Playing it safe with Windows Vista
Microsoft is pitching a security feature in Windows Vista as a boon for consumer online safety, but others think its benefits lie elsewhere. The software maker is promoting the use of Windows Security Center, a feature in the long-awaited operating system, as a way for Web sites and third-party software programs to gauge the security status of customer PCs
Microsoft is actively pitching the possibility of the PC security checks to banks and online retailers. The feature was actually introduced in Windows XP Service Pack 2, in August 2004, but Microsoft hasn’t talked about it much. “We are promoting that a lot more to the community now than we did with SP2,” Robinson said. Windows Vista is slated to be broadly available in February. Though they say Microsoft’s goal is noble, others don’t expect many consumer Web sites or online services to start conducting PC security checks. According to Microsoft’s own data, about 70 percent of consumers aren’t running up-to-date antivirus protection.
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