8/4/06 - Microsoft to hackers: "Take your best shot"

Bastard Man · **8/4/06 - Microsoft to hackers: "Take your best shot" -** 04-08-2006, 10:16 PM

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- After suffering embarrassing security exploits over the past several years, Microsoft Corp. is trying a new tactic: inviting some of the world's best-known computer experts to try to poke holes in Vista, the next generation of its Windows operating system.

Microsoft made a test version of Vista available to about 3,000 security professionals Thursday as it detailed the steps it has taken to fortify the product against attacks that can compromise bank account numbers and other sensitive information.

"You need to touch it, feel it," Andrew Cushman, Microsoft's director of security outreach, said during a talk at the Black Hat computer-security conference. "We're here to show our work."

Microsoft has faced blistering criticism for security holes that have led to network outages and business disruptions for its customers. After being accused for not putting enough resources into shoring up its products, the software maker is trying to convince outsiders that it has changed.

"They're going directly to the bear in the bear's lair," says Jon Callas, the chief technology officer at PGP Corp., which makes encryption software and other security products. "They are going to people who don't like them, say nasty things and have the incentive to find the things that are wrong."

Due early next year, Vista is the first product to be designed from scratch under a Microsoft program dubbed secure development life cycle, which represents a sea change in the company's approach to bringing out new products. Instead of placing the addition of compelling new features at the top of engineers' priority list, Microsoft now requires them to first consider how code might be misused.

A security team with oversight of every Microsoft product -- from its Xbox video game console to its Word program for creating documents -- has broad authority to block shipments until they pass security tests. The company also hosts two internal conferences a year so some of the world's top security experts can share the latest research on computer attacks.

Cushman said the presentations have already paid off. One talk, delivered in March by a security expert named Johnny Long, detailed a new way to identify security holes using Google. Shortly after the talk, a Microsoft manager applied the technique and discovered a customer was at risk because it hadn't properly set up a computer that was running SQL, a database program that competes with business programs sold by Oracle Corp.

But internal conferences are one matter. Taking Vista to Black Hat, where some of the world's foremost security gurus annually make sport of ripping through programming code to find bugs, is another.

"The fact that they're releasing it here is probably a bold statement," said Mike Janosko, a security expert with Ernst & Young who has been reviewing Vista for several months.

chrome

smart move of them to let hackers "test" it

**Crazy Pellas**

this'll be fun, every software has bugs but microsoft has had alot of security exploits, let's see how many security hole's are found in vista ;)

**Agent Orange**

They know if their Vista is fucked up, they're gonna put them on blast like a motherfucker.

That shit looks like a partial rip-off of Mac OS anyway. And if it is, I'll definately stick with my Windows XP. OS X can kiss my ass.

**proper**

"You need to touch it, feel it,"
Wow. That really doesn't sound right. It's a computer operating system. You can't touch it. You can't feel it. I wouldn't trust any of those betas, anyway. Their EULAs are longer than War and Peace.

**mh bich who els**

wats newer bout this new one then xp?

**Crazy Pellas**

the new one is Vista, which this thread is about, it should be released sometime next year,

back to security flaws:
Symantec: Windows Vista Security Is Flawed - Computing - Sci-Tech Today
Vista hacked at Black Hat | CNET News.com

EXODUS

they should've just played along with the 'it can't be hacked theme' then waited for it to come out and then hack it to pieces.. then, microsoft would get embarassed and would've spent a bunch of money on it too. i hate when people brag.

**Boricua**

vista will be all fucked up for a while... it'll be like windows ME which sucked and then XP finally came out

I'd stick with XP for a year or two more until they get all their security issues fixed and come out with a reliable operating system... i should just stick with linux :)

DJ Irfy

Touch it bring it play it watch it turn it leave it Stop format it!

rofl

chrome

^^lol

**Crazy Pellas**

Quote:

Originally Posted by EXODUS

they should've just played along with the 'it can't be hacked theme' then waited for it to come out and then hack it to pieces.. then, microsoft would get embarassed and would've spent a bunch of money on it too. i hate when people brag.

lol yeh they should've done that...

*bri*

its still a move foward.
sure it will most likely suck.. but i'm glad microsoft is doing something better with vista.

and i'm so late its sickening. :[

**proper**

it really is.

**Tha Producer**

lol