Microsoft is making another Vista push, not that its previous efforts have been all that successful but this time it is showing how Vista can defend users against more types of malware than XP can.

Take this with a grain of salt but according to Microsoft’s own figures taken from its “Malicious Software Removal” tool, Vista has 60% fewer malware infections than XP does.

I don’t doubt that, the kernel used in Vista is more secure than what XP uses but I don’t trust the “Malicious Software Removal” tool as far as I could throw it becuase it constantly misses items that Spybot, Adaware and PC Tools catch.  Windows Defender isn’t much better though it can prevent some infections.

Ben Fathi, corporate vice president of development for Windows, claimed that Vista has fewer vulnerabilities than Mac OSX, Windows XP or Ubuntu.  Perhaps but any vulnerabilities in those other operating systems are not likely to be exploited.

He left the stage without offering to answer any questions which only adds insult to injury.  There’s no doubt Vista is, in fact, more secure than XP but I doubt the claims against other operating systems and he had no third party verification of said claims.

According to The Register, “Microsoft’s most recent Security Intelligence Report, released on Tuesday, showed a 500 percent increase in Trojan downloaders and droppers. Phishing attacks increased by 150 per cent over the same period.”

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Related:

Microsoft says Vista SP1 won’t change much, urges not to hold off on upgrade

Russinovich in retreat over Windows Vista security claims

Forrester Researches urges companies to reconsider Vista upgrades

Increase in malware attacks on Vista expected next year

Malware hijacks Windows update component

Entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 10:45 am under Microsoft, Security, Upgrading, Vista.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.