RE: Antivirus Tools Fool XP's Security Center
From: Ken Gardner (KenGardner_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 02/03/05
- Next message: David: "Windows Explorer and IE needs to close?"
- Previous message: Yves Leclerc: "Re: Merging partitions with BootIt NG"
- In reply to: ! anonymous: "Antivirus Tools Fool XP's Security Center"
- Next in thread: Bill Drake: "Re: Antivirus Tools Fool XP's Security Center"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 11:01:02 -0800
Actually, there is a benign explanation for this, at least with the Norton
product with which I am familiar. As I recall it, Symantec has explained
that it is a security risk for the Security Center to be able to report
accurately the status of the Norton firewall and/or its antivirus program. I
suppose the rationale here is that if the system always reports that real
time scanning is enabled and the firewall is on, then hackers or unauthorized
users might be fooled into thinking that they are on when, in fact, they may
be off for some reason. If so, this explanation makes perfect sense to me.
This same explanation may also apply to software programs (not people), such
as malware, that may rely on Security Center to do its dirty work. If the
software is fooled into thinking that the system is secured, they won't do
their dirty work on a system that is, in fact, insecure.
In any event, at least upon installation Norton gives you the option to turn
this feature on or off, and it may well be (although I don't know) that it
can be disabled at any time thereafter so that Security Center will once
again accurately report the status of the antivirus and the firewall. I
cannot think of any good reason to turn this feature off. You can still
monitor your security from within the Norton program itself, which also gives
you much more detailed information than Security Center.
Ken
"! anonymous" wrote:
> Antivirus Tools Fool XP's Security Center
> http://www.msfn.org/comments.php?shownews=11726
>
> Microsoft's Windows XP Service Pack 2 is supposed to improve security.
> Its Windows Security Center should alert you when your antivirus
> software is missing or out of date. But in our tests, both McAfee's
> Internet Security Suite 2005 and Symantec's Norton Internet Security
> 2005 crippled SP2's ability to deliver accurate alerts immediately
> after installation.
>
> We installed each application on a PC running SP2, and both caused the
> Windows Security Center to report erroneously that the products were
> up-to-date. Any antivirus software must be updated immediately after
> you install it to protect the computer against viruses discovered
> since the software's initial release.
>
> McAfee and Symantec acknowledge that their products intentionally
> disable the Windows Security Center's messaging feature. Both
> companies say the reason for doing so is to streamline customers'
> experience; neither company plans to alter its practices.
>
> Full story: PC World
> http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,119376,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp
>
- Next message: David: "Windows Explorer and IE needs to close?"
- Previous message: Yves Leclerc: "Re: Merging partitions with BootIt NG"
- In reply to: ! anonymous: "Antivirus Tools Fool XP's Security Center"
- Next in thread: Bill Drake: "Re: Antivirus Tools Fool XP's Security Center"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
