Features New To Windows Vista - Security and Safety

Security and Safety

Beginning in early 2002 with Microsoft's announcement of their Trustworthy Computing initiative, a great deal of work has gone into making Windows Vista a more secure operating system than its predecessors. Internally, Microsoft adopted a "Secure Development Lifecycle" with the underlying ethos of, "Secure by design, secure by default, secure in deployment". New code for Windows Vista was developed with the SDL methodology, and all existing code was reviewed and refactored to improve security.

Some of the most significant and most discussed security features included with Windows Vista include User Account Control, Kernel Patch Protection, BitLocker Drive Encryption, Mandatory Integrity Control, Digital Rights Management, TCP/IP stack security improvements, Address Space Layout Randomization and the EFS and cryptography improvements. Additionally, Windows Vista includes a range of parental controls, which give owners of a computer a set of tools to limit what other accounts on a computer can do, and an improved Windows Firewall which supports both inbound and outbound packet filtering, IPv6 connection filtering and more detailed configurable rules and policies.