Before the release of Windows 7 Microsoft was making claims that all bugs in Vista and XP have been fixed. I agree on that but only barring one and that too an important one. Windows 7 is no different from its preceding versions, as in a test conducted by Chester Wisniewski (Sophos antivirus firm) and his researchers; Windows 7 was ‘as dumb as a dodo’ when it came to the virus immunity test. The OS had to contend with 10 virus programs and sadly only two of them were averted, rest of the eight successfully dropped the payload. Wisniewski said that Windows 7 version of UAC doesn’t allow users to set levels of protection (has a very low level of protection in default settings), thereby rendering Mal-ware protection useless. This is because of the fix, which was incorporated after numerous complaints by users that the feature popped up too frequently to confirm system changes.
So what does it teach us that never go in for all that is being claimed by any software firm for that matter. Just install good anti-virus program and don’t just rely on what Microsoft initially claimed.
Chester Wisniewski
We grabbed the next 10 unique samples that arrived in the SophosLabs feed to see how well the newer, more secure version of Windows and UAC held up. Unfortunately, despite Microsoft’s claims, Windows 7 disappointed just like earlier versions of Windows. The good news is that, of the freshest 10 samples that arrived, 2 would not operate correctly under Windows 7.
User Account Control did block one sample; however, its failure to block anything else just reinforces my warning prior to the Windows 7 launch that UAC’s default configuration is not effective at protecting a PC from modern malware.
Via: Tech Blog
