Microsoft is working on security technologies for the
upcoming Longhorn release of Windows to protect users against
security threats by monitoring system and network
behaviour.
The technologies will allow Windows to detect irregular system
behaviour - in terms of network traffic, memory usage and system
calls, for example - and respond to them automatically, said
Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates.
The result of the development effort, which Microsoft refers to
as "active protection technologies", aims to protect systems from
worms and viruses by preventing and containing attacks.
A component of the protection system, known as "dynamic system
protection", will track which security patches users have
installed. The component will make changes to the Windows firewall
to fend off any attacks that appear to take advantage of a security
flaw that users have not yet patched.
Other parts of the active protection effort include reducing the
likelihood of a successful attack by automatically adapting the
security settings to the type of network connection, for example
when a notebook computer is moved from a corporate network to a
public wireless Lan.
Microsoft is readying Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), a major
security-focused update to Windows XP that is due out in the first
half of this year. However, the active protection technologies will
not be part of that update, said Mike Nash, corporate vice
president of the security business unit at Microsoft.
Longhorn is expected to be released around 2006.
Joris Evers writes for IDG News Service