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Symantec Rethinks Firefox vs IE Vulnerabilities

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the double-think dept.

chill writes "Last September security software vendor Symantec issued a report claiming IE had fewer critical flaws than Firefox and thus was more secure. Well, it seem they have now rethought that position. 'How we did it before wasn't a fair comparison,' said Oliver Friedrichs, the senior manager of Symantec's security response group. 'It wasn't an apples to apples comparison.' The key was vendor acknowledged critical vulnerabilities. Thus, if Microsoft (or the Mozilla Foundation) didn't agree it was critical, then it didn't get counted."

1 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Better Security for Linux by Kream · · Score: 0, Redundant
    The article refers in addition to another interesting snippet:

    Among the other data in Symantec's report are new "time to compromise" figures that try to gauge how long an unpatched, unprotected computer would last before it has snatched by a hacker.

    Windows XP Professional, said Symantec, stays safe just one hour and 12 seconds, while the Windows 2000 Server (with SP4) made it an hour and 17 minutes. An unpatched Windows Server 2003 system lasted somewhat longer.

    In contrast, unpatched Linux installations of both Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and SuSE Linux 9 Desktop were never compromised during their month-and-a-half exposure to attackers.