By Michael Flanakin @ 8:01 AM :: 166 Views :: 0 Comments :: Technology, Microsoft, Predictions, En Español :: Digg it!

Just wanted to share some vulnerability stats from 2007 for Mac and Windows. Mac had 12 times the number of vulnerabilities that Windows Vista had and 5.5 times the number of combined Vista and XP vulnerabilities. At first I was surprised, but then I thought back to rumblings of insecurity and talk about Windows Vista being more secure than Mac OS before that. It's been nice to see the Mac security myth begin to fade away and watch as Microsoft's credibility around security grows. I expect this trend to continue thru the year; especially as more and more users are exposed to Mac's. And, yes, I do see Mac use growing this year. While I'm making predictions, I think I feel pretty comfortable saying Vista won't see the widespread adoption people seem to expect. This is ironic, considering it's truly the best version of the OS to date. Nevertheless, the reason I say that is because I expect to hear more and more talk of Windows "7" this year. I'm guessing that people who've hesitated to upgrade might prefer to see what's next, since there's talk about it being released in 2009. Microsoft is good at learning from its mistakes, so I think we'll see a very big boom when Windows "7" hits the streets.

Windows XP, Vista, and Mac OS X vulnerability stats for 2007
	XP	Vista	XP + Vista	Mac OS X
Total extremely critical	3	1	4	0
Total highly critical	19	12	23	234
Total moderately critical	2	1	3	2
Total less critical	3	1	4	7
Total flaws	34	20	44	243
Average flaws per month	2.83	1.67	3.67	20.25