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Blogger: Windows 7 UAC Feature Still Vulnerable

Citing a Microsoft document, he said the company won't fix UAC, which has a flaw that allows a remote user to take over a PC

By Elizabeth Montalbano

Microsoft did not officially respond to a request for comment on Zheng's claim and video post. However, a company spokesperson said privately that Zheng may have misinterpreted Russinovich's document.

"The point seems to me to make it harder for malware to get on the system in the first place, by helping the end user make better decisions through the prompts they get, and having more and more users run in standard user mode vs. in admin mode (because admin mode is what exposes your machine to risks)," said the spokesperson, who asked not to be named, via e-mail.

Microsoft had stood by the change to UAC's default setting when Zheng made his first vulnerability claim, saying that the feature cannot be exploited unless there is already malicious code running on the machine and "something else has already been breached."

Microsoft has said that Windows 7, currently in a preview release, will be available to both businesses and consumers on Oct. 22. The release to manufacturing of the OS, at which all code will be final, is expected late next month.

Copyright 2009 IDG News Service, International Data Group Inc. All rights reserved.

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