Windows Vista Virus
August 5th, 2005
Windows Vista, hyped for its “security,” is 18 months away and already it has more viruses than Mac OS X. An Austrian virus writer has published a how-to work to show others how to make viruses, and included five viruses, which is five more than the Mac has right now. It’s still in its conceptual stage, really proof-of-concept stuff, and Vista will undergo changes. But to have viruses designed to attack a “secure” system a year and a half before its even released is not so reassuring a sign of the system’s “security.”
I just saw this on a tech news site:
“Several news sources reported late Thursday that the first virus for the next generation Windows Vista had been discovered. However, the virus is actually written for Monad, a Unix-like command shell replacement for DOS.”
The “proof of concept” viruses, named Danom, have five variants and will infect and either edit or overwrite .msh, .bat, and .cmd files. Security software firm F-Secure first reported the “Vista Virus” emergence, but admitted it “will never became a real-world problem.”
http://www.betanews.com/article/Reports_of_First_Vista_Virus_Inaccurate/1123258141
Not much new there. As I said, Vista will undergo changes. Still, viruses are written for the system even as it develops, and Vista at this particular stage is still vulnerable. You can be sure that at every stage, viruses will quickly proliferate.