Attack Surface Analyzer  Attack Surface Analyzer is a tool created for the analysis of changes made to the attack surface of the operating systems since Windows Vista and beyond. It is a tool recommended by Microsoft in its SDL guidelines in the verification stage of the development. According to the Microsoft SDL Team, they did not have an all in one tool for checking the changes made to the attack surface of Windows Operating System before Attack Surface Analyzer was developed. It was a problem to check and verify the effects of various software installations on the system way back since Windows Server 2003 was being developed. Back then they had to use multiple tools for every type of change made to the attack surface. It was a painful process when they had to check for everything again and again and using multiple tools. It was this problem that made Microsoft create an application with which developers could analyze the changes made to the Windows Attack Surface. It has at first been used by the developers at Microsoft. Later, on January 18, 2011, a beta version (version 5.1.3.0) of a tool named Attack Surface Analyzer was released in public for the testers and IT administrators. Attack Surface Analyzer can compare two scan data of a system called the baseline scan and product scan. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of software are available for Windows Vista and Windows 7 (and respective Server editions). There is no news about a Windows XP version being released. Attack Surface Analyzer is all in one tool for analysis of changes made to the various parts of the attack surface of Windows 6 series Operating System (includes Windows Vista and Windows 7). Using this one tool, you can analyze the changes made to the Registry, File permissions, Windows IIS Server, GAC assemblies and a lot more can be done. According to Microsoft, it is the same tool in use by the engineers of the security team at Microsoft to analyze the effects of software installation on the Windows Operating System. It would not have been possible when there was no all in one tool. You would have had to use different software for all the different parts of Windows and then combine the effects logically by yourself. The tool enlists the various elements it enumerates while running a system scan. The elements are:   The above list is a comprehensive set of elements that are both possible as well as important elements that can be changed when new software is installed on the system. While some software might change only a few elements in the list, some other can change a few more and different elements on the system. Attack Surface Analyzer combines all of them so that it is easier to analyze all parts.