RE: New Paper: More than 600 million users surf at high risk

[Nick FitzGerald <nick () virus-l demon co uk>]

Paul Schmehl to Larry Seltzer:

> My completely non-scientific, unsupported-by-empirical-evidence answer is 
> no.  It's because people who use Firefox tend to be more aware of security 
> threats and the need to keep software up to date.  It could also be (at 
> least in part) because Firefox has a built-in, enabled-by-default, update 
> available warning system.

I would agree with both those reasons and add that FF updates are not 
hampered by the disabling of the inbuilt (and often seriously mistrusted) 
OS auto-update mechanisms.

I also _suspect_ that a lot of pirated copies of Windows probably have 
system updates disabled.


Regards,

Nick FitzGerald