Microsoft: Vista more secure than Linux and Mac OS X
Windows Vista has come in for an awful lot of criticism since it was released, most of it justified, some not. But could it be that Vista as it is today is the most secure operating system available? Microsoft thinks so.
There must be very few people using Windows-based PCs that haven’t been hit by some form of security scare in the past. Be it a virus, a worm, a keylogger, or whatever, most malware written and planted on the Web today is targeted almost exclusively at Windows operating systems.
Despite this, or maybe because of this, Microsoft has now claimed the current, up-to-date Vista is more secure than its closest rivals, Mac OS X and Linux. According to Computer World, Kevin Turner, chief operating officer for Microsoft, stated as much at the Midmarket CIO Summit last week. He claimed:
Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we’ve ever built. It’s also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It’s the safest and most secure OS on the planet today.
I don’t doubt for even a moment that Vista is “the safest, most reliable OS” Microsoft has ever built. As technology advances and malware writers try to gain the advantage, so Microsoft has to improve the defenses of its operating systems. So Vista is obviously safer than XP and any OS that came before.
However, safer than Mac OS X and Linux? Maybe, maybe not. There’s really no way of knowing because the latter two don’t get challenged in the way Windows does. Microsoft has by far the largest market share of the three and therefore Windows operating systems are the ones almost-solely targeted by malware writers.
So it’s really a moot point. It depends whether you believe that by being the only OS targeted Microsoft has had to up its security settings and make Vista more secure than Linux and Mac OS X. Alternatively, it could be argued that by the very fact Windows is targeted so universally, it cannot ever be as secure as the operating systems that sail through largely unscathed.
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April 16th, 2009
“Vista today, post-Service Pack 2 … [is] also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It’s the safest and most secure OS on the planet today.”
Microsoft used to have a big problem, in that people did not believe the things that they said. Now, however, they have a much bigger problem: no one *cares* about the things they say any more.
Microsoft is irrelevant, and neither wishful thinking nor baseless assertions will change that. It really is pathetic to see the pitiful state that it is in, and surely it’s time that the company was wound up and put out of its misery.
April 16th, 2009
Vista is more secure than Mac or Linux (and is a loved and popular OS too). I thought April fools day was over…..Maybe one needs to change their calender….
April 16th, 2009
All i can say is
Hugh to Apple = Bill O’ Reilly to Republicans. Truth.
Oh and if Microsoft is irrelevant as you say they are, why do people still even care or have windows systems.
April 17th, 2009
It is not to say that linux is not widely used enough to be tested as windows is; If I remember correctly, the majority of servers are running Linux rather than windows, so linux may be targeted even more by hackers than windows is.
Also, I don’t think there is a single article coming from microsoft admiting that its windows are inferior to its competitors in any way
April 17th, 2009
You aren’t ever going to get anything from Hugh except Microsoft Derangement Syndrome rhetoric. No stats, numbers or anything remotely like objective data to back up his assertions.
April 18th, 2009
You will, of course, get all manner of statistics and numbers from Ken. His problem is that he thinks that such things represent objective data, whereas it is often the case that they are skewed, mis-representative or fudged in some way.
Ken is perhaps blissfully unaware of the maxim “figures cannot lie, but liars can figure”, which is especially apt in the case of Microsoft, being as it is a pathologically mendacious organisation. Kevin Turner’s bare-faced lie is a classic example of this. Mr Turner is not the least bit interested in truth or the pursuit of technical excellence, much less the good of his customers – he simply wants to justify his position on the greasy pole and keep on pocketing fat bonuses for knowing little and doing even less.
April 18th, 2009
See what I mean?