Symantec Sniping at Vista

Symantec is apparently reduced to a barking dog, cowering in the corner of the former security space it once dominated. Even though hunting for vulnerabilities is not something that Symantec does, it took the time to attack the pre-beta release of Microsoft Vista to find problems with its networking software.

Wow, its too bad this crack team of bug hunters cant find flaws in their own software. Just six months ago, a critical flaw in Symantec’s antivirus could allow a hacker to completely control a victim PC.

But when it comes to trying to cast dispersions at an emerging rival in the security space, Symantec pulls out all stops and publishes a paper detailing flaws in an operating system that is pre-beta and should never be in production. Great work, SYMC.

From CNET here:

Symantec sees an Achilles’ heel in Vista
New networking technologies in Windows Vista will be less stable and secure than in XP, at least in the short term, Symantec researchers say.

Researchers at Cupertino, Calif.-based Symantec examined the new networking technology in recent test releases of Vista, Microsoft’s next major operating system release, according to the report.

Microsoft, in a statement provided to CNET News.com, said …”Given that Windows Vista is still in the beta stage of the development and not yet final, the claims made in this report are, at best, premature,” Microsoft said. “And given the extensive work we are doing to make Windows Vista the most secure version of Windows yet, we believe the claims are also unsubstantiated.”

Traditionally allies, Microsoft and Symantec are now going head-to-head in the security arena. In late May, Microsoft introduced Windows Live OneCare, a consumer security package, and the software giant is readying an enterprise product. Symantec has also sued Microsoft, alleging misuse of data storage technology it licensed to the company.

As I have written before about the many woes of Symantec, the company has failed to innovate in the space it once dominated. It is resorting to lawsuits to fight against its competitors, and this has never been a winning strategy. Just look at Netscape, who cried to the DoJ years ago about how mean Microsoft was. Netscape dropped off the face of the planet, not because of how tough it was to compete with Microsoft, but because Netscape gave up their lead in the market by failing to innovate.

Given that the Symantec request to put an injunction against Microsoft to prevent them from releasing Vista has failed, is Symantec now publishing bogus vulnerability notices to try to scare people away from the new operating system? If so, this is also a losing gambit.