Apple OS X Named Most Vulnerable Software Of 2015

So first, the headline is accurate.  But second, you can do anything with statistics, so not so fast fella (or in this case, lady).  SC Magazine did name OS X the most vulnerable software of 2015, but that is only because of the way they calculate the numbers.

The numbers are based on the public database of bugs called the CVE database that is maintained by Carnegie Mellon University for the Department of Homeland Security.

However, looking at the data (see graphic here), you will quickly see why.  Mac OSX comes up with 384 bugs.  Right behind it is the iPhone at 375.  Where is Windows?  That is the trick.  Windows 8.1 had 151 bugs and Windows 8 had 146.  Those are separate in the list.  Windows 7 had 147.  Windows Server 2012 had 155.  Now you can’t just add those numbers together and say Windows had 599  bugs because there could be overlap – the same bug is a bug in Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Server 2012, for example.  The author of the article doesn’t tell how she did the calculations.

Still, it is interesting to see where things fall on the list and the fact that the two Apple OSes – ios and OS X come out pretty high says that the myth that Apple software is flawless is just that – a myth.

Flash, of course, is very near the top at 314.

The other Adobe tools – AIR, Air SDK and Air SDK compiler each had 246.  Given that there is likely common code between the three products and that the numbers are all exactly the same, it looks like the author allowed for a bug to count in more than one category.

The browsers came in on this top 50 list to, of course – Chrome had 187, Firefox 178, Internet Explorer had 231 and Safari 135.

Windows 10 came in relatively low at only 53 entries.  That is good news for Microsoft since it says that there are over a hundred million users of Windows 10.  Of course, a lot of them are sitting on a shelf or, like me, on a standalone laptop that I might turn on once a month.

Check the article below or link above to see the rest of the top 50.  It is useful to understand how buggy or not the software that you use every day is.

Information for this post came from SC Magazine.

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