{"id":272,"date":"2006-10-12T09:48:03","date_gmt":"2006-10-12T09:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/archives\/272"},"modified":"2013-08-26T18:20:03","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T23:20:03","slug":"vista-s-improved-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/vista-s-improved-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Vista &#038; Longhorn Server&rsquo;s &ldquo;Improved&rdquo; Security"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\"colorbox-272\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/VistaOrb.png\" align=\"right\" \/>\u201cWindows Vista is the <a href=\"http:\/\/betanews.com\/2006\/06\/15\/microsoft-vista-most-secure-os-ever\/\" rel=\"follow\">most secure Windows ever<\/a>!\u201d \u2014 or so Microsoft claims. That\u2019s not much of a boast however, I mean, if an operating system <em>doesn\u2019t<\/em> get more secure as it progresses and evolves, there is certainly something fishy going on. So we weren\u2019t too impressed by those claims in particular. But that doesn\u2019t mean Vista <em>isn\u2019t<\/em> actually secure (especially when compared to the competition). In fact, Windows Vista\u2019s end-user security is down-right excellent, as <a href=\"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/the-windows-vista-rc1-monster-review\/6\/\" rel=\"follow\">we reviewed it<\/a> back when RC1 came out.\n<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cSo what\u2019s the problem?\u201d<\/em> <strong>Windows \u201cLonghorn\u201d Server is!<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>No, we\u2019re not joking. Under the circumstances, we wish we were too. But we\u2019re not. While Windows Vista\u2019s security has steadily improved build-by-build, and while Longhorn\u2019s kernel and applications may be more secure, Windows Longhorn Server as a whole most certainly isn\u2019t. Why?\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Because it never prompts you to set an Administrator password!<\/strong><br \/>\n  <br \/>Longhorn Server actually completely installs, sets up the firewall, dowloads the latest security updates and then \u201cforgets\u201d to set an administrator password. Maybe it\u2019s not that bad \u2014 after all, these are IT admins using this product, certainly they won\u2019t forget to set a password, will they? <strong>Even though<\/strong> Windows Longhorn Server can go the <em>whole way <\/em>and install Active Directory and create a Domain Administrator account <em>without asking for a password<\/em>! But maybe Microsoft just has faith in our IT administrators today\u2026 <\/li>\n<li><strong>What about password complexity models?<br \/>\n  <br \/><\/strong>Yes, they\u2019re gone too. Everyone at some point complained about Microsoft\u2019s extremely stringent password complexity requirements that every user \u2013 domain admin or otherwise \u2013 had to comply to in order to protect their account. Yet, it most certainly was better than letting users pick any old password \u2013 but <strong>even that was better than nothing.<\/strong> Because that\u2019s what Longhorn Server\u2019s password complexity requirement is: <strong>nothing!<\/strong> It doesn\u2019t care if you assign new users a password or not; and should you choose to use the user\u2019s name as his or her password, it doesn\u2019t mind. Your password can be a letter or ten, it can be all numbers or symbolic, 1337\u2013speak or not, to Longhorn Server: it doesn\u2019t matter.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What happened to Windows Server? Where did all of the stringent security checks and ultra-protection of Windows Server 2003 go? Windows Server 2000 was quite insecure, and Windows Server 2003 turned over a new leaf.. But it seems Microsoft is more than willing to flip that page back \u2013 even Windows Server 2000 required an Administrator password at the very least.\n<\/p>\n<p>Like we hinted earlier though, the entire structure of Windows Longhorn Server is more secure. The way it processes data, the way IIS 7 has been designed, the intelligent firewall that ships with the Server OS (for the first time), and more; Longhorn Server really did look quite good. But now it doesn\u2019t even ask for a password.. What\u2019s up with that?!\n<\/p>\n<p>[<a href=\"http:\/\/www.digg.com\/tech_news\/Longhorn_Server_s_Astonishing_Security\" rel=\"follow\">this story on digg<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWindows Vista is the most secure Windows ever!\u201d \u2014 or so Microsoft claims. That\u2019s not much of a boast however, I mean, if an operating system doesn\u2019t get more secure as it progresses and evolves, there is certainly something fishy &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/vista-s-improved-security\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[115,117,53,116],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-software","tag-longhorn","tag-passwords","tag-vista","tag-windows-server"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xDa-4o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2693,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/2693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}