Windows, Security, Personal Settings And Files and perhaps other operating systems

[truefusion 3]

Running off of a previous thought, i thought, even if there was such a feature in Windows that monitors a program's actions as strictly as that, there are still further complications to worry about. We all know that in order for a program to take into account previously defined settings, it would have to store it somewhere for later accessing. This usually involves the registry or INI files. I'm not 100% sure how the Windows registry works, but chances are some parts of it are accessible to the user regardless of permissions, which are only to be accessed by programs ran as that user, and by the administrator. But that is all that is required to exploit the security implementations placed there by Microsoft—if such a strict monitoring system were to be implemented, of course.

 

Since viruses (at least as far as i understand Windows or the initiating of programs) can only run with the same permissions that the currently logged-in user has (lest the obvious security (i)(co)mplications that come from it occur), it can affect anything that that user owns. A pop-up that informs you that a program (the name of the program would (should) be found in the title bar) is attempting to modify certain files when you did not inform any program to do so—and when you weren't even using a program that has that capability—appears, it would catch people by surprise. If it were me, it would certainly cause some worry. If the titlebar didn't have the name of the program, people could confuse any current program that they were using at the time of the pop-up with the unidentified program action. If confusion (as in thinking that the action is legitimate) or apathy forms in the user, the chances of the user allowing the act increases.

 

So what are all the complications so far that can be derived from this?

Predefined program allowance; that is, Microsoft giving file access permissions to their programs upon installation of the system. This should be expected, but if a lot of thought isn't placed into it, it can be something that can be exploited if the program somehow manages to run as the system.

Virus integrating itself into an already accepted program (and then giving itself all the permissions it needs to run alone). This is common, due to exploiting another program's security flaws.

Virus running as if it were another program, not related to integration. That is, if the operating system is incapable of detecting if the program being ran is the same as the legitimate one that was ran previously, whether through MD5 hashing, or whatever method.

User apathy or confusion. (Already explained.)

User incompetence and ignorance. (Should be self-explanatory.)

There are probably others, but we'll move on from here. So when dealing with security exploits, though it is impossible to do away with completely, current technology can prevent a good majority of problems from occurring if thought out properly. All the tools needed to prevent security exploits should be embedded into the operating system itself without having to find third party tools to fill the spot. For example, one shouldn't need SpyBot S&D to track registry modifications—especially if they've never heard of the thing. There should also be plenty of documentation on the matter that the user should be introduced upon first starting the system, or having a little icon in the system tray "just in case," or somewhere easily accessible, to do away with ignorance and incompetence. This information shouldn't be limited to the operating system either. This information should also be included in the manual pertaining to your computer (if you purchased a pre-built computer) or operating system.

 

I am not entirely certain on the current condition of Windows and security, but a lot of asking doesn't help much if the program, after running, is given all permissions the current user has without the user's consent. This is not limited to Windows, though, and can be found in other operating systems. However, these kind of complications cannot be found by, say, looking into the source code of the program being ran, since the majority of programs available for proprietary operating systems is closed source. Asking more, more logical questions (or replacing or removing the illogical ones) implies that the user requires to know their computer more than a lot of the people who use computers today. In the case of Linux, this is inevitable, though not necessarily with a bad connotation to it—and by the looks of it, should be kept that way. This also means not calling a friend or technician (or calling them less) when you've messed up your computer.

 

Since i'm not entirely sure how UAC works in Windows, all talk i've seen about the annoyance it brings either implied or explicitly mentioned that the pop-ups occurred when the user performed an act via either the mouse or keyboard. One of the complications listed is a program exploiting another. I haven't heard any complaints about this that's related to UAC. This means one of about two things: either Windows allows these kinds of actions since the parent is already considered "accepted" by the user, or Windows users actually were thankful for Windows informing them about such a problem, therefore not provoking complaints. The latter doesn't seem more probable than the former ( ), especially if we consider the exploit of Internet Explorer that dominates all versions of Internet Explorer from version 5 and up, and if we consider some Firefox add-ons that have been found to exploit Firefox. So there is obviously a security flaw here.

 

In the case of file tampering, the majority (if not all) users don't do research on the matter unless forced to or by curiosity. These pop-ups should at least cause curiosity to new users, even if the curiosity doesn't lead to reading documentation. There should also be on these pop-ups a button that leads to the relative section(s) in the documentation. The documentation itself would, of course, have to be organized well, with proper headings and titles. It should follow that the tables of content should be visible upon navigating the documentation and that there should be a way to search through the navigation and entire documentation. The documentation should also be straight to the point without much idle talk. Though boredom may be inevitable when reading the documentation, it can at least be reduced.

 

Whether or not it is safe to assume that Windows can properly detect if a program was ran previously and accepted is beyond me. But if it merely runs off of the file name or the Window Title, or other information that can be mirrored easily, then there requires better detection methods in determining whether or not a program is legit or not. Otherwise, a program can mask itself as a system program and be accepted. If the same program is not allowed multiple instances of itself (without permission), then if the trojan program somehow manages to run before the legitimate system program, it'll prevent any legitimate instance of the actual program from running. So we would then be faced with more complications.

 

I'm not sure what Microsoft has up its sleeve, but if any of these have not been considered for future (or current) releases of Windows, especially the complications with the most concerns, then we shouldn't expect from advertisements that say Windows has become more secure to be as accurate as it implies. From all the talk that has been going around, it's more of "Windows has become more annoying," even if these annoyances can be restricted. Some annoyances may be necessary, but that doesn't mean all of them are.

 

(And yes, i do think a lot. )

[aloKNsh 0]

really u r gr8........u typed so muchcan u add me as ur frnd.......plzthank ubut can u also help me out for i need help on windows security