'bad'--just were.

The IS world changes. Novell became the 'thing' and replaced alot of hardware and software. Big Red is pretty much dead. In its place came the various NTs.

Now there's hope we're headed back to *NIX vis-a-vis Linux. If I favor anything, it's not having to learn yet another OS--thanks to Torvald.

Stop looking for a conspiracy and learn something new. Time will overcome Microsoft...if that's the course things take.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

So what MS products engineered for?      (#25194)
by Anonymous Reader on 2002.09.08 8:22

OK, so they're not engineered for security. They sure the *(&#@^ aren't engineered for reliability or ease of use.

So what are they engineered for?

Apparently only for making money with new versions that promise to fix the problems of the previous version that had promised the same thing.


[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Anything Microsoft has Security Problems      (#25268)
by Anonymous Reader on 2002.09.09 8:44

Now i've known for years that microsoft software has gotta be the most flawed when it comes to security issues so you'd think when they hire a bunch of Mac programmers they'd design Microsoft products for the mac that might have a security flaw or 2 like in most apps but for the most part have little securty problems. WRONG! Even Internet Explorer for Mac OS X has had many security issues. Just look at the updates with exception to the last few updates in Mac OS X they haven't had hardly any security updates where in windows 95% of the updates are security updates. Youd think after 1 or 2 years they might notice no-brainer issues like this and it's taken them untill now to realize "Uhh i think there are security issues with our products."
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

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