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Windows 8 Defeats 85% of Malware Detected In the Past 6 Months
An anonymous reader writes "Now that Windows 8 is on sale and has already been purchased by millions, expect very close scrutiny of Microsoft's latest and greatest security features. 0-day vulnerabilities are already being claimed, but what about the malware that's already out there? When tested against the top threats, Windows 8 is immune to 85 percent of them, and gets infected by 15 percent, according to tests run by BitDefender."
Did any of the malware get past whatever new copy of Windows Security Essentials they cooked up especially for Win 8?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The reason being it is an AV maker releasing it. They have reason to want to say "Oh the built in AV scanner sucks, you should buy ours!" They may be stacking the results.
AV Comparatives puts MS Security Essentials at about 95% in their latest test, not 85%. Bitdefender is 99.2%.
However one reason for that is false positive rate. MS is willing to trade off some detection to keep it low, because users get pissed off and want to get rid of scanners with lots of false positives. MSE had 0 false positives, BitDefender had 10.
None of this is to say getting a better virus scanner isn't a good idea, just take anything from a company selling a product in an area with a grain of salt. AV Comparatives seems to indicate that wile MSE is certainly not one of the best virus scanners, it isn't bad.
Linux is not 100% secure. Linux is very secure, and is certainly more secure than Microsoft's OSes, but vulnerabilities are discovered all of the time. The biggest distinction is that since Linux is openly developed with the potential for anyone to contribute and for everyone to see, there aren't large, untested milestone releases without public eyes on them like commercial OSes. By the time that the experimental version becomes the release version it's already been vetted. Microsoft doesn't have the same quantity of testing because while there is a beta program, it's not designed to be thoroughly examined.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Since Windows 8 repurposed Microsoft Security Essentials as its new Windows Defender, which is built-in to the operating system, would these statistics hold true for Security Essentials on all systems, or are they unique to Windows 8?
Or is BitDefender just trying to stir up some business?
More like Linux still doesn't have the market share to warrent spending significant time developing malware for it.
Why, not a single malware application can be installed on a banana! They too are immune.
Therefore bananas are now the most secure OS
Reacting is always easy, that's why malware is so efficient. There are AV kits out there that detect 98+ percent of the current malware. Problem is not the malware we know about already, the problem is new malware that infects before patches can be applied and AV signatures can be updated.
OF COURSE a new system is more resilient against current malware. By the very nature that a lot of exploits simply don't work anymore because, well, different codebase, different handling of various things malware relies on. By that logic, MacOS is even superior to Win8 because because zero malware for Win7 can infect MacOS.
The more interesting question is why 15% (one in seven) malware threats still work on Win8.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Actually, when it comes to out-of-the-box security as well as the possibilities offered to knowledgeable admins, Linux isn't really far away from Windows. Both have, from the point of view of a security expert, horrible out-of-the-box security and can be sealed tightly by the hands of good admins.
The main reason why there is less malware for Linux is simply that malware is a business: It's the same reason why there is also less other commercial software for Linux.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Run those same tests/malware against Linux/Mac. 0% gets through.
really? do you think that malware written to take advantage of exploits in the windows OS won't work on linux? thanks for that revelation. linux wins again.
How does an updated version Windows 7 with Microsoft Security Essentials compare? That information might make this article meaningful.
More like Linux still doesn't have the market share to warrent spending significant time developing malware for it.
Neither does Windows 8.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Bitdefender sells security products. Can we get a number from somebody a little less biased, or perhaps somebody biased against microsoft? How about a consulting firm with a good reputation the prefers Linux, but grudgingly supports MS because they have to? Anyway, Bitdefender has an incentive for you to think Win8 is insecure. How are they defining malware? Stuff that says, "to install, please enter admin password"? If 15% of the "malware" comes with those instructions, it'll infect anything.
The malware will work if you run Wine.
I actually have tried that. A lot of the malware that runs fine on Windows crashed or just didn't work properly under Wine. Does that mean Wine is broken, or that the devs haven't broken it enough yet? I can't decide!
Right...
Linux runs on more computers than Windows worldwide.
You know, all those servers, phones, appliances and clouds that make up the Internet? Those.
It may not be on most desktops but its on everything else and it far outnumbers Windows.
It's not more secure because it's more obscure, it's more secure because it's better.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
The overwhelming number of Linux servers worldwide are behind firewalls and will rarely ever attempt to reach out blindly to the internet. There aren't nearly as many attack vectors to exploit. It's far easier to find some bad PHP code to exploit, or an unpatched version of Apache than it is to attack it using traditional methods that might work on a user machine.
The best antivirus is a smart user.
Most malware on Windows gets dumped into %APPDATA% because it can't go anywhere else without raising a red flag. This makes it fairly easy to nuke. The same works for Linux.
I copied bash to my Win8 boxen, ran
# rm -rf /
and now Win8 doesn't boot.
Thanks for the perfect solution.
cheers,
More devices run Linux than Windows. How big of a target do you need?
Ah yes. But which Linux? There is, what, 20+ major distributions and dozens or hundreds of minor ones? Even calling all of them a single OS is almost a stretch, given that some of them have almost nothing in common with each other. That's not one target, it's a few dozen. And it's hacked all the time, just rarely using automated malware tools (because, again, those aren't terribly effective against heavily fragmented targets).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
"The overwhelming number of Linux servers worldwide are behind firewalls"
Sure. On the other hand there are no small number of firewalls running Linux.
"openly developed with the potential for anyone to contribute and for everyone to see"
I am continually amazed that people think just because they have the source code to an OS they can just scan the code and locate security holes. The low hanging fruit is long gone in today's popular OS's. OS security holes and weaknesses are found by combining and testing multiple executable decision trees with varying environmental factors and then analyzing the captured results which usually includes sorting through binary output, assembler output, and real time memory mapping looking for anomalies. Finding OS level security holes also requires an in-depth knowledge of the various CPU processor instruction sets, memory allocation models, and memory manipulation. To many developers equate OS development with Application development when in reality they are almost entirely different animals requiring radically differing skill sets.
That's OK, it's 15% backwards compatible.
Blank until
Windows 8 now ranks in the same odds as having "Safe Sex" with an HIV positive individual. Thanks Microsoft.
I don't know if you've heard, but Linux/Android PC's are moving 1.5 million units per day, with a half-billion unit installed base. At the current rate of growth Linux PCs will exceed Earth's human population in Q3 2014.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The story is about existing malware not new malware. Win 8 for the majority of software is 100% compatible with win 7, just win 8 includes defender to catch a lot of it out of the box. It is a good move, I just hope they keep going with it and get the out of the box detection rate even higher.
It's amazing that some people insist that we can't do something which we do all the time. Look at the CVEs man, we find and fix weaknesses all the time. If you did look at the CVEs, you'd find my name. That's pretty solid proof that you're mistaken - I can find vulnerabilities because I do find vulnerabilities. When it comes to Windows, I don't know Windows. I haven't used Windows in fifteen years. When people ask me to work on their computer, I turn away all Windows work except "I forgot my password." I can't USE Windows, but I can sure CRACK Windows.
In the last couple versions of Windows, MS has been trying to implement something like the old (pre SELinux) *nix security model. This after having removed it. Why? Because they had removed the security, for good reason, and the *nix model is a good one. In the old days, there were network operating systems. Many users had terminals to one computer, which protected one user's work from other users mistakes or malice. It was designed for security and it was Unix. It was also huge and EXPENSIVE. One day a guy wanted an OS to fit on a 512k floppy disk and run with 128k RAM so people could afford computers at home. Single home computers, not corporate networks. To make Disk Operating System fit on a floppy, he removed stuff DOS didn't need, like security. (No network meant few threats.) A GUI was added. Backwards compatibilty was maintained with the "no security needed" DOS. Then the internet happened, and Bill crapped his pants. Since then, MS has been trying to design security back in, while maintaining backward compatibility. DOS programs still run on Vista, without running into problems with new security added since Disk Operating System. Linux has always been a network OS, never a disk OS, and has therefore never removed the security model.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which OS will have an order or magnitude more market share than the other in 6-12 months...
my desktop is full of bomb icons so that it is very risky for a virus to infect it without tripping over one of the bombs and stubbing its toe
only windows is fragmented... thats why they made defrag
It's not more secure because it's more obscure, it's more secure because it's better.
Yes and no. What versions of Linux are those machines running? What versions of Apache, MySQL, PHP are they running? Very few Linux installs have common attack vectors.
- The vast majority of common attack vectors on Windows require user interaction. The vast majority of your Linux installs have no users.
- The next big group of common attack vectors on Windows require popular end user software (Acrobat, flash, IE, etc). The vast majority of Linux installs don't have those.
There are many documented cases of attacks on Apache, but again there are many different versions of Apache in common use, and MANY of your Linux installs lack Apache anyway.
Linux benefits greatly from obscurity since there's no extremely popular attack vectors that can be leveraged on an insanely large number of systems, and in those cases where such vectors exist they are often exploited.
And typically takes requests for files and serves them. That has to be done fast, but it's not really that hard. Web servers and routers aren't quite up to the same par as a general-purpose desktop machine designed for ordinary people who don't even know the difference between a virus and a trojan.
Realistically, most security is at the application level these days. You don't need root access to steal peoples' information. Just look at how much havoc you can cause by hitting a web browser with one clever block of JavaScript.
I don't know if you've heard, but Linux/Android PC's are moving 1.5 million units per day, with a half-billion unit installed base.
Exactly!
That totally debunks the market share argument since Android has not seen a malware explosion, even with it's huge market share.
Oh wait...
That's why Google has stated that Android does not need any malware scanner like Windows Defender
Oh, wait...
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Windows 8 Incompatible with 85% of the Most Widely Installed Software
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Unfortunately, windows 8 also defeats 85% of users who attempt to use it do actually do something useful (as opposed to just oohing and aahing over the pretty tiles)