The Chatterbox

Microsoft and Sercurity

From recent events and releases it appears that Microsoft is finally beginning to get serious about providing their users at least a modicum of security. This change is a far cry from what has been the norm up until now, as before MS was slow to even offer patches when they were notified of security holes in their software.

It all started in my mind with the release last fall of the SP2 upgrades for the widely used Windows XP operating system. Incorporated into the SP2 updates were modules such as a Anti Virus module and Windows Firewall, both of which are enabled as a default. Anybody in their right mind already had both of those types of programs on their computer from other software manufacturer's.

Truth be told I can't tell you how good either is because I still run my third party applications. Partly because I'm used to the solutions I already had and partly because I know they work. (knock on wood)

More recently, Microsoft has release a Beta product for Spyware protection called Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware which has garnered rave reviews thus far.

This software is akin to Ad-Aware by Lavasoft and Spybot Search and Destroy, both of which are also available for free personal use.

The main advantage that I saw right off the bat with the MS solution is that it can be configured (again, it's the default setting) to run in the background to provide you Real Time protection. Much like anti virus software does, it will detect if your system becomes infected by spyware and proactively attempt to remove it.

There is also a default setting to have the AntiSpyware software run daily during the middle of the night to perform full system scans to catch anything that might have slipped through. And it updates its spyware signature file automatically as a default.

Additionally they have a concept they call SpyNet AntiSpyware Community that allows them to quickly identify new spyware as soon as it hits the wild. Sort of a Neighborhood Watch program for spyware. Users can even file reports of suspected spyware so that it can be evaluated.

There are lots of other neat little things included with the new AntiSpyware software including ways to see if your Hosts file has been corrupted by someone, an easier way to look at running applications, control what applications run immediately on boot up, Track Eraser to keep certain programs from tracking what you do, etc.

All in all it's a pretty neat little application to add to your protection arsenal. I'll give it a thumbs up! In fact, I hope they include it in a Windows Update as soon as it's out of Beta testing, like they did with SP2. The combination certainly goes a long way toward keeping the average computer user's machine cleaner than ever before.

hmm... Maybe Bill really was serious about that pledge to get rid of spam and virii in two years. Since most spam and virus email is sent by Windows boxes that have become infected, these sorts of tools will go a long way towards correcting the problem!