Securing your Windows Vista PC is a crucial step in protecting your critical data and even your identity in this interconnected world. In this chapter, we discussed a number of tools available within Vista to improve the security of your computer, including major improvements to the Windows Firewall within Vista. Microsoft created Windows Vista to eliminate the most common Windows-based attacks, such as buffer overflows and the manipulation and exploitation of service accounts. In addition, Vista provides secured user access. User access has always been tough to secure. Because of the way Windows was initially designed, an attacker could exploit the OS s subsystems in many ways. Additional enhancements to the Vista logon architecture include a new feature called User Account Control. When using UAC, a malicious attacker won t be allowed to bypass controls placed on standard user accounts, because if one is jeopardized, it most likely won t offer any kind of path to administrative privileges that could be used for harmful purposes.

Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7 were developed to thwart many common exploits and build a foundation in which new ones can be mitigated. New to Vista and Internet Explorer 7 is an updated Windows Firewall. The new outbound filtering feature in the personal firewall helps apply more granular control over the traffic traversing it, and is more flexible than previous versions. The new Phishing Filter is used to verify the validity of the sites you visit so your personal information and data are not compromised, User...