Microsoft to Google: Our Security Is Bigger Than Yours
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 1st Jun 2010 23:03 UTC
Microsoft Well, this was pretty inevitable, wasn't it? We had Google employees detailing that their company has pretty much given up on Windows, forcing employees to use either Mac OS X or Linux. In what surely comes as a total surprise, Microsoft has responded to this report. Regarding the security claims, "the facts don't support the assertion", Microsoft states.
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Cass
Member since:
2006-03-17

So I would claim that Linux theoretical and practical security is better than Windows 7.


Theoretically Windows 7 and Linux Distros like the enterprise versions of Redhat and SuSe are both the same, they both conform to Common Criteria EAL 4 certification.

Now its the actually implementation that's the difference, to meet these certified levels of security Windows Server Group Policies need to be employed to the desktop and on the Linux Distros SeLinux templates will have to be applied .. Out of the box who's the safer ? No one most likely, ask the chaps at the hacking competitions getting free laptops and cash for hacks.. Mostly all OS's fall at one point or another for one reason or another.

Reply Parent Score: 1

sakeniwefu Member since:
2008-02-26

That's like comparing apples with IBM-PC Juniors :p
These certifications only deal about military-style security through the whole access control dance which while useful in that context has proven to be of little utility against malware. If that security was the real deal all viruses would be written to run on OpenBSD which only has traditional UNIX-style permissions.

The real deal is and has always been code execution. If something executes you are done; and Windows 7 does more to prevent code execution than Linux and far more than MacOS X.

In the end, although I left Windows land long ago, my guess is that most malware(excluding the unsolvable problem of malware the users install) runs on the 32-bit version; which lacks hardware support for DEP.

All in all, their claim is spot on, and Google replacing Windows machines by macs presumably running MacOS is scary. GCC moves to C++, Betelgeuse goes supernova, the end is nigh.

Reply Parent Score: 6