Most vulnerable operating systems and applications in 2014

gfi.com

16 points·radoslawc··6 comments

It's easy to think of a few "not all bugs are created equal" reasons this might be misleading.

Weighted averages of CVSS by OS might have been more useful, for example, and dis-aggregating Microsoft OS versions but not the various OSX or Linux distros/kernels (and lack of Android) also paints a potentially misleading picture.

With any exercise of this type, the conclusions one draws are typically encoded a priori in the way the analysis is framed and defined.

I haven't checked, but looking at the highly similar counts for Windows 7, 8, 8.1, I expect that the total count for all Windows versions combined wouldn't be much higher.

On the other hand this overview doesn't show vipulnerabilities for Safari while IE had 242. I guess Safari vulnerabilities are included in the Mac OS X count.

Finally, is Apple TV an application?

> I haven't checked, but looking at the highly similar counts for Windows 7, 8, 8.1, I expect that the total count for all Windows versions combined wouldn't be much higher.

But the individual numbers for OSX and Linux versions are much lower, because the vulnerabilities affect much smaller version ranges typically.

It seems an error on the construction on the table though. The windows server versions have the same number. The same apply for the desktop version. It seems like there are only three different numbers: WinRT, Win desktop (7-8-8.1) and Server.

> dis-aggregating Microsoft OS versions but not the various OSX or Linux distros/kernels also paints a potentially misleading picture.

Bingo. Already had a discussion about this earlier and looked up some numbers for Linux and OSX - it is indeed rather misleading.

Compare OS X to Windows. Embarrassing. :(

Reply on news.ycombinator.com