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Silverlight Exploits Up, Java Exploits Down, Says Cisco
angry tapir writes: Attempts to exploit Silverlight soared massively in late 2014 according to research from Cisco. However, the use of Silverlight in absolute terms is still low compared to the use of Java and Flash as an attack vector, according to Cisco's 2015 Annual Security Report. The report's assessment of the 2014 threat landscape also notes that researchers observed Flash-based malware that interacted with JavaScript. The Flash/JS malware was split between two files to make it easier to evade anti-malware protection. (The full report is available online, but registration is required.)
If Windows 7 supported HTML5 video for Netflix, Silverlight would be retired.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
We used Silverlight to build enterprise apps because it's most resembling to fully-functional desktop app platform - like client-server except the server side is built on OData service with row-level access control (by SQL expression rewriting) and clients simply query everything by LINQ, maintaining maximum control over everything except authentication/authorization.
It boosts development time significantly for building apps of the same functionality and does a lot of things which HTML5/JS cannot even maturely do yet, like binary data processing and really fast graphics rendering. If you take a look at their theme resource files, you'd notice that every UI controls and cool effects in Silverlight are actually complex vector shapes to be rendered in real-time, not fake image/bitmap used in typical websites because they're too slow to do anything serious.
But now it's dead.....
I build a new Windows 7 VM last week.
After the close to 750Mb of patches in the 'download and reboot' cycle, up pops Slitherlight (Like Slitherin in Harry Potter, not nice) as an optional download.
I do not want it but even after hiding it, like a bad penny it keeps on coming back.
Can we really try to get rid of this thing (and flash for that matter). The world has moved on and it is not needed anymore.
Why doesn't Netflix use Flash, at least as an alternative choice.
Netflix used to use Flash, but they moved to Silverlight in exchange for a seat on the board at Microsoft for their CEO. So they dropped Flash and went to Silverlight, which caused a lot of problems for a while which they eventually ironed out.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"