Microsoft Corp.'s ambitious plan to bake RSS deep into the belly of Longhorn will open new attack vectors for spammers, phishers and malicious hackers, security experts say. "It is inevitable, without a doubt. When Longhorn comes out, attackers will pounce on every new thing to see if Microsoft did it correctly. You can bet RSS integration will be one of those things attackers will want to exploit," said John Pescatore, senior vice president of research at Gartner Inc.
Looking to introduce the fast-growing content syndication technology to a mass audience, Microsoft plans to embed an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) platform to automatically distribute feeds into Windows applications, both its own and those from developers. The plan is for Longhorn to provide a common feed list of subscriptions and a common feed store of data in Longhorn, which will be available to applications through Windows APIs. The Redmond, Wash., company's vision also includes RSS discovery and easy-to-subscribe options in the upcoming Internet Explorer 7 browser refresh.
News source: eWeek
