"These worms comprise 39.7 percent of all malware currently in circulation, 
according to the security vendor. The MyDoom and Netsky variants were first 
detected back in 2004.

At least three well-known internet worms - labelled Stratio-Zip, Netsky-D 
and MyDoom-O by Sophos - are able to execute on the VISTA OS, according 
Sophos.

"The comment about his (MS exec) seven-year-old spurred our idea - let's see 
if malware runs on Vista," said Carole Theriault, senior security consultant 
at Sophos. "It does."

"These are among the first flaws found in the finalised version of Vista.

"The Vista kernel was hacked by a Polish security researcher at the Black 
Hat security conference this year, using virtualisation technologies.

"Security company Symantec also reported flaws in the Vista kernel in 
August."

----------------

And MS wants to lock out Symantec and all the other Security companies, so 
that MS has a monopoly on Security software as well as on the operating 
system.

-------------

And... more about VISTA - So what's a kill switch?

"The heart of the matter lies in something euphemistically called "Reduced 
Functionality Mode" or RFM. When the pundits on the Web talk about a "kill 
switch," they're referring to Microsoft's ability to put your copy of 
Windows Vista or Office 2007 into Reduced Functionality Mode.

"If Windows Vista slides into RFM, you can no longer use any app but 
Internet Explorer. Everything else gets locked out - no applications, no 
backup program, no nothing, not even a Start button, much less Windows 
Explorer. Just you and IE whistling in the wind, and IE automatically logs 
off after an hour of use."

----------

AND.... the kill switch doesn't apply to only MS - every VISTA vendor gets 
one for THEIR software (you might buy it, but you will no longer own it).

And * we * all * know * Microsoft NEVER makes a mistake.... and software 
activation is ALWAYS so EASY.... and support phone calls to MS are FREE...

Let's see if I have this straight.... A vendor (say, MS) sells me flawed 
software and then wants to charge me for additional software (also flawed?) 
to work around the flaws in the first software they sold me. Yeah, I can see 
that, totally. Why hasn't Linux figured out this goldmine?  Oh, right, Linux 
isn't flawed.

One wonders why, if MS can really write software to guard against the flaws 
that they wrote into their OS, um, er, why couldn't they have put that into 
the OS in the first place?

Hey.... gee, thanks, but no thanks, to VISTA for 
    ----AnnaSummers

----- Original Messages ----- 

From: "Rick Glazier" <[log in to unmask]>

From the paranoia dept:
AFTER MS locks everyone else out, what is to keep the
maleware writers from attacking the very things WGA is
"looking at" and trashing computers worldwide, in a heartbeat...
The only thing stopping that right now is the "fact" that "they"
want to "take it over" instead, but what will happen when they
can't? It is likely to make them quite cranky... <grin>

Having a fragile system that allows computers to be "trashed"
so easily seems like a very poorly thought out "policy" to me...
*Side note: I have had false positives with software I got DIRECTLY
from MS, (and I can prove that...)

A related "poor idea" (as an example) would be how the malware
writers now get a month "attack window" (or more) by carefully timing
attacks to the "timing" of the MS monthly patches...
This is food for thought... Rick Glazier

> From: David Gillett >
> [Hopefully, if it's hard for third parties to install themselves into the
> kernel, that will be much harder on malware authors than on legitimate
> security companies. On the other hand, Microsoft is working on a scheme to
> limit functionality of the system if a chunk of code decides to doubt
> whether the copy you're running is properly paid for -- experience with XP
> activation and the several generations of WGA should have taught us all 
> that
> getting this code right may be beyond Microsoft's (or anyone's) 
> capability.]



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