Microsoft puts attack surface analyser in beta

Microsoft has released the beta version of a tool it claimed would allow Windows administrators to measure changes in the attack surface of their environments after installing new applications.

According to a blog post, the Attack Surface Analyzer tool works by taking snapshots of an organisation's system and comparing them, looking for "classes of security weaknesses as applications are installed on the Windows operating system".

"The tool also gives an overview of the changes to the system Microsoft considers important to the security of the platform and highlights these in the attack surface report," the Microsoft blog stated.

"Some of the checks performed by the tool include analysis of changed or newly added files, registry keys, services, ActiveX Controls, listening ports, access control lists and other parameters that affect a computer's attack surface."