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By Alec Klein and Ellen NakashimaWashington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, January 9, 2007; Page D01

 

 

 

When Microsoft introduces its long-awaited Windows Vista operating system this month, it will have an unlikely partner to thank for making its flagship product safe and secure for millions of computer users across the world: the National Security Agency.

 

For the first time, the giant software maker is acknowledging the help of the secretive agency, better known for eavesdropping on foreign officials and, more recently, U.S. citizens as part of the Bush administration's effort to combat terrorism. The agency said it has helped in the development of the security of Microsoft's new operating system -- the brains of a computer -- to protect it from worms, Trojan horses and other insidious computer attackers.

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Maybe it's just blind-faith on my part, but I gotta believe if there was anything fishy going on one of the hundreds (or thousands) of developers/programmers on Vista would have come forth with the news. Also, I trust that when hackers get a hold of the system they'll be able to spot any fishiness that is going on. I doubt the government would take on the risk of people finding out they're monitoring everything on someone’s computer.

 

That said, it wouldn't surprise me if they've designed some means of logging information about user activity that can be accessed after a suspect had been apprehended.

Because the only thing I trust more than the government in their ability to design an effective system is Microsoft...

Because the only thing I trust more than the government in their ability to design an effective system is Microsoft...

 

I am probably the most paranoid person when it comes to trusting items in an OS. However this one has too much public scrutiny and will have too many security researchers and handlers looking for security issues and communication leaks coming from it. I deal with looking at traffic traces on a daily basis. If Vista starts to reach out, and make communications encrypted or not, someone in my field (hopefully me for the publishing rights) will see it and will publish it. The NSA provides a great service to the security community. Their guides and templates can provide a blueprint on how to lock down some problematic Operating systems to lock down.

 

Whenever a company, hopefully with a good security group , hands over intellectual property such as code or the Operating system itself they would of performed some sort of cryptographic hashing like MD5 or SHA-1 of every single file to help fight against any rogue code being placed in there. These ciphers create a signature in HEX that can provide a template for the integrity of that file. Now hopefully they didnt use SHA-1 as it was designed by the NSA.

 

The real risk to you as a user or as a company is not the placement of trojans or rootkits at inception. Its the placement of these pieces of malware during your normal browsing, email and downloading. Spyware, and viruses and worms provide more of an intellectual property and personal liberty risk than the NSA review. There are pieces of malware out there that place sniffers and taps on your system that filter on credit cards, or passwords and send them back to a foreign host. There are worms that target specific files such as Cad, design, and word, excel and powerpoint presentations. They filter on these and zip them up and send them off.

 

As far as Vista from a security standpoint. I have mixed reviews. Some items they have changed, like their new memory randomization feature to keep malware from running. I will have to see how this works in the wild before I declare that they have fixed malware. However with the Operating system designed to be so developer friendly they will still have all sorts of issues. They are making strides from a security standpoint. But still have quite a way to go.

To be honest, this has to go on more than we ever can imagine. Corporate spying is done by most governments outside of the US because many countries either heavily subsidize, or even own key industries and companies.

To be honest, this has to go on more than we ever can imagine. Corporate spying is done by most governments including the US because many countries either heavily subsidize, or even own key industries and companies.

Fixed that for you. And no, that isnt' a shot at Bush.

To be honest, this has to go on more than we ever can imagine. Corporate spying is done by most governments outside of the US because many countries either heavily subsidize, or even own key industries and companies.

 

I was at an FBI Infraguard meeting where they had a counter-terrorism specialist talk to the threat of corporate espionage from foreign governments. It was a very interesting, and scary presentation on what is really going on.