- 5,677
Hahahaha I laughed my ass off when I read this, so much for macs being so "superior" to windows, this just confirms that Msoft is no worse than other companies, they just get piled on because they are the biggest target...
Xp Pro: http://secunia.com/product/22/
OSX: http://secunia.com/product/96/
Xp home: http://secunia.com/product/16/Friday 25 June 2004Security statistics show surprising finds![]()
The Micorsoft Windows application is more secure than you think, and Mac OS X is worse than you ever imagined. That is according to statistics published for the first time this week by Danish security firm Secunia.![]()
The statistics, based on a database of security advisories for more than 3,500 products during 2003 and 2004 sheds light on the real security of enterprise applications and operating systems. Each product is broken down into pie charts demonstrating how many, what type and how significant security holes have been in each.
The figures have shown is that OS X's reputation as a relatively secure operating system is unwarranted, Secunia said.
This year and last year Secunia tallied 36 advisories on security issues with the software, many of them allowing attackers to remotely take over the system - comparable to figures on operating systems such as Windows XP Professional and Red Hat Enterprise Server.
"Secunia is now displaying security statistics that will open many eyes, and for some it might be very disturbing news," said Secunia chief executive Niels Henrik Rasmussen. "The myth that Mac OS X is secure, for example, has been exposed."
For example, Windows security holes generally receive a lot of press because of the software's popularity, but the statistics show that Windows is not the subject of significantly more advisories than other operating systems. Windows XP Professional saw 46 advisories in 2003-2004, with 48% of vulnerabilities allowing remote attacks and 46% enabling system access, Secunia said.
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 8 had 48 advisories in the same period, with 58% of the holes exploitable remotely and 37% enabling system access. Red Hat's Advanced Server 3 had 50 advisories in the same period - despite the fact that counting only began in November of last year. Sixty-six percent of the vulnerabilities were remotely exploitable, with 25% granting system access.
Mac OS X does not stand out as particularly more secure than the competition, according to Secunia.
Of the 36 advisories issued in 2003-2004, 61% could be exploited across the internet and 32% enabled attackers to take over the system.
The proportion of critical bugs was also comparable with other software - 33% of the OS X vulnerabilities were "highly" or "extremely" critical by Secunia's reckoning, compared with 30% for XP Professional and 27% for SLES 8 and just 12% for Advanced Server 3. OS X had the highest proportion of "extremely critical" bugs at 19%.
Xp Pro: http://secunia.com/product/22/
OSX: http://secunia.com/product/96/