Ron O'Brien, Sophos' senior security analyst, commented on Friday that McAfee and Symantec's claims about a need to open up PatchGuard, Windows Vista's kernel lockdown feature, to security software makers were unneeded, and that basically the opposite would be better.
"I would say that the opposite is really true: that by not focusing on having Microsoft provide us with the means to access the kernel, and in fact using the APIs that have [already] been provided by Microsoft, we are not experiencing any problems with PatchGuard for our latest HIPS technology, Sophos Anti-Virus, or any of the other aspects of our security offering for either 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows Vista."
That simple statement will sure bring a lot more discussion between security firms and Microsoft, who seem to have created a whole debate over this very simple and valuable feature of Windows Vista, which seems to grow bigger everyday...it sure isn't finished, though.
http://www.betanews.com/article/Sophos_Microsoft_Doesnt_Need_to_Open_Up_PatchGuard/1161379239
"I would say that the opposite is really true: that by not focusing on having Microsoft provide us with the means to access the kernel, and in fact using the APIs that have [already] been provided by Microsoft, we are not experiencing any problems with PatchGuard for our latest HIPS technology, Sophos Anti-Virus, or any of the other aspects of our security offering for either 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows Vista."
That simple statement will sure bring a lot more discussion between security firms and Microsoft, who seem to have created a whole debate over this very simple and valuable feature of Windows Vista, which seems to grow bigger everyday...it sure isn't finished, though.
http://www.betanews.com/article/Sophos_Microsoft_Doesnt_Need_to_Open_Up_PatchGuard/1161379239