When Windows Vista was launched, it brought to the table a new feature that was supposed to safeguard the user: the User Account Control (UAC). However, the useful feature, which could be disabled, became the source of a great deal of the OS's early criticism due its warning messages which some users found irritating.

With Windows 7, Microsoft decided to switch gears and is offering a less nosey UAC in the beta version of the OS. This move was the subject to much early praise. However, it may have now backfired as a blogger Long Zheng, who runs the blog Start Something, has detailed a proof-of-concept attack against the new Windows 7 UAC.

Mr. Zheng says the attack is a vindication of Windows Vista, and evidence that the new Windows 7 approach, while more pleasing to some, is inherently insecure. He states, "This is dedicated to every ignorant ‘tech journalist’ who cried wolf about UAC in Windows Vista. A change to User Account Control (UAC) in Windows 7 (beta) to make it ‘less annoying’ inadvertently clears the path for a simple but ingenious override that renders UAC disabled without user interaction. For the security conscious, a workaround is also provided at the end. First and foremost, I want to clear up two things."

You can read the entire article at DailyTech.