Malware Distribution Across Operating Systems
link: original article - section: windows
Depending on your background, you may find different sections of the newly published Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) to be of more interest.
In today’s post, we would like to highlight the section on infection rates based on the operating system (OS) version and the service pack level. Microsoft has consistently observed that machines with newer OS and with more recent service packs are less likely to be infected by malware. The graph below shows the number of computers having malware removed per 1,000 executions of the MSRT on that OS/SP during the second half of 2008 (2H08).
In the SIR, you will find the the following conclusions based on this data:
*
The infection rate for Windows Vista is significantly lower than that of its predecessor, Windows XP, in all configurations.
*
Comparing the latest service packs for each version, the infection rate of Windows Vista SP1 is 60.6 percent less than that of Windows XP SP3.
*
Comparing the RTM versions of these operating systems, the infection rate of the RTM version of Windows Vista is 89.1 percent less than that of the RTM version of Windows XP.
*
The infection rate of Windows Server 2008 RTM is 52.6 percent less than that of its predecessor, Windows Server 2003 SP2.
o
The higher the service pack level, the lower the rate of infection. This trend can be observed consistently across client and server operating systems. There are two reasons for this:
o
Service packs include all previously released security updates. They can also include additional security features, mitigations, or changes to default settings to protect users.
