The Mac Observer

Skip navigational links

You're viewing an article in TMO's historic archive vault. Here, we've preserved the comments and how the site looked along with the article. Use this link to view the article on our current site:
The Most Secure OS Is... Windows?

The Most Secure OS Is... Windows?

by , 8:55 AM EDT, March 23rd, 2007

A report released earlier this week by the security product company Symantec claims that Microsoft Windows is the most secure operating system, beating out Mac OS X and Linux. The information was part of Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report, according to internetnews.com.

Symantec's report looked at the number of operating system patches, and the shortest average time for patch development for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Red Hat Linux, HP-UX, and Sun Solaris over the past six months. The conclusion was that Windows had 39 vulnerabilities, 12 considered high priority or severe, with an average fix time of 21 days, making it the most secure OS.

Red Hat Linux came in second place with 208 vulnerabilities and a 58 day average patch time. Only two vulnerabilities were considered high priority.

Mac OS X took third place with 43 vulnerabilities and a 66 day average for the related patches. Of those 43, only one was considered high priority. Mac OS X manager, Anuj Nayar, responded "Apple takes security very seriously and has a great track record of addressing vulnerabilities before they affect you."

Sun, which came in last, was more critical of the Symantec report. "Symantec's data on security vulnerabilities simply does not match Sun's. We can't verify Symantec's sources and consider their report on Sun inaccurate."

What we don't see in these figures, however, are the number of actual exploits that take advantage of the vulnerabilities Symantec reported, or the number of worms, viruses, and trojan horses each of the monitored operating systems suffer from. And statistics can always be manipulated to favor a certain view point.

Using Symantec's own numbers, for example, the report also shows that over the six month period monitored, over 30 percent of the vulnerabilities in Windows were ranked as high priority or severe. But for the same time period, less than one percent of the vulnerabilities found in Red Hat Linux and 2.3 percent in Mac OS X were high priority.

As with any report from a company that stands to gain from the data it presents, take this one with an appropriate dosage of salt.

Digg!

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:Guest
Subject: Hahahahaha....

Symantec says Winows is the most seure OS just because other OSes' users doesn't need their products....

Cheers!

Close Name:Terrin Posts: 414 Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Subject:

What a wacky standard. Windows is the most secure OS because it released the post patches in the quickest time? Well if you have 200, 000 plus security holes, I suspect your going to be releasing patches at quicker intervals. Moreover, the article doesn't even evaluate the seriousness of the security breaches.

Close Name:Guest
Subject:

It's a joke isn't it? Isn't it?

Close Name:Guest
Subject: So...

...Microsoft had 12 serious flaws and it's safer than other operating systems that only had 2 and 1?

Huh?????

Close Name:dhp Posts: 182 Joined: 22 May 2003
Subject: One week early?

Gee, I shouldn't have sold that 1987 Mazda I used to drive. I took it in for repair all the time. My new car isn't nearly as reliable, because I never have to repair it.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: A Comedy

The Norwegian-Danish comedy playwright Ludvig Hoberg wrote a comedy - Erasmus Montanus - in which the son of a farmer went to the University, learnt latin and logic and came back with a new name and through logic "proved" that his mother was a stone! Poor Nille began to cry because she wouldn't be a stone, so the good Erasmus proved that she was Ma Nille after all!

They must have read that comedy at Symantec!

Close Name:burrito Posts: 177 Joined: 07 Aug 2005
Subject:

Quote
Guest wrote:
Symantec says Winows is the most seure OS just because other OSes' users doesn't need their products....

Cheers!


exactly what i was gonna say *cheers, and a sip*

Close Name:Sir Harry Flashman Posts: 792 Joined: 08 Feb 2007
Subject: A week early

Quote
Guest wrote:
It's a joke isn't it? Isn't it?


April Fools day is next week

Close Name:Intruder -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 3149 Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Subject:

That's not what the report actually said. That was the spin that one "journalist" put on it.

Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Subject:

Quote
Intruder wrote:
That's not what the report actually said. That was the spin that one "journalist" put on it.


Yes, thank you.

Symantec didn't say any of this. They just reported the numbers and others used those to make silly cases with them. Hardly Symantec's fault.

More:
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/03/22/fud-windows-is-most-secure-os/

Close Name:horvatic Posts: 102 Joined: 27 Jun 2003
Subject: Ba,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha!!!!!!!!!!!! Windows??????

That's the funniest dumbest idiotic thing I've read in a long time! Now read who actually does have the most secure operating system according to the National security Agency.
http://www.applelinks.com/index.php/more/national_security_agency_gives_os_x_104_tiger_thumbs_up_os_x_odyssey_862/

Close Name:elehcdn Posts: 9 Joined: 16 May 2005
Subject: Poor sampling

I just read the whole report. The reason that Apple Safari (and it is the Safari web browser, not the whole OS) gets any kind of a black mark is because the one vulnerabilty took over 62 days to patch. However, in the paper, Symantec takes care to mention that "this increase is based on a sample set of only one vulnerabilty, a sample size that is too small to ensure valid conclusions." They also mention that the problem "affected a third-party HTML rendering component, so it is possible that the third-party nature may have slowed the patch release time."

Meanwhile, for the same time period, MSIE had 15 vulnerabilities with a maximum development time of 78 days.

So in other words, although MSIE had 14 more vulnerabilities and actually took longer to sort out at least the worst one, it supposedly is more secure ... right?

Close Name:ericmurphy Posts: 21 Joined: 01 Aug 2001
Subject: Bad metric

First, you don't just count up the number of vulnerabilities and then count up the average number days to fix those vulnerabilities. OS X had less than 10% of the serious vulnerabilities that Windows had, so by this metric Windows is far less secure than OS X.

But let's look at it another way: your average well-run Windows network has multiple layers of defense from malware. My little 20-node network as three different products protecting Exchange, and two more protecting the filesystem on the servers and on the workstations. No Windows network admin in his right mind would run a Windows network without multiple layers of defense. All these defenses cost thousands of dollars a year to implement.

I know of no Macintosh user who uses any protection from viruses or malware. I also know of no Macintosh user who has ever suffered from even one attack from a virus, keylogger, trojan horse, etc.

By this much more practical metric, which OS is more secure? OS X, hands down.

Close Name:buttercupboxer Posts: 16 Joined: 10 Jan 2007
Subject: less serious issues...

ok and Mac OS X only had 1 serious issue.
Even those Mac Bug a Day guys lost steam pretty quickly in January.

sorry, I find it hard to believe any of the big guys anymore. first Symantec's all PO'd at Microsoft, now they're best friends?

Close Name:Rainy Day Posts: 607 Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Subject: Black is White, Up is Down

I’m pretty certain that those drugs must be illegal. Either that, or they got hold of a bad batch of moonshine.

Close Name:rtamesis Posts: 8 Joined: 13 Jun 2005
Subject: Symantec's secret agenda

What Symantec really wants to do is drum up business by scaring Mac and Linux users into buying their products. Their report doesn't have any basis in reality.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Totally Flawed Methodology

Symantec should have their butts kicked over this one. To ignore the unpatched exploits that STILL exist in the wild is totally reprehensible. Not to mention the millions of Windows users pre-XP SP2 that no longer get patches. And my suspicion that significant numbers of Windows users don't systematically patch anyway..

Close Name:Guest
Subject:

Here is a section of the actual report, note what they say are the real secuerity threats. Stop being blinded by the Steve Jobs reality distortion field.
"Instead of exploiting high-severity vulnerabilities in direct attacks, attackers are now discovering and
exploiting medium-severity vulnerabilities in third-party applications, such as Web applications and Web
browsers. Those vulnerabilities are often used in “gateway” attacks, in which an initial exploitation takes
place not to breach data immediately, but to establish a foothold from which subsequent, more malicious
attacks can be launched.
Symantec has observed high levels of malicious activity across the Internet, with increases in phishing,
spam, bot networks, Trojans, and zero-day threats. However, whereas in the past these threats were often
used separately, attackers are now refining their methods and consolidating their assets to create global
networks that support coordinated criminal activity."

Close Name:Intruder -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 3149 Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Subject:

Those may very well be the security threats. However, how many of them are actually working on OS X? I've seen no hard numbers regarding Macs involved in 'bot neworks, nor anything other than anecdotal reports of trojans affecting the average OS X user. Where are the reports from respected companies that say "200,000 Macintoshes were enslaved into a bot network."? Or "Trojan horse affects 50,000 Macintoshes."? But you do see reports of the Blaster worm affecting over 25 million Windows computers, for example.

Phishing is primarily social engineering, and probably affects all OS's equally (as it is successful because of the user, not the OS). The same could be said of spam.

And none of it has anything to do with the base article,which erroneously states that the Symantec report claims that Windows is the most secure OS. Not even Microsoft believes that.

Close Name:Intruder -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 3149 Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Subject:

I wonder how the author of the article responds to this?

Close Name:gslusher Posts: 2088 Joined: 13 Nov 2002
Subject:

Quote
Intruder wrote:
I wonder how the author of the article responds to this?


Check the oldest comment on that article.

Comment on this Article


You cannot edit your comments.   You cannot delete your comments.

Comments are currently closed. Please email the author instead.


Recent Headlines - Updated July 5th

Fri, 10:29 AM
News - Apple Warns of Learning Interchange Security Breach
7:30 AM
News - Happy Fourth of July!
Thu, 6:07 PM
TMO Scoop - Psystar Moves to Drop Bankruptcy Ahead of Apple Legal Battle
5:37 PM
News - Uncomfirmed Reports Say Apple & Nvidia On The Outs
4:57 PM
News - Microsoft Sick Over Barf Ad
4:09 PM
Product News - KRK Ships R6 Passive Studio Monitor for Recording
3:45 PM
John Martellaro's Blog - Particle Debris (week ending 7/2)  Juiced, Joost and Goosed
3:12 PM
Product News - ExactScan 2 Pro Released
1:56 PM
Deal Brothers - Apple TV with 160GB Hard Drive:  $324.00 Delivered
12:46 PM
TMO Appearances - TMO Appearances Jeff Gamet Shares iPhone Apps on MacJury
10:41 AM
Product News - Art Text 2.2 Adds New Templates, Layer Options [Updated]
10:04 AM
Hot Forum Topic - Deciphering Mac Sales

The Mac Observer Reader Specials

  • __________
  • Buy Stuff, Support TMO!
  • Podcast: Mac Geek Gab
  • Podcast: Apple Weekly Report
  • TMO on Twitter!