Win 7's Malware Infection Rate Climbs, XP's Falls

BogenDorpher writes "Microsoft released data today showcasing that Windows 7's malware infection rate has climbed by more than 30% during the second half of 2010, while the infection rate for Windows XP has dropped by more than 20%."

Comments

Re:And this is a surprise?

[Khoa]

What would one expect as usage of XP decreases and Win7 increases?

The changing usage rate between the two OS's is controlled for. FTFA: It's infection rate per 1000 machines.

Sensationalist article much?

[ferongr]

TFA: As ComputerWorld reports, during the second half of 2010, the data shows that 32bit Windows 7 computers were infected at an average rate of 4 PCs per 1,000, compared to 3 PCs per 1,000 that took place during the first half of 2010.

A difference of 1 thousandth is beyond statistical significance. How did this entry even get to the frontpage? It boggles the mind.

So newer is NOT better?

[metalmaster]

The article doesnt cover this, but im inclined to believe that malware authors have an easier time and higher infection rates when they target 3rd party software packages. As far as i know, the biggest thing to change from XP to Win7, from the user standpoint, is the more in your face security model. That makes the malware authors jump through extra hoops if they wanna get their code executed silently. However, attack a bug in a PDF reader or browser and things can be made to look like business as usual

Re:And this is a surprise?

[somersault]

Security through obscurity is nothing more than an illusion.

I always find this funny. Passwords, PINs, encryption/decryption keys, hardware tokens etc are all just forms of security through obscurity, too.. they just are a bit more obscure than running an an obscure OS when you use combinations of them, or pick a really good random password, etc.