Linux
Microsoft Operating Systems are the Most Secure?
Wait a second - what is all this talk about Microsoft’s operating systems being regarded as the most secure? I was always one to hold the belief that they were the least secure thanks to holes, security flaws, and an abundant amount of hackers and virus makers trying to stir up trouble. But there’s a new report out - by a Microsoft analyst, nonetheless - that has conclusively determined that XP and Vista are far more secure and have fewer security flaws than Apple’s OSX, Red Hat, Novell and various other varieties of Linux. What’s going on here?
Let’s take a look at what we’re dealing with here. First off, there aren’t any hard numbers involved, only graphs which detail the amount and the severity of the security holes in each operating system. Really, that’s fine. The data looks legit, as reported by vnunet.com, and the majority of the numbers all match up to figures found by other independent studies.
But, here’s an interesting question that someone asked me yesterday. “With Windows, I find that I’m downloading update after update after update - but on Mac OSX, for example, I only download one update every once in awhile. Doesn’t that mean that OSX has fewer security problems?” That’s an interesting take on the whole security flaw issue but there’s a big difference between the way Microsoft and Apple distribute their updates. Microsoft has to patch holes all the time, as soon as one emerges lest someone try to take advantage of it. Therefore, it feels like Microsoft is releasing update after update - and they are. Apple, on the other hand, is able to get away with big update packages, sometimes containing 40 or more security fixes - so you download less packages but get more security updates.
Despite the evidence that seemingly points to Microsoft’s operating systems being more secure, I find a different outcome after looking at the data. Instead of taking the data as it’s given, consider if Microsoft releases fewer fixes and patches not because their products are more secure - but because they don’t get around to patching as many holes. After all, this data does not take into account known holes that have yet to be patched. Lots of holes go undiscovered, other holes are so meaningless that they don’t warrant Microsoft’s attention. There are tons of reasons why Microsoft employees would not get as many patches out the door.
Think about it for a minute and let me know whether or not you think that Vista and XP really are the most secure operating systems out there.
- Eric Norton
Two big holes in this study:
* Only counts number of vulnerabilities. Doesn’t take into account the length of time each vulnerability left users open, or how open users were left by the vulnerability.
* Doesn’t specify what packages from each OS were counted. Was this a custom install of Windows down to bare minimum and Linux full-bore? Were default installs compared (in which case Linux would still have more packages)?
Never trust a report for a vendor’s product funded by the vendor itself, and never trust a report that doesn’t give you enough details to replicate the results.
does anyone of you know the “cebit”? its a great exhibition in germany, where new software etc. is shown. well, and we were at a microsoft shop, i think it was ca the time when vista was published. and we asked one of the microsoft people, why vista should be so safe. and he said (no joke!): “it’s so safe because there are NO VIRUSES for vista” lol. i even thought that the man could have been someone from apple