funsec mailing list archives
Re: Microsoft announce most secure OS on the planet
From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk () gsp org>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:00:08 -0400
On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 12:32:37AM +0000, security curmudgeon wrote:
"Popular" products have more published vulnerabilities, that would be pretty easy to argue. May have to qualify "popular" to who though (the researchers/blackhats, or the general public which makes them appealing targets to the bad guys, etc).
Along those lines: one of the canards that I frequently find myself defusing is "X is attacked often because it's popular". It may be true that X is attacked often, and that X is popular, but that doesn't prove a causal relationship between the two. I think it much more likely that X is attacked (a) because it's weak or (b) because it's perceived to be weak. I also think it likely that "X is attacked often", that is, "more often than some other things", may not actually be the case; rather, it may well be that "everything is attacked frequently, but X succumbs more often, leading to the perception that it's disproportionately attacked. And the problem with all of this is that "why" can only be answered by those doing the attacking (or writing the automated agents which in turn do the attacking). We often do not know who they are, and even in when cases where we do, we're not in a position to ask questions -- or to necessarily believe the answers we'd get. ---Rsk _______________________________________________ Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.
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- Re: Microsoft announce most secure OS on the planet Valdis . Kletnieks (Apr 20)
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- Re: Microsoft announce most secure OS on the planet David Harley (Apr 20)
- Re: Microsoft announce most secure OS on the planet Gadi Evron (Apr 20)
- Re: Microsoft announce most secure OS on the planet David Harley (Apr 21)
- Re: Microsoft announce most secure OS on the planet quispiam lepidus (Apr 15)
- Re: Microsoft announce most secure OS on the planet Larry Seltzer (Apr 15)
- Re: Microsoft announce most secure OS on the planet Gadi Evron (Apr 20)
- Re: Microsoft announce most secure OS on the planet Valdis . Kletnieks (Apr 20)