Software giant Microsoft today released the new Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1.

The new release gives users significant security enhancements as well as reliability and performance improvements by providing customers with a reduced attack surface, better protected system services with stronger default settings, and reduced privileges.

"With Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, our development team took the time to treat the root cause of many security issues, not just the symptoms. This service pack is very significant and should help address certain classes of exploits," said Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Windows Server Division at Microsoft. "Service Pack 1 is a major component of our overall strategy to help keep customers as secure as possible. I encourage all of our Windows Server 2003 customers to deploy Service Pack 1."

"IDC research consistently finds that customers look forward to a first service pack after a product release to bolster the security of the Windows environment," said Al Gillen, research director for system software at IDC. "In the case of Windows Server 2003 SP1, Microsoft has brought forward not just the normal collection of updates, but several tools that promote more-secure network configuration and a streamlined way to administer the latest security releases."

The Service Pack 1 also offers customers a more robust security defense include Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Metabase Auditing, which allows administrators to identify potential malicious users should the store become corrupted, stronger defaults and privilege reduction on services to establish a minimum security threshold for applications, and the addition of Network Access Quarantine Control components to allow administrators to isolate out-of-date virtual private networking (VPN) assets.