Apr 16

Vista Vulnerability report published for Year 1

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This report has just been issued compiling the first year’s worth of security vulnerabilities found in Windows Vista, and comparing Windows XP and non-Microsoft OS’s first year vulnerabilities.

The report can be found here but here are a few highlights:-

Metric	Windows Vista (year 1)	Windows XP (year 1)
Vulnerabilities fixed	36	65
Security Updates	17	30
Patch Events	9	26
Weeks with at least 1 Patch Event	9	25

These figures may be merely interesting until you consider the cost saving implications of reduced patches. A customer told me recently that each patch event costs them £30K, so this yr 1 reduction in patches would have delivered a direct £480,000 per annum saving to them running Vista over Windows XP!! Then there’s the incalculable reduction in corporate risk from this reduction in vulnerabilities.

I won’t comment but it’s interesting to note the comparison to non-Microsoft operating systems. It certainly does fly in the face of some of the IT press reports that have surrounded Vista since it’s launch.

Metric	Windows Vista (year 1)	Windows XP (year 1)	Red Hat rhel4ws reduced (year 1)	Ubuntu 6.06 LTS reduced (year 1)	Mac OS X 10.4 (year 1)
Vulnerabilities fixed	36	65	360	224	116
Security Updates	17	30	125	80	17
Patch Events	9	26	64	65	17
Weeks with at least 1 Patch Event	9	25	44	39	15