Is Microsoft Getting Into A Quarrel with Sophos Over Malware Test?

Do you remember a test being performed by Sophos regarding Microsoft's Windows 7 security in the previous week? If not, let us enlighten you on an examination conducted by security vendor Sophos that said that after the test was conducted, Windows 7 was vulnerable to 8 out of 10 of the most common malware.

Microsoft's director of Windows Enterprise Client Security Paul Cooke has responded to these test results, which are a classic case of "scare them and they'll fall in line", by accusing Sophos Senior Security Adviser Chester Wisniewski of sensationalizing and findings that User Account Control of Windows 7 is not effective at struggling malware.

In the test, it was supposedly revealed that one of the tested viruses failed to run unless UAC was disabled and the other two did not run at all. Sophos got its results by setting ten samples of known badware at random onto a clean machine with default configurations which runs Windows 7. Only two viruses were detected by this particular operating system.

Sophos counters that its aim was only to see if UAC would give an alert to the user. Microsoft states that this test confirms absolutely nothing. Furthermore, Cooke goes to SmartScreen Filter of Internet Explorer 8, which was evidently ignored by Sophos technique when the malware was manually installed in doing their test. According to Cooke, in Internet Explorer 7, among other new advantages, the SmartScreen Filter was created upon the phishing protection. In addition, it adds protection from malware. Cooke explained that the SmartScreen Filter will inform a user when he tries to download software that is unsecure.

In spite of the conflict, Cooke said he, in fact, agrees with Wisniewski's final conclusion by stating that users should always run antivirus software on their PCs. However, it's also similarly essential for users to keep all of their software up-to-date through automatic updates, for example using the Windows Update service. By configuring their computers to download and install updates automatically, they will help assure that they have the highest level of security against malware and other dangerous computer parasites.