Saturday, December 31, 2005

Security Bugs - A Year in Review

Security researchers uncovered nearly 5,200 software vulnerabilities in 2005, almost 40 percent more than the number discovered in 2004, according to Washingtonpost.com. From the article: 'According to US-CERT...researchers found 812 flaws in the Windows operating system, 2,328 problems in various versions of the Unix/Linux operating systems (Mac included). An additional 2,058 flaws affected multiple operating systems.


Can someone explain to me again why Unix and OpenSource is inherently more secure than Windows?

Answer – it’s not.  So why do Microsoft’s security problems get so much press?  It’s simple economics, you get far more return from screwing with Windows than you do with all of the other operating systems put together.  If you can infect 10% of all Windows computers you get far more press than if you infected 100% of all Macintosh – and the virus writers thrive off of infamy, they rarely get anything of actual value out of their exploits.

I’m guessing that once Macintosh is released on x86 platforms it will increase its market penetration, primarily because it will be billed as safer.  People will be disabused of that notion as it becomes more profitable for hackers to write exploits for Macintosh.

HatTip: Slashdot

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