Actual Reason Behind ‘Chrome OS Security’ Uproar: ‘Anti-Virus Industry’ Afraid of Going Out of Business
Posted on | July 17, 2009 | 6 Comments
Google execs have been keeping sharp silence since the Chrome OS news broke out but the blogosphere is reacting just the opposite. Bloggers and news journalists are fantasizing everything they can, just to keep the Chrome OS buzz alive, whether the concerns being raised are relevant or not.
And right now, Google’s statement of building fool-proof security standards in Google Chrome OS is getting over-exaggerated to a large extent by the online media.
The security pundits are whole-heartedly questioning Google’s claims of building a Malware-free Operating System. Few of the logical justifications of security experts are somewhat true but still, the actual statement has been largely mis-interpreted, making a mountain of a molehill.
This is the statement that’s causing the uproar…
And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.
Media has gone absurdly far that it has started relating Twitter security breach with vulnerability of Google Chrome OS. It’s fine that many of the official Twitter documents which were recently hacked, were hosted on cloud based Google docs service, but we reckon the skeptics missed out a point made pretty clear by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone saying
This attack had nothing to do with any vulnerability in Google Apps which we continue to use.
We do agree that no operating system can be 100% malware-free. We also agree that there may be even more challenges for Google while carving out a Web based Operating system, which is bound to be more open and would heavily rely on cloud based applications. But this doesn’t mean that Google’s statement about Chrome OS Security standards is waguely wrong.
One can better interpret the questionable Google statement as “implementation of never-before and highly resistent security standards within Google Chrome OS”.
Now, imagine an operating system, which is not completely fool-proof but has very rare chances of malware attacks and least vulnerability to viruses. Won’t you love such an OS ? That’s exactly what Google is eyeing for.
But there’s another hidden reason behind all these objections, being raised majorly by Security experts and Anti-virus companies. Suppose, if Google actually succeeds in building a Fool-proof Operating System then it will be one of the major highlights of Chrome OS in competing against Microsoft Windows.
And if, Google starts hurting long lived Windows dynasty of Microsoft badly, then it won’t be just Microsoft but countless of Anti-virus firms and computer security companies, who will be at the risk of going out of business.
The possibility is quite easy to realize. If Malware-free Google Chrome OS succeeds in stealing some 30-40% of OS market share from Microsoft within a span of, say 4-5 years from its launch then it will mean that only 55-65% market will actually require security experts or anti-virus softwares for staying Malware-free. This may jeopardise Anti-virus industry to a large extent.
It is analogous to a situation when everybody becomes healthy on earth and there’s a rare possibility of any disease to spread across, meaning no need of medicines ever. Won’t that cause whole Medical industry to go out of business.
This same sort of feeling is one major reason behind the whole controversy around the Google statement on Chrome OS security plans.
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6 Responses to “Actual Reason Behind ‘Chrome OS Security’ Uproar: ‘Anti-Virus Industry’ Afraid of Going Out of Business”
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July 17th, 2009 @ 10:19 am
[...] the rest here: Actual Reason Behind ‘Chrome OS Security’ Uproar: ‘Anti-Virus Industry’ Afra… Categories: Business, Computer, Computer Security Tags: Business, Computer Security, going-out, [...]
July 19th, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
I don’t think they’re the only ones who might be misinterpreting Google’s statement, either.
You could also interpret it as it’s read–that is, “users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware, and security updates. It should just work”. In other words, users shouldn’t have to install an anti-(virus|malware) program, or check for updates; the OS should be relatively secure, and updates should be provided without user interaction: it should just work.
July 22nd, 2009 @ 6:29 am
I guess we´ll all have to wait for them to actually launch chrome os before we can really tell.
July 23rd, 2009 @ 8:12 am
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August 31st, 2009 @ 12:04 pm
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December 11th, 2009 @ 1:10 am
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