Why Windows is less secure than Linux
I knew it all along, but it took some really clever people to make some imagery that outlines this simple fact.
Windows is inherently harder to secure than Linux. There I said it. The simple truth.
Many millions of words have been written and said on this topic. I have a couple of pictures. The basic argument goes like this. In its long evolution, Windows has grown so complicated that it is harder to secure. Well these images make the point very well. Both images are a complete map of the system calls that occur when a web server serves up a single page of html with a single picture. The same page and picture. A system call is an opportunity to address memory. A hacker investigates each memory access to see if it is vulnerable to a buffer overflow attack. The developer must do QA on each of these entry points. The more system calls, the greater potential for vulnerability, the more effort needed to create secure applications.
If you look at the two images, the windows image has many more system calls which means there is a greater potential for a vulnerability. The secunia site is interesting when comparing Windows Server 2003 and RedHat Enterprise Linux AS 4 it is apparent that windows had a greater percentage of security problems that were rated Medium – Extreme. Also given the fact that Microsoft has been notoriously slow to patch, the choice seems obvious to me. Although, unfortunately the better choice in operating systems is sacrificed becuse your developers are unfamiliar and unwilling to work with Linux.
