Introduction

Windows Vista provides many security benefits, including enhancements to the Vista logon architecture, a new feature called User Account Control (UAC), smart card enhancements, and Network Access Protection (NAP). It also includes redesigned and redeveloped Remote Assistance functionality.

Although Microsoft designed Vista to be more secure, nothing really applies more security to your system than defense in depth. Defense in depth is the technical term for a secure system that is applied in layers. Vista provides a new level of security with its enhancements. This is combined with ensuring that users handle their credentials properly; that they understand other concepts of physical security, such as limiting access to the systems you want to secure; and that they comply with these concepts. When correctly applied, a security policy and other security defenses create a secure multilayered onion. If one layer is exploited or penetrated, others still stand guard.

Windows Vista is secure by design and offers many layers of security by itself. By following Microsoft s Trustworthy Computing initiative, the developers of Windows Vista have designed the software to eliminate the most common Windows-based attacks, such as buffer overflows. In addition, other known weaknesses to the logon subsystems have been reworked. User access has always been an issue and tough to secure within Microsoft s camp, but with Vista, secure advancements have been made to make these simple exploits a thing of the past. Because of the way Windows was initially designed, an attacker could exploit the OS s subsystems in many...