Vista sees new memory management problem

Vista isn’t the greatest operating system on the planet but it is far from the worst.  The “honor” of worst operating system goes to Windows ME but that’s a really old hat.  Yet another vulnerability has cropped up in the opera that has become Vista.

A new vulnerability affects not only the operating system but just about any process running in memory.  According to PCWorld the problem lies in something called the “Vista heap” which is a “dynamic memory management component.”

Ben Hawkes, a researcher based in New Zealand says that is used by every single application running on a PC (that happens to be using Vista).

Microsoft did improve security in Vista but he says that more steps need to be taken.  In my opinion you can expect these improvements to come with Windows 7 or Vista SP2 (if there is a SP2).

Presently, this does not present a threat or vulnerability but his research could be used to create a vulnerability.  He says his research could be used at a later time by attackers to create one.  Well, thank you Ben Hawkes for releasing it, we may have never known about it if it wasn’t for you.

There are very few people in the world doing cutting edge research in that particular area.

I guarantee you that number just went up 100 fold.  Sometimes researchers should just keep their mouths shut about a vulnerability.  I think this may be one of those cases.  No one knew about it and now everyone and their aunt knows about it.

• Vista runs low or out of memory when copying lots of files
• Memory chipmakers to lose money, Vista demand over forecasted
• Vista requires more memory than super computer version of Windows
• SanDisk, Microsoft to develop advanced memory cards
• Can your PC run Vista in the real world?