Windows Is 'Insecure By Design,' Says Washington Post

Circuit Breaker writes "A Washington Post article says Microsoft Windows is insecure by design. Quote: 'Between the Blaster worm and the Sobig virus, it's been a long two weeks for Windows users. But nobody with a Mac or a Linux PC has had to lose a moment of sleep over these outbreaks -- just like in earlier "malware" epidemics. This is not a coincidence.'"

Comments

Apple and Linux systems are insecure too!

[coene]

I'd like to make one quick point. If a remote root exploit is found in Linux (like the RPC hole found a couple of months ago for Microsoft), the same type of Worm can happen.

The biggest (not only) difference, is that Microsoft (with Windows) has such a large market share, that it only makes sense to attack it. If Linux had 90% of the market, you know there would be virii exploiting it's holes. Same goes with Apple (OSX being based on FreeBSD has many of the same holes as Linux).

Another quote

[SkArcher]

last para in the article;

Here's a modest proposal: Microsoft should use some of its $49 billion hoard to mail an update CD to anybody who wants one. At $3 a pop (a liberal estimate), it could ship a disc to every human being on Earth -- and still have $30 billion in the bank.

Now, who is up for raiding the MS bank?

It's not Windows' fault

[pyth]

If you take a look at the 'vectors' for these viruses, you'll notice that they're all legacy protocols: http, smtp, rpc. These old unix-based systems were designed at a time when people did not care about security. Yet, they form the very basis of the Internet. Microsoft is practically forced to adopt these archaic protocols in order to stay competitive. Why should they be blamed for the failures of these obscure unix standards?

MS not at Fault

[linuxislandsucks]

okay before you flame me lets go back to unix history and 1980s

In the 1980s the knowledge of writing secure multi-user, mulit-taskign OSes were locked away in Unix commerical versions not for public examination by those studying Computer Science..

Guess where a large portion ofthose coders ended up at? MS Redmond headquarters..

While past 1990s MS does hold the blame for not being proactive on security ie redoing the kernel .. ..its not that plain blakc and white..

However, I do agree with WashingtonPost's suggestion MS should send a free copy of Longhorn to every registered Windows user worldwide as an effort towards security..

But in closing this set of issue also indicate why opensource OSes will always be more secure because the skills and knowledge is shared with all coding professionals!

Sharing begets Security!

Re:Ummm...

[BigBir3d]

They might just work... but there has been a lot of security updates in the past 6 months.

Mac OS X will only enjoy 'security through obscurity' for so long, if it is actually to become a real contender.

To me; real = 10% of current machines (running) or more using OS X as main operating system.

If it were that easy...

[obdulio]

to write a virus for Linux, there would be hundreds of them coming out of Redmond every month.....

Re:Quick linux security test.

[1010011010]

Windows also allows you to deny execute permission to entire filesystems.

Perhaps you'd like to post instructions, so all of your readers can make their systems safer.