Microsoft claims Vista trumps XP in security report

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 24 Jan 2008 at 18:06

Microsoft has released its first-year security report for Vista, which claims the OS trumps its predecessor, Windows XP.

The report compiles the number of vulnerability disclosures and security updates in Vista's first year, and compares them to those of Windows XP, Red Hat rhel4ws, Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, and Apple Mac OS X 10.4 in their first year. Unsurprisingly, the report claims Vista came out on top.

According to the numbers, Microsoft released 17 security bulletins and patches affecting Vista, as opposed to the 30 issued for XP during its first year, while Vista apparently required 36 vulnerability fixes, less than half the 65 that XP required.

The report also suggests that Red Hat rhe14ws logged 360 vulnerabilities in its first year; Ubuntu 6.06 224; and 116 in Mac OS X 10.4.

Microsoft claims the implementation of its secure development lifecycle (SDL) program managed to drum the flaws out of the OS during its design phase.