Software is the most complicated and complex thing humans have ever done and only now is the industry beginning to understand how to write software that can withstand concentrated attacks.
This is the view of Jesper Johansson, program manager for security policy at Microsoft`s Redmond headquarters.
During a recent visit to South Africa, Johansson said because of this complexity, IT security was a shared responsibility between platform developers like Microsoft, independent software vendors (ISVs) who build applications, and end-users.
"Security can be achieved only by everyone working together," he said.
According to Johansson, while platform developers had the responsibility of providing secure platforms and documentation on how to keep them secure, ISVs and end-users also had a role to play in security.
"ISVs need to realise the security of their customers rests not only with the operating system, but with the application as well, which means ISVs have the responsibility of responding to all security updates to the platforms on which their applications run," he said.
Emphasising that the biggest security problems could not necessarily be solved with technology, Johansson said understanding the limits of technology and how platform security works was just as important.
"A lot of problems are caused by application vendors not using platform security properly because the easier way of doing things is usually not the most secure," he said.
Referring to the role of customers, Johansson said they needed to demand security support from ISVs, as well as recognise that although security in platforms was continually being improved, they had the responsibility of ensuring the latest security patches were always applied.
"Patches are always likely to be necessary because software will never be perfect as long as it is written by imperfect human beings," he said.
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