Security Expert to Show Vista Weaknesses

A top security researcher known for finding security holes in Microsoft's Windows operating system plans to show how hackers can invade the recently released Vista, which Microsoft has boasted as having more hardened security features, ComputerWorld reports.

Security vulnerabilities for Microsoft's Vista have particular import for the federal government. In March, the Office of Management and Budget mandated agencies follow a standard Microsoft Windows operating system configuration to improve information security across government. Some worry that mandate will not make government systems substantially safer, while others do.

Joanna Rutkowska plans to hold a training session called "Understanding Stealth Malware" at this summer's Black Hat Briefings and Training event in Las Vegas. "The training session, which will be co-presented by researcher Alex Tereshkin, promises to demonstrate new rootkits developed for Vista, ways of defeating hardware-based forensics systems, and other techniques Microsoft would probably prefer the world didn't know," ComputerWorld reports.

Rutkowska "recently uncovered a number of flaws in Vista's much-hyped User Account Control (UAC) feature, which led Microsoft to declare that the feature wasn't really intended for security after all," according to ComputerWorld.