Microsoft Security: What's Next?

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,811355,00.asp

By Dennis Fisher
January 7, 2003 

Scott Charney has been on the hot seat ever since he joined Microsoft 
Corp. last year as the software giant's chief security strategist. He 
arrived in Redmond, Wash., four months after Bill Gates sent out his 
famous memo outlining the company's new Trustworthy Computing 
initiative and a newfound commitment to security. He is not only the 
public face of that effort but also the man who is ultimately 
responsible for carrying out Gates' instructions regarding security. 
Charney talked to eWEEK Senior Editor Dennis Fisher recently about the 
progress Microsoft has made in the last year and what lies ahead for 
Trustworthy Computing. 


eWEEK: How do you think the company has done as far as Trustworthy 
Computing is concerned in the last year? 

Charney: In some ways, I think we've made great progress. But then I 
look at it as a continuum, and it seems like we've made very small 
steps on a very long road. Some of the steps have been important ones. 
Before Trustworthy Computing, the delaying of products because of 
security concerns was not common practice at Microsoft—or in the 
industry, for that matter. It's an organizational change. Trustworthy 
Computing is a long-term effort, and some of the benefits have not yet 
been realized in the market. 


eWEEK: How so? 

Charney: Well, Windows .Net Server [2003] hasn't been released yet, 
but a lot of the work we've done in the security push will be evident 
in that release. We're doing a lot of after-action efforts where we 
look at things like whether the vulnerabilities we found in the 
security push are unique to a product or more widespread. We will 
continue the push constantly on every new product that we release. 
Overall, I'm very pleased, but we still have a long way to go. 


eWEEK: What other elements of Trustworthy Computing are you working 
on? 

Charney: One of things I'm looking at is, how do you come up with an 
objective measure of the security of a product? Our chief privacy 
officer, Richard Purcell, has developed this tool called the Privacy 
Health Index to assess the performance of each application. But when 
you think about trying to apply that to security, it gets kind of 
fuzzy. The questions we ask as part of the privacy index are binary, 
yes or no. But if you ask a developer if he did a security code review 
and he says yes, what does that mean? It's a really important thing. 
We're struggling to find the right system. 


eWEEK: What are some of the things that you'd like to address in the 
coming year? 

Charney: I think it's important to [do the security] push on products 
that are taking on new roles in the marketplace, things like instant 
messaging and handhelds. We need to get ahead of the curve to make 
sure that we're sensitive to how the technology's being used. We need 
to continue to make progress on Palladium. Our goal is making security 
easier to use. Think about how difficult it is to manage security. The 
technology has proliferated much faster than the training has. We need 
to analyze the training program, too. It's amazing how many people who 
have computer science degrees have no security training. 


eWEEK: Do you think the idea of improving security has really taken 
hold inside the company? 

Charney: I do. The number of e-mails that I see with people raising 
security issues is huge. That didn't happen before. The cultural 
change is very marked and very real. 


eWEEK: You've talked a lot about the security training that all of 
Microsoft's developers went through. Is that something that will be 
ongoing in the future? 

Charney: Definitely. There's going to be continuous training. We're 
looking at ways to improve it and come up with an agenda for 
continuous professional growth. 



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