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Mac OS X vs. Linux - Red Hat vs. Windows 98 and Above Including Windows Vista


section: windows, for your questions: KezNews forum, 18.1.2008

Microsoft's Windows operating system came on top out of three different alternative platforms including Mac OS X, Linux (Red Hat), and Solaris 8/9/10, in terms of the volume of holes it contains.




Taking into consideration that when it comes down to security vulnerabilities less is actually more, various versions of Windows, from Windows 98 to Windows Vista account for fewer flaws than direct rivals Mac OS X and Linux. Although in the past, Jeff Jones, Security Strategy Director in Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing group, has played the operating system vulnerability counting game and the results were disputed due to his affiliation with the Redmond company, this time around its independent security company Secunia doing all the counting.

"Red Hat was found to have the most number of vulnerabilities (633), with 99% (629 vulnerabilities) due to third-party components. Solaris, which had a total of 252 vulnerabilities, came next and had 80% (201) due to third-party components. Apple Mac OS X came third with 235, 62% (146) of which is due to third-party components. Fourth came Windows with 123, but with only 4% due to third-party software. Last came HP-UX with 75 vulnerabilities, 81% (61) of which are due to third-party software," Secunia revealed.

Well, the fact of the matter is that, with the exception of HP-UX 10.x/11.x which had just 75 security vulnerabilities, although Windows was found to be impacted by only 123 flaws, the vast majority of holes were in the actual operating system namely 118, and only 5 in third-party software. This is not valid for Mac OS X and Linux (Red Hat with the exception of Fedora). Mac OS X was affected directly only by 89 vulnerabilities out of the total 235, while Red Hat by just 4 out of 633. "These figures should not be misinterpreted in any way to determine the "most secure" operating system. A straightforward counting of the number of vulnerabilities should be interpreted merely as that: the number of vulnerabilities affecting a particular operating system," Secunia added.


source: news.softpedia.com

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Comments(8)

Red Hat bugs - another open source PR hit?

By FYI on 19.01.2008 - 05:01
http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10007077o-2000469549b,00.htm

Windows insecurity.

By sjc1963 on 19.01.2008 - 12:01
windows is still the most insecure os itself..... whereas linux is the most secure.

to sjc1963

By AMH on 19.01.2008 - 12:01
the only reason which makes linux or mac more secure than windows is that more 90% of pc users around the world use windows.

now if you are a spammer and write spamming codes, will you write a spam , a spyware or a virus, to strike the 10% of the pc users in the world that use mac and linux, or will you make your virus success chance by making it for 90% of the pc users since they use window? it's pure logic...

Why windows has so much vulnerabilities?

By AMH on 19.01.2008 - 12:01
every virus, every spyware, every hacking program that's been writting and i came across to. are made for windows only. try google for any program that can attack a linux based pc or a mac pc, you will not find any.

now show me what would linux , or dear steve would do about mac, if every hacker and spammer, and virus writters are making their tools for mac or linux, they will have more vulnerabilities than ms windows since they have no experience like ms in fighting such vulnerabilities cause they never had to face it since their software is the most less used in the market and no one is interessted in attacking them.

AND KEZNEWS

By amh on 19.01.2008 - 12:01
stop copying news every single day that bashes windows for your sake, visitors here are sick of reading such copied articles

linux and mac

By ehngrfdbhjnh on 20.01.2008 - 00:01
the only reason linux and mac are more secure is because like 8% of the population has a linux or mac computer.
if anything windows is the most secure it just that people write virus's and stuff for windows mainly. and also mac suc,ks and is for faggets who like pretty things that shine.

I agree

By nhbugvybhj on 20.01.2008 - 00:01
kez news just posts negtive windows, microsoft articles. why dont yous faggets go f yourselves and stfu.

Apple and... orange ;)

By Will on 25.01.2008 - 00:01
why you cumulate win 98 to vista???
you compare mac os x (1 version) to a cumulative vision of 3 os versions.
sorry, but i have only 1 os installed not 3 at the same time...
if 90% of the security issues are 98 related your chart is simply not relevant...


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