Vista only marginally more secure than XP
Most people or corporations interested in Vista are looking at it for its much touted increased security over XP. Others are just interested in it for DirectX 10 games that only run on Vista. For those looking at it for the security, there may not be any advantage to Vista over XP.
The folks over at Computer Reseller News tested Vista and XP side-by-side for one week throwing all kinds of malware, spyware and viruses at the operating systems. While Vista did come off on top due to the integration of Windows Defender, it was still riddled with security holes and managed to only block older exploits and viruses, zero-day attacks were able to penetrate all its security layers.
IE7 only blocked 20% of sites that were hosting ActiveX exploits and it’s phising site detector failed miserably. If you want something to check websites to see if they are indeed legitimate, McAfee SiteAdvisor should be added to your arsenal of defense software.
When both operating systems are stripped down to the bare essentials there is almost no difference between Vista and XP. As people become used to the UAC (User Account Controls) protection in Vista, it will become all the easier for hackers to create something that will look like a UAC dialog and people will have once again been trained to click “Allow.”
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May 30th, 2007
Ops! That’s bad. Microsoft has on a number of occasions claimed that its Vista is more secure than any other operating system it released.
Such claim can lull users into false sense of security.