Although Windows 7 has raised the bar in terms of out the box security, Sophos global sales engineer Chester Wisniewski believes that in some areas Windows 7 is a ‘regression’ from Windows Vista.
One area where Chester believes that Windows 7 security is worse than Windows Vista’s , is the alert that is displayed when users do not have an anti-virus programme. In Windows Vista a big red shield is displayed as well as a popup, whereas in Windows 7 there is no popup and just a flag in the system tray:
“Considering immediately on first login, Microsoft provides a dire warning about ensuring you have anti-virus protection, I find this a step backwards.”
Although I tend to agree with Chester on this point, this is an area that Microsoft can easily fix before Windows 7′s launch on October 22nd.
Chester also criticised Windows 7′s extension hiding, which could be taken advantage of by malware authors who could make ‘malicious files with double extensions’.
To read Chester’s full post on the Sophos blog, including the Windows 7 security features, he liked click here.
