* The Reviewmeister looks at the latest Service Pack for Windows XP
We looked at the latest Service Pack for Windows XP to determine how it made Microsoft’s operating system more secure.
XP SP2 includes a new firewall, application execution protection features, a new system management component for security, and security modifications to the browser and e-mail processing features of XP.
XP SP2’s firewall is a stripped-down packet-filtering mechanism with limited configuration and logging capabilities.
Modifications to the browser should prevent at least some types of malicious Web content from attacking systems because they disallow pop-up windows by default. The mechanism used to process e-mail attachments has been modified, so there should be less unchecked execution of programs that help spread viruses.
The firewall, execution protection and new security center component – a new GUI to control the firewall, virus scanner, and update monitoring features – provide features similar to most third-party client security products.
There is no specific intrusion-detection or intrusion-prevention capability in XP SP2, although many of its security features will have the beneficial side effect of blocking intrusions. The firewall will block incoming network connections that an attacker would use for some kinds of intrusions, for example. It doesn’t provide the same features as the client security products we reviewed, but it does address the general requirement of “making the client more resilient to attack.”
We also asked endpoint security vendors in our test whether SP2 was certified to work with their products. All nine said their products worked now, worked with modifications or would be updated soon to work with XP SP2.
For the full report, go to https://www.nwfusion.com/review/2004/0920revXP.html
