Steering Microsoft clear of hackers

When Steve Ballmer gave his presentation at the Churchill Club a few of weeks ago, he talked about "shield technology." What is that going to include?
It's what I'm talking about with fences. Fences and shields are not that different.

Well, what is a shield?
A firewall is a shield. I like to think of the broader term, "countermeasures," because this is an ongoing battle. That hackers are committing criminal acts -- and they are -- if they want to exploit things, they will adopt all sorts of measures to do so. The question becomes: how can we put countermeasures in place that make it as difficult as possible for them? You want them to go someplace else. You don't want them to go to your house.

Go to Linux?
Not Linux. Fundamentally, you want people to build their systems structure so that if a hacker tries to find machines to get into, they won't be able to get into yours. The idea of having countermeasures in place is focused on turning hackers away -- just like a locked door is.

So, what's the real problem? Is it the fact that many people are still not turning on firewalls or is it the way Microsoft's software gets designed?
I think it's a combination. For sure, there are things people can do, and that's why we're working with our original equipment manufacturers and running an ad campaign to get those firewalls turned on. That will help. But clearly, there are places where we can change the structure of our software.

Such as?
We need to make sure that the opportunities hackers have found to get into areas -- that we get rid of those. Those are essentially vulnerabilities we've had to close.

There's more and more interest in remote management. And now, you have blade servers and gigantic data centres. The specific job of remote management is to let someone on another side of the network take control of your computer. Does that fundamentally open security vulnerabilities -- because you have to build in so many capabilities to allow for remote management?
Not really. If access is protected through a security mechanism -- like a difficult-to-break password or a smart card -- that's a very secure mechanism. There's just a search. There's a certificate I need to unlock with a personal identification number, and then there's a password. With that combination, nobody's going to guess that password. It's just impossible.