Is Microsoft doing enough?

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In Computerworld I ask “For Windows security, what we have is a failure to communicate” and ask if Microsoft is doing enough to help keep us safe. As
[See the full post at: Is Microsoft doing enough?]

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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scoobydoo, windbg, abbodi86, GreatAndPowerfulTech

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“Microsoft last week reported $60 billion in profit and $165 billion in sales for its most recent quarter”

Not even close.
FY21 Q3 : Revenue was $41.7, Net income was $15.5

Microsoft would better serve users by telling them about the security solutions we already have on our systems.

Who are those users ? What build-in security solutions ?
If Windows, Office, Azur.. were so secured there wouldn’t be any place / need for 3rd party security software.

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https://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-tops-60-billion-in-annual-earnings-for-the-first-time-to-cap-another-record-breaking-year-11627416653  Apologies that should be for the year, but you get the idea.

Read the article – there are settings that we can easily do and we’re not now.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Fixed the “per year”, and thanks.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Susan Bradley wrote:

Read the article – there are settings that we can easily do and we’re not now.

The settings are mostly for enterprises. Home users have none and don’t have a home IT administrator and won’t never know about security “hacks” (who ever heard about GitHub ?)…and they are the ones who need the better security for lack of security awareness / knowledge.

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Tom-R, WCHS

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EXACTLY why I said that Microsoft should spend time on exposing those items that are already on the system now.  You got my point exactly.  Instead of center menus in Windows 11, how about a good GUI for those settings that are already on the computer now and will protect us.  Those settings aren’t just for enterprises, consumers can benefit from them as well.  You shouldn’t need a gui from github to expose it. That’s EXACTLY my point.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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AlexEiffel, wavy, doriel, WCHS, Graham, Ricard, GreatAndPowerfulTech, Alex5723

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Yes, and regarding exposing info, why are there still separate Settings and Control Panel interfaces for Windows settings. I’m still clinging to Windows 7 and one of the reasons is waiting for Microsoft to fix that – is the concept so difficult?

Win 7 Pro, 64-Bit, Group B ESU,Ivy Bridge i3-3110M, 2.4GHz, 4GB, XP Mode VM, WordPerfect

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Microsoft has always withheld information about Windows, even from developer partners.  Don’t release information if it does not align with your business strategy.  Strip away information from retiring products. Withhold API’s. Better to require a lucrative support contract or a profitable subscription for quality information.

Small businesses never get to see the most robust information or support from Microsoft. It’s simply too expensive to obtain.

Sell better Windows variants to large enterprises with large contracts; that’s where to maximize profit.

Lead the customer to where you want the business to go. Don’t let the customer pull you in the less strategic direction.

Sometimes customization features can leak out, sometimes in the form of a free program.

Windows 10 22H2 desktops & laptops on Dell, HP, ASUS; No servers, no domain.

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wavy

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And let the rifffaff (non enterprise ) users do your Beta testing.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Susan Bradley wrote:

That’s EXACTLY my point.

I believe the point is that Microsoft has grown tired of spending money on documenting ‘stuff’ that it doesn’t want you to fiddle with anyway… hence the removal of hundreds of TechNet articles as it tries to move towards a ‘walled garden’ just like its cash-heavy competitors.

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Tom-R, wavy, Ascaris, windbg, RockE

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Nope. MS does not care about security. There are huge amount of exploits that MS is not willing to fix until someone leaks them and grabs the public attention. MS should focus on better secure their kernel rather than adding features and redesign the layout/look of OS. There are several kernel exploits that MS still is ignoring to fix. The printer exploit was known  for years until getting attention.

When MS talked up “Secure by Design,” “Secure by Default,” and “Secure in Deployment and Communication, they things that came to my mind were:

• Secure by design to easy hack into it using Windows kernel
• Secure by default to allow no default security since focus on useless things to change in the OS rather than focusing on the code
• Secure in Deployment and Communication to exploit everything in deployment and not release any info about it (ie look at the solar hack that got into MS.)

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Thanks for the article, its sad, that security seems to be matter of dollars now 🙂

MS should focus on better secure their kernel rather than adding features and redesign the layout/look of OS.

Keep us safe.. Yes he is doing enough. I think he is doing too much. We cant blame others for everything. Of course the system wont be 100% bulletproof. Same as driving the car, there will always be some probability of accident.
Reworking GUI is security risk. If they (for example) added a uknown, unseen, unprecedent mini browser called “Weather and interest”, how is it possible, that it is not seen as security risk? Its obvious weak point. Its a new attack vector.
So somebody is lying to us, that security is the main goal, or somebody is incredibly blind not see that.

Microsoft is very lame in providing technical information. If update fails, for example, it just says “Something bad happened, rolling back changes”, or “0x0000003a”.
You have to dig and go deep into Windows logs, which is present in the system from Windows NT, or 95. Its the same management console from previous millenium 🙂
Microsoft is trying really hard. To generate more money. The goal is not creating awesome OS, or something revolutionary. Cloud PC looks interesting, but I can buy whole computer for its yearly subscription fee.

PS – the best thing from Microsoft is Defender. Very good and free antivirus. That was really revolutionary and it works very well for me and most users I would say. Thanks for that, MSFT!

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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The answer to “Is Microsoft doing enough?” is painfully obvious. How about “Is Microsoft doing anything?”  Same answer. It appears they (MS) just do enough to scrape by, or wait for the inevitable to hit the fan before they have to do something.  The answer is simple; MS don’t really care about the millions of average users – the more profit the less care. MS is too big to care. As for their ‘best ever’ (sic) Windows 11, it is not compatable with my almost new computer. So Mr Nadella you can put W11 in your ‘customer care’ department. A MS user since pre W95 – but what do I, of little faith, know?

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I recently bought a top-of-the-line Acer Swift 3 ultrabook for $899 and was happy with the specs and the build quality. Product came with Win10 and was ‘to spec’ for a free Win11 upgrade. But, because of where Win11 is going (and me not wanting to go there), I returned it today and bought a Macbook Air M1. “Hit em where it hurts” (although my money is a drop in the bucket to Microsoft….but hopefully others do the same).

MS has long lost its care for end-user customers. I’m happy to ride Win10 until the wheels fall off, but when the wheels fall off I won’t be replacing them with new MS tires. We have 4 years of software updates to decide where to go…but in my case, my systems will probably be converted to Ubuntu. If I have to buy new hardware anytime soon, I’ll pay the Apple tax – especially with the leaps and bounds being made with their M1 chips.

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Cybertooth

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0patch will support Windows 10 after Microsoft stops doing so for anyone not paying for support. Windows 7 is still supported for another year and 1/2. 0patch is only $30 per year and has worked wonders on one of my workstations. If you seriously like Windows 10 you can keep using it after MS support ends, and safely. In fact, 0patch often puts out parches before Microsoft does, and has never broken anything while doing it.

GreatAndPowerfulTech

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zero2dash

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zero2dash wrote:

MS has long lost its care for end-user customers. I’m happy to ride Win10 until the wheels fall off, but when the wheels fall off I won’t be replacing them with new MS tires. We have 4 years of software updates to decide where to go…but in my case, my systems will probably be converted to Ubuntu. If I have to buy new hardware anytime soon, I’ll pay the Apple tax – especially with the leaps and bounds being made with their M1 chips.

Totally agree!! But – who in the industry cares about end-user customer more than money??  Apple?? (I can’t even speak about other OSs due to my lack of knowledge – as is the case for most users).  Though some are better than others – I’d argue that no one cares more about customers than dollars.  So it is with most things (again, some companies are truly customer-focused, but they are few and far between).  I am, after a life-time of Windows, moving to Apple – albeit slowly. Still researching – leaning toward a MAC mini, (I have a display) with Magic keyboard & trackpad mouse.

So here’s more of my ignorance – I have seen many times the reference to the “Apple Tax” but still don’t understand what that is, what it is?

And as to MS documentation – I agree it’s terrible – but in their defense, it’s a huge job!! I had a small role in keeping documentation up-to-date for my company in my working days and it was always changing and so difficult to keep current. Updates in so many places!  Reviewing, revising, changing so fast!  It’s expensive.  The result for users is it’s very frustrating to look for solutions and get no answers or non-answers such as “Something bad happened.” MS could put more money and focus on it – especially for something like an update failure code!  But again – back to the not caring piece.  This is one of the reasons why a forum such as this is so valuable – to me.  Good technical answers  🙂

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I bring up the “Apple tax” as a way to convey the higher price that Apple hardware costs. For instance, people will usually say “I can build or buy a Windows machine for x hundreds of dollars less than the cost of a Mac equivalent”, so people have called this the “Apple tax”.

The price gap has narrowed quite a bit over the last 5 or so years, and I’m hoping with Apple M1 CPU/GPU chips, that the price gap becomes even more narrow in the future since Apple will be putting their own hardware into their equipment, instead of Intel or IBM’s.

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dmt_3904

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I would answer the question in 3 parts. For pros, they have the knowledge and skills to secure Windows using tools provide by MS fairly well. For tech enthusiasts, their knowledge, while good, tends to be spotty. But their overall knowledge will help them figure out how to secure Windows like the pros. It may take more time as they research what to do. The general user is in trouble. They lack the skills and knowledge to properly secure any OS by themselves. The main weakness Windows still has is it not easy to secure by general users by themselves and the default security settings historically have dismal.

I see the problem as more a disconnect between MS and the general public. They historically never really understood the consumer market for any product. The consumer market (for any product) is made up of people who need the device to work properly with minimal configuration by the user.

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windbg

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lurks about wrote:

The main weakness Windows still has is it not easy to secure by general users by themselves and the default security settings historically have dismal.

Which are the historically-dismal default security settings in Windows?

I can only think of “Hide extensions for known file types”.

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“Reworking GUI is security risk.”

I think the poster above you was referring to the fact that reworking a GUI is not worth it. MS should focus on securing their system and getting all the 65 exploits in Windows 10 that are currently not patch fixed. If they fix those, than focus on change GUI but allow for people to keep the original GUI. The only reason MS changes GUI is to keep its people busy and than confuse the normal non-tech people that are about 90% in the world. The other 10% of tech savy people will find open source or other ways to change GUI into what they want and need. Leave things as is and fix those that are broken like the exploits.

 

Reword this again– again to get the clean filter to stop blocking it.

“Your message was blocked due to the clean talk spam filter. If you feel this was in error (and believe me it happens) please contact _____”

I will not email Susan so that she can than hack into my computer with the Windows 10 exploit once she has my email. Since now it is very easy to hack into any computer once you have their email that is linked to Windows 10 computer. One of the 65 exploit in Windows 10…..Just Kidding but I prefer  to stay anonymous

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anonymous wrote:

MS should focus on securing their system and getting all the 65 exploits in Windows 10 that are currently not patch fixed.

What are the 65 exploits in Windows 10 which have not been fixed by patches?

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