Windows is no longer the goose

Nowadays, it is no longer the vulnerabilities of the OS that are the biggest threat, but the vulnerabilities of other applications.

Microsoft reported developments in vulnerabilities discovered in the first half of 2008 as part of the Security Intelligence Report. Several interesting findings can be deduced from the report. First and perhaps most importantly, the number of vulnerabilities detected in operating systems has been stagnant since 2006. Vulnerabilities that can be associated with operating system components account for 6-8 percent of all vulnerabilities discovered. That is, the errors that come to light for applications cause far more problems. Web browsers are particularly prominent in this regard.

The Microsoft report highlighted that the risks can be very different for each Windows operating system. In this regard, unfortunately, the company is still at war with Windows XP, as 42 percent of all vulnerabilities discovered in various software developed by Microsoft become exploitable on this operating system. For Vista, the same rate is only 6 percent.

The security report shows that Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) also has the least to do with Vista SP1. This is because the software finds an average of 1000 out of every 4,5 PCs scanned for this system. However, for Windows XP, this number varies from 9,2 to 33,8, depending on which version of XP the fix pack contains.