Although the Windows Vista Aero user interface is the most obvious change to Windows Vista, some of the more important, if less obvious, changes in this new operating system regard security. In this article, we examine the various new security features in Windows Vista. Security and Windows Vista It’s been a tough decade for Windows users. As Microsoft’s operating system entered the dominant phase of its existence, hackers began focusing almost solely on Windows, since that’s where all the users are. As a result, various Windows versions have suffered through a seemingly neverending series of electronic attacks, security vulnerabilities, and high-profile malware breakouts. In 2003, Microsoft halted development of its major operating system and application products and began an internal review of its software development practices.

The company went back and re-examined the source code to its then-current projects and developed a new software engineering approach that is security-centric. Now, the software giant will not release any software product that hasn’t undergone a stringent series of security checks. Windows Vista is the first client operating system shipped since that time that’s been developed from the get-go with these principles in mind. It has been architected to be secure from the beginning. Is Windows Vista impenetrable? Of course not. No software is perfect. But Windows Vista is demonstrably more secure than its predecessors.

And although we will no doubt face awesome security threats in the future, Microsoft at least has the lessons it learned from the mistakes of the past to fall back on. There’s little doubt that the security enhancements in Windows Vista will prove to be a major reason many people will upgrade to this version. It’s not a misplaced desire. Windows Vista’s security features extend all the way through the system, from the highprofile applications, applets, and control panels you will deal with every day to the lowlevel features most Windows users have never heard of. In this article, we’ll highlight most of Vista’s new security features, starting with those you will likely have to deal with as soon as you begin using Microsoft’s latest operating system. Windows Security Center When Microsoft shipped Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) in the wake of its 2003 code review, one of the major and obvious new features it added to the operating system was the Security Center, a dashboard or front end of sorts to many of the system’s security features. In Windows XP SP2, Security Center was designed to track the system’s firewall, virus protection, and Automatic Updates configuration to ensure that each were enabled and as up-to-date as possible.

If any of these features were disabled or out of date, Security Center would warn the user via a shield icon in the notification area near the system clock, or via pop-up warning balloons. In Windows Vista, Security Center has been dramatically updated in order to support new security features in this Windows version. The basic way that Windows Security Center works hasn’t changed. Security Center still tracks certain security features and ensures that they’re enabled and up-to-date. If they’re not, Security Center will display its shield icon and alert you via pop-up balloons.

Here’s what Security Center is monitoring: _ Firewall: Security Center ensures that Windows Firewall is enabled and protecting your PC against malicious software that might travel to your PC via a network or Internet. _ Automatic Updates: Like Windows XP, Windows Vista includes an Automatic Updates feature that can automatically download and install critical security fixes from Microsoft the moment they are released. Security Center ensures that Automatic Updates is enabled. _ Antivirus protection: Although Windows Vista doesn’t ship with any antivirus protection, Security Center still checks to ensure that an antivirus service is installed and up-to-date. Modern antivirus solutions are designed to integrate with Security Center so that the system can perform this monitoring function. _ Spyware and other malware protection:

New to Windows Vista is Windows Defender, Microsoft’s antispyware and antimalware tool. Windows Security Center ensures that Windows Defender is enabled, active, and using up-to-date spyware definitions. _ Internet security settings: New to Windows Vista, Security Center ensures that Internet Explorer 7 is configured in a secure manner. If you change any IE security settings, Security Center will warn you constantly about this issue. User Account Control: Security Center ensures that the User Account Control (UAC) technology, also new to Windows Vista, is active.

Described more fully in Article 9, User Account Control is one of the many security technologies in Windows Vista that is designed to ensure that the system is running with the minimum exposure to electronic threats. If all of the features Security Center is monitoring are enabled and up-to-date, you won’t ever see Security Center unless you manually navigate to it. (You can find Security Center in Control Panel➪Security➪Security Center.) However, if one or more of these features are disabled, misconfigured, or out of date, Security Center will provide the aforementioned alerts. It will also display its displeasure with red-highlight sections in the main Security Center window.

In such a case, you can expand the offending section and resolve the issue using a button in the windows. For example, if you disabled User Account Control, you’ll see a Turn it on now button that will immediately enable that feature and return your system to a more secure state.