Following McAfee’s latest statements, along with the release of Service Pack 1 for Microsoft's Windows and its expected success on the market, new trouble lies ahead due to malware writers.
The "alliance" between Windows XP and the upcoming Service Pack 3 does twice a greater job than the one between Vista and SP1, recent tests show. Devil Mountain Software revealed that a preview version of SP3 for Windows XP enhanced the performance with 10 percent. The same source regarded SP1 performance for Vista as insignificant.
On the other hand, as security analysts seem to indicate, Microsoft’s concern should stay with its latest operating system rather than with performance, as 2008 promises good business for Vista which was up to now not targeted as much as XP.
New danger comes with a new territory. A rapid development of the Vista businesses and popularity would also mean a turn of the eye of the malware authors and a new interest on their part to trace vulnerability within the new operating system.
Nine months after the release of the OS, the National Vulnerability Database brought out 10 Vista vulnerabilities. Compared to this, XP was the subject of 16 such reported problems during the same amount of time. Within a year the number of reported Windows XP vulnerabilities would double.
New security challenges for a new year Ken Dunham, iSight Partners' Director of Global Response thinks 2008 to be a major year for Windows Vista, predicting that this operating system will gain important ground with the big companies. He also believes that a new year will reserve new opportunities for hackers anxious to exploit Vista, Internet Explorer 7, as well as other new features.
According to McAfee, there are many other software systems beside Vista that should keep their guard up. Web 2.0, online gaming, and instant messaging will be also exposed to threats.
