Microsoft's .NET could turn virus victim

Microsoft's .NET technology is subject to a range of virus threats which could make network security even harder to ensure in the future.

Despite including a rigorous security in much of the .NET platform, Eric Chien, chief researcher for anti-virus firm Symantec, has identified a number of areas which could make it victim to even more security threats than the current windows systems.

Chien said: "There are a number of new threats here, most of which are dependent on how users set their permissions and other security settings. The ability for the platform to understand programmes in different languages makes the threat from worms and trojans much greater, as many of these are written in other languages such as Perl and currently have no anti-virus products."

Chien delivered his misgiving s in a research paper last Friday, in which he admitted his worries that attempts to port .NET to other operating systems - such as the Mono project to make it available on Linux - will ignore Microsoft's various security settings, leaving the platform open to attack.

Overall he said the new platform is a step in the right direction by Microsoft, offering users the ability to make the platform very secure. However, his doubts are fuelled by worries that network administrators will not be savvy enough to keep the system safe.

"We all know from history how many IIS servers are still un-patched, months after Code Red, so the worry is that, even though the security is there, users won't know how to set their policies."