Ten Immutable Laws of Security (v2)

Table of Contents

Immutable Laws of Security
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The 10 Immutable Laws of Security was first published by the Microsoft TechNet in 2000.

At that time, there is a screen saver releasedi (in 2001) for it:

Law #1: If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it’s not your computer anymore
Law #2: If a bad guy can alter the operating system on your computer, it’s not your computer anymore
Law #3: If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it’s not your computer anymore
Law #4: If you allow a bad guy to upload programs to your website, it’s not your website any more
Law #5: Weak passwords trump strong security
Law #6: A computer is only as secure as the administrator is trustworthy
Law #7: Encrypted data is only as secure as the decryption key
Law #8: An out of date virus scanner is only marginally better than no virus scanner at all
Law #9: Absolute anonymity isn’t practical, in real life or on the Web
Law #10: Technology is not a panacea

Below is the version 2.0 (released in Aug 2, 2017) and it is maintained by Microsoft Security Response Center:

Law #1: If a bad actor can persuade you to run their program on your computer, it’s not solely your computer anymore.
Law #2: If a bad actor can alter the operating system on your computer, it’s not your computer anymore.
Law #3: If a bad actor has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it’s not your computer anymore.
Law #4: If you allow a bad actor to run active content in your website, it’s not your website anymore.
Law #5: Weak passwords trump strong security.
Law #6: A computer is only as secure as the administrator is trustworthy.
Law #7: Encrypted data is only as secure as its decryption key.
Law #8: An out-of-date antimalware scanner is only marginally better than no scanner at all.
Law #9: Absolute anonymity isn’t practically achievable, online or offline.
Law #10: Technology isn’t a panacea.

Author

cli-geek, strategist, architect