Speaking at the RSA conference in San Francisco this week, a senior Microsoft executive sang the praises of the software giant's emerging vision for 'trust' based security, prompting one industry figurehead to label the strategy as "anti-competitive".
Microsoft's latest vision for End to End Trust security — a global security initiative underpinned by centralised authentication — was described as an industry call to action by the company's chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie, and reiterated by Chris Leach, chief information security officer at Affiliated Computer Services.
Mundie said Microsoft's initiative had laid the foundation for good security practices, and "the challenge now is related to management practices."
The executive's presentation was widely seen as laying out the parameters for Microsoft's ongoing vision for security, so that interested parties could build around this framework.
Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer for BT, was left with only a vague impression of Microsoft's intentions for improving security, saying: "It feels general and like marketing hype."
"Basically, Microsoft has used its trusted computing efforts, such as inserting identity rights management into Office 2003, to lock people into using its products," Schneier said.
"Microsoft has used this as an anti-competitive tool," he added.
In a briefing on Monday, George Stathakopoulos, general manager of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, was prepared for the criticism.
"With everything we do, there is always scepticism and conspiracy theories," he said. "The answer is no; this is for real."
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