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Despite being touted as the most secure version of the Windows operating series, Microsoft's upcoming Vista has already been hacked at a hackers' conference last week, reports CNET News.com.

Microsoft handed out early copies of their new operating system to attendees at the Black Hat hacker conference last week, inviting them to take their best shot at hacking into it.

The company hoped to convince the industry that their latest operating system will be the most secure and malware-proof system on the market.

The result has been a mixed grill of sorts, with Polish researcher Joanna Rutkowska demonstrating that the security systems in Vista can be sidestepped by using a piece of malicious software that she named "Blue Pill", according to CNET News.com.

However, Microsoft wasn't too perturbed by this.

"Microsoft is investigating solutions for the final release of Windows Vista to help protect against the attacks demonstrated," said a Microsoft employee at the conference, adding that the company is "working with our hardware partners to investigate ways to help prevent the virtualisation attack used by the Blue Pill".

Despite this apparent setback, the reception from corporate security representatives was generally favourable, according to Computerworld.com.

"On the surface, it does seem like they've come around a corner and are committed to doing things right," Rick Ebert, a security representative from the California Institute of Technology, told Computerworld.com, adding that he was impressed by the security changes and additions that Microsoft built into Vista.

Vista is the first of Microsoft's products that the company is sending through its "Security Development Lifecycle", which aims at getting rid of all security vulnerabilities before a product is shipped.

"If you think of basic security flaws as low-hanging fruit, then we've taken away all of the watermelons lying on the ground," Andrew Cushman, director of security engineering at Microsoft, explained to Computerworld.com.