Security Technologies

Vista was thought initially as a more secure version of XP. Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing plan which aims to provide security to its users and gain their trust had a great effect on it. A number of new security systemd had been incoperated on the new operating system.

User Account Control is a security technology that enhances the security of a user’s computer with fewer privileges by default such as seeing the and blocking Malware threats before it may harms your computer. This was very difficult to do in older versions of windows because their user profiles prooved too restrictive and incompabtible. In Windows Vista it is very easy when ever the OS wants to do an action that require an administrator to sign in such as installing/uninstalling software or changing system configuration, and if a normal user has signed he will prompted and will be asked the Username and Password of the administrator and if the administrator had already signed in then he will be prompted too telling the action Windows is going to take. User Account Control asks for credentials in a Secure Desktop mode, which means that the entire screen is blacked out in other words temporarily disabled and only the Adminitrator password window is open. This will stop the user to perform a malicious activity and also tell him the importance of prompt.

Internet Explorer 7's security features include pishing filter, IDN with Anti-spoofing abilities and parental control system has also been introduced. Unlike the previous versions ActiveX control is blocked by default. Also, Internet Explorer operates in a protected mode which means that it runs in isolation (without any contact) with other applications on the operating system and thus blocking it modify any kind of files other then temporary internet files. A new feature called Windows Defender had been introduced which protects the computer from Malware and othet threats.

Previous versions of Windows has File encryption system which encrypt files, but the new Vista inlcudes a Bit Locker Drive Encryption system which can encrypt a data of huge size notably the operating system volume. However, BitLocker requires approximately a 1.5-gigabyte partition to be permanently unencrypted and to contain system files in order for Windows to boot. This is a security concern because some times a third party or even the Windows itself will write some data on that disk and it will not be encryted. BitLocker works with Trusted Plartform Cryptoprocessor version 1.2 installed on the motherboard  or with a USB drive as a key.

Windows Vista has some buil-in key security featuers too. For instance integrity levels processes whose function is to stop a lower integrity level processot to contact a higher integrity level computer and also stops them to perform DLL injection to a processor of higher integrity level. The security restrictions of Windows services are more improved that means other systems on the networks connected to trhe computer cannot interact with any part of the OS directly. It becomes more difficult for malware to infilter the Windows vista with space layout randomization technique switched on. Code Integrity verifies that system binaries haven’t been tampered with by malicious code.