Windows 8 Security Measures Broken?

By SongHyeonDeok
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SongHyeonDeok

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Last week?s Windows 8 launch wasn?t just a major product release for Microsoft. It seems to have been a banner day for the government-funded hackers who take Microsoft?s software apart, too.

On Tuesday the French firm Vupen, whose researchers develop software hacking techniques and sell them to government agency customers, announced that it had already developed an exploit that could take over a Window 8 machine running Internet Explorer 10, in spite of the many significant security upgrades Microsoft built into the latest version of its operating system.

Source: Forbes

Really interesting read. It's also noted that it'll take other hackers a while before breaking into Windows 8 becomes more common.

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Grand Master

Noir Angel

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And this is why I will never buy an RT based tablet as long as the browser restrictions are in place. Even with Microsoft's security improvements IE still seems to be a portal for hackers.

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Grand Master

soldier1st

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And this is why I will never buy an RT based tablet as long as the browser restrictions are in place. Even with Microsoft's security improvements IE still seems to be a portal for hackers.

And that and other reasons are why it is advised to avoid IE.

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CentralDogma

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so this was with the desktop version of IE? no surprise there

now if this was with the Metro IE and they had managed to break RTs sandbox THEN I'd be impressed

Well, that depends. A lot of Metro apps use WWAHost for execution, which is an IE renderer. If the bug is in that, then they could potentially breach the sandbox for Metro apps.

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Aethec

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And this is why I will never buy an RT based tablet as long as the browser restrictions are in place. Even with Microsoft's security improvements IE still seems to be a portal for hackers.

Actually, IE on Metro has a more restrictive sandbox than IE on desktop. I know you can enable the more secure sandboy in the "normal" desktop IE, but I don't know if you can do it in the ARM version.

But then what do you want to use? Firefox? I like Firefox, but it's nowhere near IE in terms of security.

Grand Master

Brandon H Supervisor

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Actually, IE on Metro has a more restrictive sandbox than IE on desktop. I know you can enable the more secure sandboy in the "normal" desktop IE, but I don't know if you can do it in the ARM version.

But then what do you want to use? Firefox? I like Firefox, but it's nowhere near IE in terms of security.

yeah doesn't IE actually have the strongest sandbox between firefox(which doesn't even have a sandbox) and chrome now?
Grand Master

BajiRav

Posted
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And this is why I will never buy an RT based tablet as long as the browser restrictions are in place. Even with Microsoft's security improvements IE still seems to be a portal for hackers.

the more reason to not use IE :p

what makes you think Firefox, Chrome or Opera on Windows 8 will be any better? :/

Grand Master

Seahorsepip Veteran

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what makes you think Firefox, Chrome or Opera on Windows 8 will be any better? :/

I think it's security wise better because of the way it's written and I'm always pro firefox since they're the only ones that keep themselves to the webstandards which is important to me as a webdesigner.

But yeah every software has/had its security holes except IE a few more :p

Grand Master

+Xinok Subscriber²

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You mean hackers have done the possible?! :huh:

All the additional layers of security in Windows 8 and RT make hacking more difficult but not impossible. With enough determination, a hacker can break into any system. Even Google Chrome has been exploited, bypassing the sandbox and all.

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