A lot of the focus is on security and ways of protecting the network and threats from inside and outside. Every day, hackers work on finding exploits and unpatched systems to break into. In the 1990’s, virus’s were written by kids, and college students more for an annoyance then what they are doing today. Today, groups of hackers usually hired by organized crime purposely write programs to steal data, including credit cards, banking information, or other sensitive data. The landscape has changed, and will keep changing as technology does. As a systems engineer, part of my job is protecting computers and networks from these threats.
If you are a hacker you love when you can dig into a system and start to learn it from the inside out. You take the time and learn every intricacy that is in the system. You know that there are millions of lines of code that you will have to comb through, so you know that an exploit will be found eventually.
Knowing these small facts will let you be able to bend the machine to your will, especially if you have a trick that no one knows about. This can all change in an instant when the owner of the software makes any significant changes to it. You hope that all of the upgrades that are on the new version have nothing to do with the break points that you have found but more than likely there will be new blocks that you will have to hurdle.
This is why hackers are having a hard time with the new Windows 7 operating system.
Windows 7 Improves Security With Rewritten Code
Even though Microsoft has kept some backwards compatibility, they have rewritten a lot of the operating system software that was lying underneath. They have made big changes to the code that runs the kernel and also the code that manages the memory. Changes such as this can lead to old exploits not working the same way, as they were before. Now the hackers have to dig through all of that code once again so they can find new points of weakness. Even though they might love doing it, it is a time consuming process and there are only so many hours in the day.
When you have all of the work that you have done, ruined by a simple patch, then you can get quite frustrated. Even though an upgraded Windows 7 operating system may upset hackers, this is a great thing for the users of the operating system.
Security Is Improving With Microsoft
Since Microsoft is showing that they have a renewed interest in security with all of the changes in the code, you know that you are using a computer that has been completely tested and secured.
You also want to make sure that you install any security patches that Microsoft may issue. These patches upgrade your computer so that known exploits can be cut off at the pass. So if you want to make sure that you have a computer that hackers will want to avoid, and you prefer Microsoft operating systems, then make sure you upgrade to Windows 7.
There are a lot of patched holes and a whole lot of new code that the hackers will have to dig through. It makes finding new exploits take a much longer amount of time.
Carl Mazzanti is Co-Founder and President of eMazzanti Technologies, Microsoft’s four time Partner of the Year and one of the premier IT consulting services for businesses throughout the New York metropolitan area and internationally. Carl and his company manage over 400 active accounts ranging from professional services firms to high-end global retailers.
eMazzanti is all about delivering powerful, efficient outsourced IT services, such as computer network management and troubleshooting, managed print, PCI DSS compliance, green computing, mobile workforce technology, information security, cloud computing, and business continuity and disaster recovery.
Carl Mazzanti is also a frequent business conference speaker and technology talk show guest and contributor at Microsoft-focused events, including frequent prominent roles at the Microsoft Inspire (Worldwide Partner Conference / WPC).
Carl, a serial Entrepreneur, gives back to the community through Entrepreneur teaching engagements at Georgetown University, the company’s ocean wildlife conservation effort, the Blue Project, and Tree Mazzanti.
