Positive progess on security APIs

Nick White — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 00:12:00 GMT

Back in September, several of our security partners expressed concern over certain key technologies in Windows Vista such as Windows Security Center and Windows PatchGuard, a technology designed to protect the Windows kernel from advanced attacks such as rootkits. We were quick to respond to these concerns by providing our partners the needed APIs to enable their applications to affect the Security Center on Windows Vista PCs, thus giving them the option to pre-empt the appearance of multiple security pop-ups, which could have been confusing to some users.

Recently, we shared new plans for APIs again with our security partners, receiving positive feedback in regard to the original concerns they had expressed. eWeek’s Matt Hines reports on the positive feedback we've received this week. According to McAfee's chief scientist George Heron, much of the recommendations he submitted outlining McAfee’s concerns were given due consideration: "Microsoft included some of the recommendations we had submitted, and it appears they did a good job on those. Overall, McAfee is quite pleased with the path that Microsoft is taking."

Part of the impetus for this development was a push to be more open with our partners and to ensure that a dialogue occurred. Our Senior Program Manager Stephen Toulouse from the Security Technology Unit explained that MS and our partners were ultimately able to find common ground on concerns over PatchGuard once the technology's benefits were better understood.

As I've said before, we take feedback from our partners and customers seriously -- they came to us with concerns, we addressed them, and progress is being made that benefits both sides.

Windows Vista Team Blog : PatchGuard

Positive progess on security APIs