Mac OS X has more vulnerabilities than Windows XP and Vista

25th December 2007

George Ou, one of authors of the portal ZDNet.com, conducted profound data analysis of the company Secunia, related to detected errors in the systems of Apple and Microsoft. As a result, it became clear that Mac OS X, which has been so long declared by Apple as the safest system, has collected for this year more critical bugs than Windows XP and Vista together. If XP and Vista in a couple counted 23 vulnerabilities, Mac OS X demonstrated huge amount of vulnerabilities: 234 pieces per year (!). Thus, monthly Mac OS X “introduced” five times more critical mistakes than Windows.
However, Ou himself noted that these results are not sufficient grounds for comparing security systems, especially since Apple, and Microsoft worked hard enough over the protection of their products. The obtained data are unlikely to serve as a projection of vulnerabilities for the year 2008. Now Mac OS X is gaining more popularity, the increase of which inevitably led to a growing hackers` activity. Vista also has every chance to get closer to the results of OS X, as it is spreading rapidly among computer users, making itself a more attractive tool for attacks, than Windows XP or Mac OS X.