This article in Wired by Bruce Schneier gives another hint at what some people have been arguing for a long time: Liability for software vendors. It describes how fast an organization reacts when there is money in risk. In spite of the promise to focus on security after several worm breakouts with huge financial consequences for customers, the security has not been one of the most outstanding features for Microsoft lately. In Bruce’s words:
In the absence of regulation, software liability, or some other mechanism to make unpatched software costly for the vendor, “Patch Tuesday” is the best users are likely to get.
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Last week, a hacker developed an application called FairUse4WM that strips the copy protection from Windows Media DRM 10 and 11 files.
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So Microsoft wasted no time; it issued a patch three days after learning about the hack. There’s no month-long wait for copyright holders who rely on Microsoft’s DRM.
You can read more about this article on this blog entry.
