Symantec tells world that Windows is most secure OS

SECURITY OUTFIT, Symantec has been forced to admit that its long-term enemy Microsoft is currently shipping the most secure operating system out there.

Symantec's 11th Internet Security Threat Report says that when it comes to widely-used operating systems, Microsoft is doing better overall than its competitors - if it has any.

According to Internet News, Symantec found that Windows had the fewest number of patches and the shortest average patch development time of the five operating systems it monitored in the last six months of 2006.

During this time more than 39 vulnerabilities were found in the operating system and Vole took an average of 21 days to fix them. While this is still more than last year it still knocked the spots off the competition.

The next best performer was Red Hat Linux which took an average of 58 days to address a total of 208 vulnerabilities. Symantec pointed out that the vulnerabilities in Red Hat were not as severe as those found in VoleWare.

It turns out that the self-touted hyper-secure Mac OSX was well below Windows despite its sanctimonious advertising campaigns saying otherwise. There were 43 vulnerabilities in Mac OS X and a 66 day turnaround on fixes.

Only one was high priority and Apple took on average 37 days to fix them. HP-UX from Hewlett Packard and Solaris from Sun were both the biggest security risk. HP-UX had 98 vulnerabilities in the second half of 06 and took 101 days to fix them. Sun,took on average 122 days to fix 63 vulnerabilities. µ