Friday, January 31, 2003

Slammer Bammer

This article talks about the latest Microsoft-caused worm to hit the net: the Slammer Worm. Following their usual tactics, Microsoft has put the responsibility for this outbreak on their customers who failed to install the patch. Of course, what does it say when they themselves were affected by the worm because they didn't even patch all of their own systems?

The arctle goes on to compare the virus infection rates on Windows compared to on the Mac. I didn't agree with the numbers the author quoted, so I sent my feedback:

Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 08:17:31 -0800
From: patrick gibson <xxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx>
To: <mailroomuk@zdnet.com>
Subject: Re: Microsoft security effort 'failing' 

> A Consumer Reports survey last year found that virus
> infection rates on Macs are half what they are on Windows,
> noted Smith. "Is that because Macs are safer? I think the
> answer is yeah."

I'm not sure what sort of survey was conducted by Consumer
Reports, but the amount  virus infection rates on the Mac
was vastly inflated. You could take that number from 1/2 to
about 1/1,000,000th the number of infections. And since the
release of Mac OS X, there have been a big fat ZERO.

Patrick

And just to reiterate my thoughts on Microsoft, I think Steve Balmer says it best.