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Surprise, Windows Listed as Most Secure OS

Posted by Zonk on from the opposite-day dept.

david_g17 writes "According to a Symantec study reported by Information Week, Microsoft has the most secure operating system amongst its commercial competitors. The report only covered the last 6 months of vulnerabilities and patch releases, but the results place Microsoft operating systems above Mac OS X and Red Hat. According to the article, 'The report found that Microsoft Windows had the fewest number of patches and the shortest average patch development time of the five operating systems it monitored in the last six months of 2006.' The article continues to mention the metrics used in the study (quantity and severity of vulnerabilities as well as the amount of time one must wait for the patch to be released)."

6 of 499 comments (clear)

  1. Doesn't add up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "39 vulnerabilities, 12 of which were ranked high priority or severe, were found in Microsoft Windows"

    "Symantec found 43 vulnerabilities in Mac OS X and a 66 day turnaround on fixes. Fortunately, only one was high priority"

    I fail to see how this makes Windows more secure than Mac OS X.

  2. Correlations that are left out by GiovanniZero · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's interesting to note that while OS X had 43 vulnerabilities(1 severe) and windows had 39 vulnerabilities(12 severe). So windows had more big threat security holes than OS X by 12 times. Maybe OS X's average patch time is higher because the vulnerabilities they had were less important to patch?

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  3. Re:Simply by Strilanc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... and none of them will have read the article.

    If you DO read the article for the vulnerability counts:
    Windows - 39, 12 severe, average 21 day fix
    Mac - 49, 1 severe, average 66 day fix
    Red Hat - 208, 2 severe, average 13 day fix

    Now it looks to me like Windows performed the worst because of the large number of severe problems. This makes it more likely there are many more severe problems.

  4. IIS by lseltzer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Someone else mentioned IIS and I thought it was worth mentioning, appropos of parent's remarks, that it's been years since the last really serious IIS vulnerability. In the last two years or so it actually has a better security record than Apache, especially Apache with PHP installed (Apache of course has a really good security record too, but IIS has been stellar).

    Look at Secunia's page on IIS 6.0, which is 3 or 4 years old: 3 vulnerabilities total, all patched and none of them seriously critical.

  5. Re:small addition by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Those of us who think there is room in the world for both Windows, OSX and Linux...

    There's not only "room" for Windows, OSX and Linux, but there's a crying need for new blood in the OS arena.
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  6. Re:small addition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here's your Mac user. I'd comment, but I'm still trying to recover from the hysterical laughter that occurred after reading the article. I say one thing; those Symantec PR people can sure make statistics dance!

    I think the headline was misleading or perhaps edited a little too much. It should have read, "Surprise, Surprise... Windows Listed As Most Secure OS- By Symantec." It might have been more accurate if it had a few smilies tossed into it, or perhaps a [Yawn].

    Intonation is everything.