Serious vulnerabilities in Vista

IBM Information Security Systems member Mark Dowdin and VMware team member Alexander Sotirov found a way to attack against Vista. This is not based on any vulnerability but to the way memory protection works.

Attack can be performed using eg. Java in browsers.Electronista was the first to report this.

SearchSecurity has interviewed security researcher Dino Dai Zovi about this issue. He says that it's completely reusable and this which is more scary:

"They have attacks that let them load chosen content to a chosen location with chosen permissions. That's completely game over."

Dai Zovi also said that Vista protection techiniques ASLR and DEP won't help and it allows that any vulnerability in browser can be exploited. As this is not based on any specific vulnerability, he presume that there will be more similar things in the future.

Microsoft knows about issue but hasn't commented anything yet.

Security problems in Vista are PEBKAC?

PC Tools published earlier this month a research which claims that Vista is somewhat as secure as Windows 2000.

Microsoft blogger Michael Kleef doesn't agree with that. He wrote in his blog
that way PC Tools used for calculations is wrong because amount of malware isn't only due to operating system fault. He believes in education; users need to understand risks.

Vista SP1 released

Vista SP1 has been released. Languages available are English, French, Japanese, Spanish and German.

This service pack includes eg. faster file handling and better power management.

This update is a bit controversial as it both increases and decreases security program compatibility.

Chances are that you don't get it yet from Windows Update; see here for reasons.

Read more about SP1:

Link1
Link2

Pimp your Vista

Vista has a lot of stuff by default but can used with some of them disabled.

Blackviper has a nice guide for reducing unneeded services.

If you want to make your own custom and lightweight Vista installation DVD, vLite does the job.

Some of the vLite users have reported that size of the Vista could be reduced up to 25 % of default.

Updates for Vista

Microsoft has released updates for Vista. Those eg, make startup faster, improve mobile device battery lifetime, make for PCs using UPS more stable and Vista more reliable. Also 3rd party security programs should be now better compatible with Vista.

If user doesn't want to download them now, he can get them with Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

Links for updates and their descriptions:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941649
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941600
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941229

Use Parental Control feature in Vista

Did you know that Vista has Parental Control?

That's right and you can use it for filtering certain websites that your children can't access them.

See more here

Remember that user account has to be non-administrator so that changes can't be reversed.

More nice Vista tips can be found here

Source: howtogeek.com