Moving forward, Microsoft intends to reduce the attack surface of its products, such as turning less-often used features off, running more code in lower privilege, closing network ports and adding more defensive layers. However, this _may_ cause some applications to fail or behave inconsistently, but customers have told us they want us to reduce the attack surface of our products as it is easier to deal with potential application issues than potential security issues. Windows XP Service Pack 2, currently in development, substantially reduces the OS attack surface and we feel it's important that Windows developers are aware of some of the upcoming changes so they can determine if their applications are affected. Please take a look at _Windows XP Service Pack 2: A Developer's View_ at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnwxp/html/securityinxpsp2.asp for further information. Cheers, Michael [Writing Secure Code 2nd Edition] http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/5957.asp [Protect Your PC] http://www.microsoft.com/protect [Blog] http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/mikehow
