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New Malware Report Hits Vista's Security Image

Posted by kdawson on from the cracks-in-the-armor dept.

An anonymous reader recommends a Computerworld article on a new report from Australian security vendor PC Tools. The company released figures on malware detection by its ThreatFire product, and in its user base 27% of Vista machines were compromised by at least one instance of malware. From the article: "In total, Vista suffered 121,380 instances of malware from its 190,000 user base, a rate of malware detection per system [that] is proportionally lower than that of XP, which saw 1,319,144 malware infections from a user base of 1,297,828 machines, but it indicates a problem that is worse than Microsoft has been admitting to." Microsoft hasn't responded yet to this report.

4 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. What kind of malware? by J_DarkElf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Malware is not defined anywhere in the article. I know from experience that some "malware" scanners tend to mark even cookies (such as Doubleclick's) as malware, which will appear on any computer.
    I would also like to see how many of these "infected" computers had UAC and automated updates turned off.

    Looks like just another Vista bashing article (so it will no doubt be really popular here).

  2. Consider the source by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So a company that sells security software puts out a press release to say that you still need to buy their software even if you run Vista. I can't think of a single ulterior motive that they might have to do this!

    How many of the anti-virus companies don't issue doom-and-gloom style press releases? It is just their way of drumming up business. I would rely on these figures as much as I would rely of Microsoft's "research" that might suggest that Vista is completely immune to any security issue. The truth lies somewhere in between - which shouldn't surprise anybody.

    And before anyone jumps down my throat, no Microsoft didn't says Vista was that perfect.

  3. Re:PR != Security by pla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, people bash UAC, but it's pretty much identical to sudo.

    Key difference - Using sudo represents an active request by the user for privilege escalation. Telling UAC to continue approves apassive request that the user might not actually have made (or known they made). When enough of them pop up at random times, it conditions the user to just say okay to make it go away - By comparison, no one would ever just randomly sudo a command for the hell of it.

  4. And that, my friends... by patio11 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... is a +5, "Telling Slashdot what it likes to hear" moderation.

    -- Posted from my Vista machine ;)

    --
    Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.