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New Security Flaw Could Leave Windows Vista Wide Open

by Tim Stevens on August 11, 2008 at 10:28 AM

Purported Security Flaw Could Leave Vista Wide Open
It's been a hard knock life for Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest and greatest, and according to a presentation given at last week's Black Hat security conference in Vegas, it's not going to get any easier from here on out. Two security experts, Mark Dowd from IBM and Alexander Sotirov from VMware, indicated that they have found a critical flaw in that operating system's Web browsing habits that would enable an enterprising hacker to do anything they like on any computer running it.

The details are unfortunately rather sparse at this point. All we know is that Vista's default browser, Internet Explorer, is particularly vulnerable to the attack. The attack apparently bypasses all the defenses that Vista has in place, defenses that most agree are far more comprehensive than those found in XP, the previous version of Windows. However, you're only as strong as your weakest link, and once this exploit is fully realized, Vista could be looking very weak indeed -- especially since even Microsoft itself still doesn't know the full details. [Source: Electronista]

Tags: internet explorer, InternetExplorer, microsoft, security, security flaws, SecurityFlaws, windows, windows vista, WindowsVista

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