![]() People who say that this will not significantly help the security situation for Windos XP, or who say that this service pack will only hinder their god-like abilities to secure their machines are pretty clueless, and are spouting uninformed non-sense. In addition to things like IE’s spiffy new (and long overdue) popup bloacker (which is enabled by default), and tighter security settings (ActiveX controls no longer silently get downloaded and installed without the users knowledge), this certainly is a big step forward for the security of the Windows platforms. I have noticed that there are a few less services running out of the box, but I have also noticed that the number of dependancies has increased instead of decreasing.Īlso, RPC and dependant services like DCOM have been locked down (although are still required by Windows, in the case of RPC anyway), which along with the fireall and compiler changes will greatly reduce the risks associated with future slammer type attacks. Less services on by default and less dependencies on other services. By default it runs on all network interfaces, it starts earlier in the boot sequence, and by default blocks all incoming traffic, but does nothing against outgoing packets. Windows Firewall, will now, by default, stop outgoing connections However, most of the software in SP2 has been compiled with Microsoft’s equivelant of Propolice, meaning that there is some addition stack smashing protection in there that users have nothing to do with. Only available on AMD64 architectures currently. Nope, security features from SP2 can not make Windows more secure than it is today. They can not protect user from viruses if user follows recommendations from so-called experts not to install Antivirus because it could degrade computer performance. They can not force home user to install updates for Windows if user listens to so-called experts recommnding to disable automatic Windows Updates service. They can not tell the truth about where really email came from: your friend or a worm abusing SMTP protocol. There are so-called experts recommending not to turn even Windows XP SP1 firewall on, if user follows their advise- Microsoft can’t do anything about it. They can not stop home user from opening ports in a firewall so that file sharing software works again. They can not stop home user from giving personal details when email from US CitiBank asks them to and points to Web site located in China to fill the form. ![]() They can not prevent user from installing porn browser accelerator that came as email attachment, promising to deliver porn many times faster. These features can not stop home user from downloading software spiced with spyware and installing it. I know how to turn them on and I know what I am doing on the Internet. SP2 will not make Windows much more secure: for most of us it just enables common sense security settings and features currently present in Windows XP SP1.
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