Microsoft Pushes Cybersecurity

From plugging software holes to building firewalls, everyone must fight cybercrime, Ballmer says.

Emily C. Kumler, Medill News Service

WASHINGTON-- The government, businesses, and consumers must work together to fight cybercrime, Steve Ballmer said at a luncheon event on Wednesday.

As if to drive home the point of cooperation, Microsoft's CEO was wearing a diagonally striped blue tie that almost identically matched the fabric draped on more than a dozen round tables occupied by federal employees. The event was sponsored by the Business Software Alliance and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Every individual, every business, every organization, every government agency that uses a computer also has a responsibility to ensure that they're protected," Ballmer said.

Ballmer called on consumers to actively protect themselves by using firewalls, employing up-to-date security, and running antivirus software. Security won't be effective if it isn't enforced, he noted, citing as an analogy a front door equipped with a lock that isn't used.

"I was going to say that security was a priority for Microsoft, but I will say that it is the priority at Microsoft," Ballmer said.

Service Pack Security

Ballmer updated attendees on the security measures included in Windows XP Service Pack 2, due out in late spring or early summer. The Windows firewall will be turned on by default, and Internet Explorer will automatically block pop-up ads and unsolicited downloads from Web sites--unless the consumer clicks on a download link.

"With the Slammer and Blaster worms, you were protected if your software was up to date, but even if you were running old software, you were still protected if the firewall in Windows XP was turned on," Ballmer said. In 2001, customers indicated they didn't want the firewall turned on by default, he said, so Microsoft left it up to the individual user to turn on.

"But the world has changed since then. Users can still turn the firewall off in this new service pack; but otherwise, it's going to be on from the day people download the service pack or get a new computer with Service Pack II installed," he said.

The update also provides safeguards in its Outlook e-mail and Windows Messenger, Ballmer pointed out.

Windows Messenger, which differs from instant messaging, is a communications conduit for network administrators, but some online marketing firms have begun sending ads through it.

"To reduce the risk of attacks, we are building a better file attachment handling in Outlook Express and Windows Messenger... and offering increased customer control over downloads of external content in Outlook Express that could enable a sender to identify your computer," Microsoft announced in a statement.

Service Pack 2 will have better memory protection, too, Ballmer said. Though no single technique can completely eliminate the risk that data may be copied into areas of a computer's memory, Microsoft has recompiled core Windows components with current editions of its compiler technology "to protect against stark and heap overruns," Ballmer added. The company is working with CPU makers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices to develop applications that prevent viruses and worms from inserting program code into any memory location designated for data only.

Hit the Road

The son of a Ford Motor Company employee, Ballmer said a comparison of cybersecurity with the auto industry was easy to understand.

"We need to take care of our computer systems the same way we think about our transportation infrastructure," he said. "The people responsible for roads and highways have a responsibility to keep them well maintained, safe for everyone to travel, patched, particularly after the bad winters, when necessary. The auto industry has a responsibility to continue to deliver safety innovations and to make sure that cars become more and more safe; but car owners also have a need to make sure that we're not driving old rattletraps that are a danger to others and ourselves."

Likewise, Ballmer said, in the cybersecurity industry, technology providers, customers, government, and infrastructure providers "all have to play a role." As part of the Business Software Alliance, Microsoft is participating in a task force on cybersecurity that recently issued a similar message urging cooperation.

Ballmer said that Microsoft's future projects, which he referred to as "active protection technologies," will make computers more resistant to today's increasingly sophisticated viruses and worms.

"One example of this is what's called 'behavior blocking,' which are really technologies identifying and intercepting code that looks suspicious, before the computer is infected," Ballmer said. A protected computer will say, "'This doesn't smell right to me. I won't execute this without asking the user for permission,'" Ballmer added. "And that's really an important area of breakthrough."