Fergie's Tech Blog

Expert: Hackers Will Break Vista's PatchGuard

Ryan Naraine writes on eWeek:

A computer security expert is predicting that hackers will crack the controversial PatchGuard kernel anti-tampering technology coming in Windows Vista within one year of its release.

Alexander Czarnowski, chief executive of Avet, in Warsaw, Poland, said he believes it's inevitable that the technology will be broken once the final version of Windows Vista is released to manufacturing.

The PatchGuard technology, which was introduced in Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 x64 and Windows XP x64 almost two years ago, monitors the kernel to prevent third parties from extending or replacing kernel services. It effectively serves as an anti-rootkit mechanism, blocking the insertion of kernel-mode stealth malware.

However, hackers and security researchers have already started discussing ways to bypass the technology.

posted by Fergie @ 10/13/2006 09:37:00 AM