Taking aim at Vista's security

Bloggers, at least those sneaking away to their computers on Christmas weekend, are having fun with an article focusing on potentially serious security flaws in Microsoft's Windows Vista.

The article, which ran in The New York Times, focuses on a flaw first discovered by a Russian programmer in mid-December. That programmer's posting got a bit of attention at the time. But on Friday, Microsoft actually acknowledged that it is "closely monitoring" the vulnerability. Such an acknowledgment raises the profile of the flaw, which apparently makes it possible to increase a person's privileges on all of the company's recent operating systems, including Vista.

Some bloggers are positing the typical Microsoft-never-does-anything-right opinion. Others are saying that even Microsoft deserves a break when it comes to creating a new operating system.

Blog community response:

"With Microsoft's sterling reputation as being bug-free and invincible to vulnerabilities, who would of thought that Vista would show signs of being buggy. We hope you hear the sarcasm in our voices."
--Gearfuse

"For anyone who has been in the IT industry for any time at all, this story does not reveal any groundbreaking information. Any new release of an OS will have major bug/security holes for the first 6-12 months. That is what bred the concept of 'Service Packs.' I think with Vista this will be the case even more then usual because of the fact that Vista is so ambitious in what it wants to do. Complex coding will always involve the 'bug hunt.' The problem will be do you want that test bed to be your production network? Probably not..."
--Train Signal Training

"Remember, it took two service pack releases for the XP version, and you still have a few flaws coming up...Honestly, you could say that the only reason to upgrade to Vista is the snazzy interface."
--Case Forum

"Nobody expects any OS to be free of flaws. The problem with Vista is Microsoft's track record of producing software with so many flaws (and so many that are fundamental to the structure of the OS) that it's easy to produce exploits. It's still too early to tell if Vista is going to be as bad as previous versions of Windows, but the signs aren't at all good. I can't see any reason to gamble money on Vista."
--Macsaresafer on CNET News.com's TalkBack