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Darren Pauli writes at the Register that researchers who scanned 900 Windows libraries have uncovered a variety of security functions that were updated in Windows 8 but not in Windows 7. Researcher Moti Joseph speculates Microsoft had not applied fixes to Win 7 to save money. "Why is it that Microsoft inserted a safe function into Windows 8 [but not] Windows 7? The answer is money. Microsoft does not want to waste development time on older operating systems ... and they want people to move to higher operating systems," Joseph said in a presentation at the Troopers14 conference.
Joseph along with Marion Marschalek developed a diffing (comparison) tool dubbed DiffRay which compares Windows 8 with 7, and logs any safe functions absent in the older platform. In a demonstration of DiffRay, the researchers found four missing safe functions in Windows 7 that were present in 8 (Youtube). Future work will extend DiffRay's capabilities to find potential vulnerabilities in Windows 8.1 (PDF), add intelligence to trace input values for functions and incorporate more intelligent signatures used to find potential holes. "If we get one zero-day from this project, it's worth it," says Joseph.
Editor's update: For those who prefer, the Presentation Slides (PDF) are also available.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 10 2014, @03:34AM
So pay them. Make it profitable for them to improve their product to meet your standards. What's that? You don't want to pay? Guess what then. You're the problem.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by EvilJim on Tuesday June 10 2014, @03:44AM
Hmm, no, I think that would make them a user of any one of the many fine free OS's out there. when you buy a microsoft product, you are promised updates and security fixes for a period of time, if M$ isn't holding up there end then it sounds to me like a breach of contract... IANAL so you can trust me and my assumptions completely. :)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 10 2014, @04:06AM
For workstations... building one from components is a matter of 4-5 hours, the doxing (the compatibility and bang-4-the-buck components) and travel to the component supplier included. I surely don't want to be a burden for the poor-poor MS.
Other than that, now and then, I'm throwing MS a pittance without asking them to incur the patching cost
Every time I'm buying a laptop (happens approx once every 3-4 years), I pick one "on sale" (both "Boxing day" and "end of FY" are good times of the year), wipe clean whatever the OEMs install from MS and ...
... wait for it...
install - as recommended by TFS - a higher operating system: Linux (other options exist).
As MS is already paid by the OEM, it's their (OEM and MS) problem, see?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday June 10 2014, @05:23AM
You've got it backwards. Security fixes are free for the lifetime of the product. If Windows7 becomes too insecure then it becomes worthless. If they did that then i would have no incentive to buy Windows8. I paid for Windows7 and expect a decade of free security patches. MSDN subscriptions have to be providing a lot of income as well. Linux does not seem to have this kind of security patching problem. Just donated $50 to Gentoo. Realized how much more i pay MS each year : /
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