Slashdot Mirror
Linux/Unix Tops Charts for Vulnerabilities in 2005
BeanBunny writes "I realize that this topic is almost as volatile around here as Intelligent Design, but I think this is interesting nonetheless. US-CERT has released their year-end vulnerability summary. According to InformationWeek.com, Linux/Unix (including Mac OS) had almost three times the number of OS-specific vulnerabilities reported last year compared to Microsoft Windows. Obviously, statistics are meaningless without the proper conjecture, speculation, and opinionation, so let the debate begin again over which OS is really more secure."
Who knows how many Windows vulnerabilities there are known to Microsoft? Can you say "Vested Interest"? They certainly have tried to have divulging them criminalized as an act against national security, never mind warning customers of all sizes that they may have been compromised while Microsoft fiddled away at a patch for the past six months.
I take this sort of revelation with a grain of salt and give it as much weight.
many eyes only make for strong code when the code can be seen
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It may be a volatile topic, but where better to discuss the reality, validity, etc., of these purported vulnerabilities?
Get your education here (hopefully) so you can address the confrontations at work, from your friends, etc. when they accuse you of evangelizing an OS more vulnerable than Windows!
Look for answers to:
I'm sure this is a partial list, and I don't know the answers to these points, but I'd like to.
In other words, these findings are absolutely useless.
Also, even if they DID filter out updates and break out individual vulnerabilities, you would still have to know for how many days each vulnerability remained unpatched to have any useful information.
As this oh-so-well-written website told me the first time I clicked on this story, "Nothing to see here. Move along."
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...they really should take into account severity, time until a fix was avaliable (from the time of discovery and not just disclosure to the public) and if the vulnrability was actually IN the OS or whether it was a third party app. Then perhaps the total numbers will start being a little more helpful.
Silly rabbit
Let me put this into context.
Linux (Red Hat to be specific) reported AND HAD ALREADY fixed similar JPG/GIF/PNG flaws more than 2 years before microsoft ACKNOWLEDGED that they had similar flaws. It may have been the same bug, or not, but still, similar bugs, FAR different timetables. And these are both companies right? One did base itself on code that it didn't try to lynch you for viewing, modifying or making your own. Hint: it wasn't microsoft.
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What does it take for open source (being open to all) to report a flaw?
Finding it of course.
What does it take for a huge software house with stock to shill... errrr.. sell (since product sales do not a stock value raise anymore).
Reporting few security flaws. "Proving" successful implementations are the norm... (via bought studies of course, and occasional true stories, if they ever are unbiased).
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And of course, having worked inside an IT house, I'm quite familiar with how they work... especially M$ partners. I've never seen a SINGLE one ever report a vulnerability... whether our fault or the customer's or anyone's. Until it was fixed, or exploited, we NEVER EVER reported them... standard policy.
~D
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
They're lumping Linux, UNIX, BSD, and OS X together and saying they together had more vulnerabilities than any single version of windows...
I'm sure all the GM, Toyota and Honda cars between 1970 and 1990 put together had more design flaws than the Ford Pinto, but this comparison is not relevant.
Since this is a dupe debate (it happens ALL the time) why not just link to the previous list of comments? I'm not even going to read TFA, because these useless debates have gotten to be a waste of time. There's no winning this debate - we're all losers for having editors who think that this is "news".
The end-of-year vulnerability score should be taken with a grain of salt, however, since US-CERT doesn't filter out updates (so one actual vulnerability can be counted numerous times) nor does it break out individual vulnerabilities from warnings that cover multiple bugs (as in the many Mac OS X vulnerability listings).
In effect: This information is completely useless for comparing operating systems.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
and submitting something like this (just as the parent and GP have pointed out), that lumps every *NIX OS vs. MS Windows is perhaps the dumbest thing I've ever seen on /.. I wish I could mod submissions.
Points not mentioned :
... etc. etc.
-amount of risk caused by vulnerability
-percentage of high-risk vulnerabilities per OS
-time taken to patch vulnerability
-whether the vulnerability is in some tiny obscure piece of shareware or in a VERY common software (such as MSIE)
Statistics aren't so useful with such lack of completeness.
Of course that page isn't there to be a useful guide for statistics on vulernabilities, but the Slashdot article seems to be portraying it as such...
Go compare "Linux Kernel" vulnerabilities (9 unique) vs "Microsoft Windows" vulnerabilities (46 unique). Even that isn't apples to apples, but it's a lot more indicative than the random counts of vulnerabilities for every piece of software shipped with an OS.