If you been thinking about making the move to Vista because of safety improvements, think again. Computer World published a report last month that Malware will thrive on the operating system.

“Malware technology will evolve just like a business,” says Vlad Gorelik, chief technology officer at Sana Security. “There are definitely improved protections [in Vista] with permissions control and things like that, but that type of protection could be overcome by malware.”

Some malware can already do its nefarious work under Vista, while others will need only minor changes. Fake alerts and other social engineering tricks already in use will become more sophisticated and more common as methods for evading Vista’s defenses. You’ll also likely see more Web-based threats able to steal data passing through any browser, and malware may hide more often in seemingly innocuous installation programs.

They called it right. The attacks haven’t stopped and vulnerabilities have been found and are actively being exploited. UAC has been a failure as most Vista users quickly deactivate it because it’s so annoying and then they’re really at risk of bad infections as many of the system’s safe guards are turned off.

[How Internet criminals will evade Vista's safeguards]

[tags]computer security, information security, network security[/tags]