Windows XP PCs Breed Rootkit Infections 245
CWmike writes "Machines running the decade-old Windows XP make up a huge reservoir of infected PCs that can spread malware to other systems, a Czech antivirus company said. Windows XP computers are infected with rootkits out of proportion to the operating system's market share, according to data released Thursday by Avast Software, which surveyed more than 600,000 Windows PCs. While XP now accounts for about 58% of all Windows systems in use, 74% of the rootkit infections found by Avast were on XP machines. Avast attributed the infection disparity between XP and Windows 7 to a pair of factors: The widespread use of pirated copies of the former and the latter's better security. Vlcek assumed that many of the people running XP SP2, which Microsoft stopped supporting with security patches a year ago, have declined to update to the still-supported SP3 because they are running counterfeits."
Re:water still wet (Score:5, Interesting)
I've actually seem stories with other numbers as well, where most of the new malware for windows is coming out for Windows 7; Windows XP already has enough malware and people don't seem to be writing any new ones. The old ones already work fine I guess.
W7 less secure than XP? (Score:3, Interesting)
> Windows XP computers are infected with rootkits out of proportion to the operating system's market share
This statement lacks considering time the OS are in use:
XP 11 years - since 2001
W7 2 years - since 2009
So, with 2 years W7 gathered 12 % of infections having 31 % market share, that's 6 % infections/year
and 11 years of XP gathered 74 % of infections having 58 % market share, that's 6.7 % infections/year
Since market share started from 0, let's assume linear increase of market share since release and use W7 with 16.5 % and XP with 37 % average market share over time.
W7 gets 6 % infections/year with 16.5 % market share and XP 6.7 % infections/year with 37 % market share.
Which give factors for W7 0.37 and XP 0.18 infections/year/market share.
W7 more secure? Fat chance!
Interesting ... (Score:2, Interesting)
... so in spite of the (supposed) improved security of Win7 and the (in comparison) short time it has been around, a quarter of all infections are on Win7? ...
While it is understandable that the decade old OS is easier to attack, this is definitely no good track record for Win7
reasons to stay with SP2 over SP3 (Score:4, Interesting)
"Vlcek assumed that many of the people running XP SP2, which Microsoft stopped supporting with security patches a year ago, have declined to update to the still-supported SP3 because they are running counterfeits."
I, and many others I know in a forum I frequent, won't upgrade to SP3 as it breaks USB. It's a known bug (for many years) that USB becomes significantly slower in SP3 (it's not known what hardware configurations can avoid the bug). This causes problems with data transfer speeds.