Symantec warns of security risks in Windows Vista

Vista's networking technology isn't tried and tested yet

19 July 2006 9:51 GMT / By Amber Maitland

Symantec has issued a report after examining Microsoft's latest Vista release that warns of instability and security risks.

The security software firm looked at a very small part of the new operating system, namely, the new networking technology, and found several security flaws.

The report that the company issued after looking at the software finds the networking technology less stable in the short run than Windows XP.

In some way this is to be expected as Microsoft has built Vista from the ground up, incorporating new code.

According to a Cnet News.com article, Symantec states, "Microsoft has removed a large body of tried and tested code and replaced it with freshly written code, complete with new corner cases and defects".

"This may provide for a more stable networking stack in the long term, but stability will suffer in the short term."

Microsoft issued a statement to Cnet News.com quite rightly pointing out that Vista is still in the beta testing stage, and described Symantec's claims as "premature".

Indeed, Symantec found several bugs in build 5270 that were fixed in build 5384, the current beta version.

As a caveat, the writers of the Symantec report said, "We expect many of our results to be invalidated by changes made prior to its public release".

Perhaps it's better to be forewarned and to be aware of potential problems before business systems go over to the new operating system.

Via Cnet News.com

Full tags

Software, PC software, Viruses And Malware, Symantec, Vista