Vista “catches” less malware than Windows XP

18th May 2009

Microsoft has published another report on information security of the series of SIR (Security Intelligence Report). The report shows details on the situation with contamination of different versions of Windows. Indicators of infection demonstrate how many computers contained viruses every during every 1000 launches of the utility MSRT (Malicious Software Removal Tool) during the second half of 2008.
The SIR report reveals very interesting facts indeed. It turned out, that the level of infection in all versions of Vista was far lower than in any other version of Windows XP. To be precise, it is twice lower. When they compared the original RTM versions of the systems (Released to Manufacturing) ie, without any service packs, Vista beat up Windows XP again.
As for the server platforms, Windows Server 2008 RTM has twice less infected machines than the previous versions of Windows Server 2003 SP2. In general, the low level of contamination of server platforms can be explained by the simple fact: such platforms, as a rule, are under control of skilled. In addition, the servers usually use several layers of protection, which ensures their increased resistance to viruses.