Third-party Vendors Contribute to Vista Vulnerabilities
Despite its popularity, the Windows operating system always seems to be under fire for a deficiency in security. In a recent Security Intelligence Report, Microsoft states that the security upgrades made in Vista are significant improvements, claiming that the system is far more secure than other versions of Windows as well as competing products. Ironically, the first half of 2008 saw a 43% increase in attacks on PCs. So who is responsible for these security gaps? Microsoft believes it is many of the Windows applications developed by third-party companies.
Plugging The Security Holes
In the H1 2008 Desktop OS Vendor Report, Jeff Jones, Microsoft security director, notes that the company repaired security bugs faster than any other major OS vendors including Apple, Red Hat and Ubuntu. Jones followed up by stating that Windows Vista had fewer vulnerabilities than any other the system in the first part of this year with XP having the second fewest. Security issues on rival systems such as Linux were more abundant with Mac OS X having the most problems of all. According to the report, Apple’s system had twice as many critical security gaps as Vista and a whopping seven times more vulnerabilities in total.
Although Apple frequently boasts about the security and overall quality of its software, the company also tends to be the slowest at releasing patches. Per the H1 2008 report, all vendors involved fixed a total of 585 vulnerabilities. Red Hat lead the charge by repairing 292 issues which accounts for all of its Windows supported products while Microsoft fixed the fewest amount at only 58. An estimated 90% of Microsoft’s vulnerabilities were resolved within one day of being publicly disclosed, something that offered good news for system administrators and homes users.
The success Microsoft achieved with the new version of Windows is the result of an overhaul in 2003 that saw the company retool its product line based on security threat modeling. While these improvements are definitely note worthy, the increasing attacks on PCs remain very unsettling. Experts suggest that just like many exploits, the recent Vista attacks are primarily associated with users falling prey to malicious content on the internet. Even though Microsoft has worked diligently to secure its Internet Explorer web browser, attackers are still able to manipulate vulnerabilities in third-party applications despite there being no issues with the OS or browser. Some say that two of the main culprits are multimedia giants such as Apple and RealNetworks.
Aside from creating one of today’s most vulnerable operating systems and releasing patches at a slower rate, many of Apple’s software applications have placed a negative impact on the Windows platform. Microsoft claims that the top 10 Vista security issues were all related to third-party software rather than its own products. George Stathakopoulos, Security Engineering and Communications GM at Microsoft, says the company realizes that these third-party vulnerabilities are quite serious and need to be resolved.
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