After Windows NT was released, it took virus writers five years to learn how to infect it. Windows NT 3.1 and the Win32 API were released in late 1993, but it wasn't until August 1998 that W32.Cabanas became the first NT virus by capturing coveted kernel mode access. .NET and some of Microsoft's other initiatives have not been as lucky. The purpose of this article is to discuss antivirus (AV) concerns with .NET and Microsoft Windows XP.

.NET was officially announced by Microsoft in July 2000 at a Microsoft Professional Development Conference. Since then, what .NET has meant and the products involved have changed (and been renamed). .NET is an idea and a programming platform. The basic concept is an evolving extension of Microsoft's Object Linking Embedding (OLE) introduced back in the early days of Windows 3.0. OLE allows you to copy objects and data created in one application, like a spreadsheet graph, to other applications. OLE evolved into ActiveX objects, which are executables you can download and run within an Internet browser.

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