Windows XP Has Twice the Infections of Windows 7

[razor512]

[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]It's a per capita study. The total numbers don't matter if you are taking the average over a set fixed amount like X per 1000.No where does the study say WHY any of the OS's get infected or not. It could be Vista users are more careful. All it's doing is giving an interesting statistic.[/citation]total number is the most important factor here. XP is still the worlds most popular OS. In most pwn to own competitions, macs are the easiest to exploit but as of today, with the exception of linux, mac os has the fewest infections and that is largely due to the install base. the larger target will get the most attention.

Most of the current infections that disproportionately effect windows XP relies on inherit security flaws that microsoft refuses to fix. (mostly to do with inherit trust) It is still very common for XP system to autorun crap on removable media. it also has other issues with the netbios crap and a few other openings that require the users to disable certain services and do a few regedits to disable the functions with the trust issues (many novice users are unlikely to take the additional security measures)

most exploits that reliy on actual exploitation of how the OS is coded and not just taking advantage of inherit trust, effect windows XP, vista and windows 7.

Most of windows 7's additional security comes from microsoft trying to account for novice user behavior.


Remember for a study to have any kind of scientific validity, confounds have to be accounted for (by either spreading the extraneous variable across all groups, or finding a way to avoid it altogether).

 

[f-14]

considering XP has been in use for more than 3 times as long as win7 and is still running today, this doesn;t worry me, it actually follows a trend win 98 was 4.6% after Xp had been out for the same amount of time win 7 has been now vs Xp

how to lie with statistics i remember Xp has less of an infection % at 1.3% when it was the same age as win7 is now.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]pinhedd[/nom]9.5 is a little over three times 3.1[/citation]
To be fair it should be 4.9 vs 9.5. The Windows XP infection rate most likely only cover the 32 bit version of the OS, so we should compare it to the 32 bit version of Windows 7.

 

[danwat1234]

[citation][nom]tripledouce[/nom]Windows XP is no longer supported by microsoft, so of course the rates will be high. There are no longer patches to fix new found security flaws. Also with it still being the second most used OS on PC's there are still a lot hackers who will devote the time to finding those weaknesses to exploit the user.[/citation]

Actually XP is supported by Microsoft ("Extended support") until April 8th 2014. So until then, microsoft will still release security patches for XP.

 

[MaXimus421]

XP was wonderful. Win7 is even better. This 'intelligence report' is clearly in serious lack of... intelligence, however. Like someone else said, its stating the obvious.

 

[echondo]

Uh, 1,000 PCs scanned isn't a good estimate.....maybe try couple hundred thousand for a better estimate next time?

 

[cookoy]

Do all systems have the same anti-malware softwares installed? Do all users visit the same websites? Unless the only differentiating variable is the OS, then we're comparing apples with oranges. This beg the question: Are the patches for XP less effective in preventing malwares?

 

[K2N hater]

And if you look carefully at the numbers it's easy to figure there's some strange reason behind that 9.5 rate. Windows Server 2003 SP2 is very similar to XP in architecture but its rate is 4.2. In comparison, the rate for Win7 64 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are tied. Also the research didn't include XP64, which is certainly safer than Vista 64.

 

[Guest]

There is a misspelling in the title.

"Windows XP Has Twice the Installations of Windows 7"

There fixed it for you.

 

[luciferano]

[citation][nom]Time to Uninstall[/nom]There is a misspelling in the title. "Windows XP Has Twice the Installations of Windows 7"There fixed it for you.[/citation]

The two are actually roughly similar in market share according to recent studies.

 

[techguy911]

This article is silly os has nothing to do with it first xp on a new system that has uefi bios is less likely to have a rootkit/bootkit,also it has to do with the av and malware protection you are running.
I clean systems for a living there are more xp systems out there than windows 7 if the os has no protection running either one it has same risk of getting infected.
Most common cause of infection outdated flash,java so if windows 7 has older flash or java it will be infected.

 

[jackt]

Someone is scared to make a flop with its new os..........

 

[abbadon_34]

not bad the most popular and longest live OS in history