Mac versus Windows vulnerability stats for 2007

For all the talk that I continue to hear about how Windows is not a safe operating system, I'm really glad to see independent groups such as ZDNet putting out studies such as this one:

» Mac versus Windows vulnerability stats for 2007 | Zero Day | ZDNet.com

I love this chart from the article:

It shows that OSX had (on average) roughly 5.5 times as many flaws per month as Windows XP and Windows Vista combined!  The staggering number for me is 234 highly critical (or worse) flaws in OSX compared to 27 in Vista and XP combined (some of which look to me to be double counted between Vista and XP).

Technorati Tags: Vista,Mac,Windows,Security

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 08, 2008
  PingBack from http://geeklectures.info/2008/01/08/mac-versus-windows-vulnerability-stats-for-2007/

• Anonymous
  January 08, 2008
  PingBack from http://geeklectures.info/2008/01/08/mac-versus-windows-vulnerability-stats-for-2007/

• Anonymous
  January 08, 2008
  I love the chart too... if only the sum column represented the sum of the rows above them!  Not a very effective table as long as the numbers don't add up.

• Anonymous
  January 08, 2008
  Good catch!  I didn't author article or the chart, but I summed his data myself - here are the results: Total Vista = 27 (7 less than in the chart) Total XP = 15 (5 less than in the chart) Total Vista + XP = 34 (10 less than in the chart) Total OSX = 234 (same as in the chart) I wonder where his discrepancies came from?  he reports more than his totals for Windows but his numbers for OSX match...

• Anonymous
  January 08, 2008
  These numbers may not be all that they seem. They have been dissected by a mac fan-boy which shows the numbers may well be bogus. Still, interesting reading: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/12/21/vista-vs-mac-os-x-security-why-george-ous-zdnet-vulnerability-numerology-is-absurd/

• Anonymous
  January 08, 2008
  The comment has been removed