New cybersecurity report details risk of running unsupport

Sounds like little more than a marketing ploy.... imho, of course.

Can MS do no right at all? It is somewhat of a marketing ploy > indirectly. MS has been attempting to make their products more secure, therefore a better product.

We know MS OSs are the most popular on the planet. We know that once upon a time they were not the most secure products due to their popularity and, quite frankly, poorly written and developed so far as security is concerned. Of course odds would have it that hackers and anti-malware were/are attacking it, especially at the enterprise level.

Just for grins I typed in "Microsoft security" into Wikipedia. Here are the results:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=Microsoft+Security

Then "iOS security" :

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=iOS+security

Then again for "Android security" :

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=Android+security

I didn't read through all those results, but I did get the general feeling that MS has more problems in this area.

Although MS developed and deployed some programs that one could run to search for security holes, they really took matters into their own hands and developed MSE. Admittedly not a good product it first and they got all kinds of flack for "fair competition". As time went on the product got better.

Now we come to 8/8.1 with Defender. The way I understand it now runs at the kernel level. I would guess more of the "sand boxing" approach like Android's? Perhaps someone that knows more than I do could expound on that?

All in all, I think Microsoft has come a long way with security, especially in the light that hackers are becoming more sophisticated as the article stated. There is a section on the MS site that is dedicated to teaching people secure computing.

What everyone has to remember from the late 80's and really early 90's we had two main competitors for the desktop which was Unix/Linux and Windows. Unix/Linux decided to go the route of enterprise which requires the hardening of security whereas Windows went the route of putting a PC in every home by adding functions and features to the desktop. This is not to say MS does not have enterprise market but the main goal was to build a personal computer empire.

Where I am going with this is today Unix/Linux are trying to add features and functions to the desktop whereas MS is now trying to lock down and harden the security of there desktop, we are leaps and bounds better then the XP days and with each new update and every new release of Windows it continues to get better.

While you can question the figures, I have little doubt that Windows 8 is noticeably the most secure OS Microsoft has produced. They've improved their security procedures a lot in recent years and credit must be given where it's due.

Here is what's not being said. What programs were they running on Windows 8.x? If it was the apps, which thus far have failed to wow anyone, yes those are very secure. The apps do remain sand boxed. However, the desktop apps are about as secure as they are in Windows 7. They do a little more to help with memory randomization to avoid buffer overflows etc. That said, so does Windows 7.

MrBill said:

Here is what's not being said. What programs were they running on Windows 8.x? If it was the apps, which thus far have failed to wow anyone, yes those are very secure. The apps do remain sand boxed. However, the desktop apps are about as secure as they are in Windows 7. They do a little more to help with memory randomization to avoid buffer overflows etc. That said, so does Windows 7.

Click to expand...

Good points, however, you can count me out of your "thus far have failed to wow anyone". Although quite bad at first, the Store apps have improved with time and will only get better, especially the MS Store apps being Mail, People, Photos, Calendar, SkyDrive, and Bing. I wouldn't do without them today.

I appreciate the new system with it's Start Screen, tiles/live tiles, and precious time saved in collecting personal information on a daily basis. The Sharing feature of the Charms Bar is also quite useful in saving time. All this with more security and less resources used.

http://www.eightforums.com/showthread.php?t=16379

HippsieGypsie said:

Can MS do no right at all?

Click to expand...

I kinda thought that was understood....