Yet another reason why Macs need security software
As expected, my blog this week about Macintosh security generated a lot of comments. Some were personal in nature (author's note: I really do know the difference between a Trojan and a virus but typos happen), some were quite thought-provoking.
I did receive some interesting data from a colleague from IBM. According to the X-Force 2008 Trend & Risk Report (PDF) released early this year, Mac OS X Server and Mac OS X top the list of operating systems with the most disclosed vulnerabilities for 2008. Each accounts for 14.3 percent, and has been in the top five in each of the last three years. Rounding out the top five were: Linux Kernel at 10.9 percent, Sun Solaris at 7.3 percent, and Microsoft Windows XP at 5.5 percent.
The purpose of this data is to compare the total number of disclosed vulnerabilities with each individual operating system. Vulnerability data is submitted to the Mitre Corp. and then appears in the CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) List.
