>> Windows would operate alot smoother if UAC is disabled. If you have an
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>> adequate security solution installed on your comp, then you don't need
>> UAC on....or Windows Defender for that matter.
Most security professionals would disagree.
Firewalls help, but lots of applications list themselves as an exception
which opens up the application to unsoliticed traffic. Virus scanners on
average find less than 20% of currently active viruses the first few days of
release, and is only up to about 50% by the time the virus is a month old.
Now, you really should use a personal firewall, virus scanner, and e-mail
protection, but it's like a flu shot, it often works but not 100% of the
time.
There are things built into Windows Vista that are not part of UAC that
helps, particularly around the security permissions for the background
services. There's also been tons of automatic code review done and thousands
of fixes made. Again, this all helps.
Computer security is about 'defense in depth'. If someone gets past the
Firewall (easy for say a peer-to-peer game that lists itself as an exception
on the Firewall), gets past your virus & spyware scanner (easy by just
targeting a well-known network-facing application, like say a multiplayer
game), and finds a vulnerability, if that application is running with full
administrator rights your machine can be owned. In fact, if you ever do find
a virus or rootkit, the only way you can be sure you have removed it is to
flatten your machine and not move any of the data over.
If on the other hand, you have UAC enabled and the application that is
hacked was running as Standard User, you can know that it won't have
infected the system files. It's much harder to create a rootkit without
admin rights.
--
-Chuck Walbourn
SDE, XNA Developer Connection
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warrenties, and confers no rights.