'Owning/Rooting' a PC is easier if it is running Windows
Microsoft has been waiting for security researchers to say that its Windows operating system has a lower total cost of ownership. One finally has, but that's not good news. On Friday, David Aitel, a noted security professional and managing director of vulnerability assessment firm Immunity, published a paper stating that "owning" a computer -- hacker-speak for compromising a system -- is easier if the target computer runs Windows. While couched in puns and jokes, the paper takes a serious stance on the security of Windows compared with modern Linux, Aitel said.
"We are having some fun with it, but the underlying data and conclusions are real," he said.
The paper, titled "Microsoft Windows: A lower Total Cost of 0wnership," mocks other, typically Microsoft-funded, research, such as a study done by IDC that maintains Windows costs less to implement in four out of five corporate applications. Another such study, released by Forrester, found that a particular measure of the threat of vulnerabilities was higher for Linux than for Windows -- but the data used by the study was broadly questioned.
