Microsoft launches insecure security system

Microsoft's Strategic Technology Protection programme, designed to improve Internet Information Server (IIS) and XP security, has been found to contain several flaws.

Microsoft's new security programme - which includes updated security patches - CD-Roms and increased support, was launched in early October to protect customers' systems from existing vulnerabilities in IIS and the recently launched XP.

However, US security news wires are using concrete examples of how the programme failed to work. One recent example is when Microsoft instructed new customers of XP to download 1.9MGB security patch to protect the XP from malicious hackers. But the company failed to give details of which vulnerabilities the patch was supposed to cover.

According to Russ cooper, the editor of BugTraq, a mailing list for System Admins, the Security Toolkit - a CD-Rom released together with the initiative - caused the systems to become unstable rending the systems even more vulnerable to viruses and hackers.