Windows XP PCs breed rootkit infections

[Jack]

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 today.

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.

XP's share of the infection pie was much larger than Windows 7's, which accounted for only 12% of the malware-plagued machines -- even though the 2009 OS now powers 31% of all Windows PCs.


More details - link

 

[K__M]

Well i am glad i am using windows 7 now!

That is not really surprising though as XP is old, windows 7 is newer.

Where does vista stand?

 

[PenTester]

are you still using windows? start to use linux ...!!

 

[Jack]

are you still using windows? start to use linux ...!!

Security isn't everything... Usability has also it's importance when choosing a OS :666:

---

The Patch Guard for the x64 , increased Windows 7 protection against rootkit installation .Also the Windows UAC had it's part in preventing some rootkits from installing..

 

[Hungry Man]

Absolutely 100% agree Jack. Security is not the biggest priority.

There is an abundance of security software for Windows and (in my opinion) you can configure Windows to be very secure even with what's built into the OS/ Microsoft provided tools.

I would switch over to FreeBSD in a heartbeat if I could... but I can't. Windows just has too much of the market and too many applications are built for it.

 

[Deleted member 178]

right, i tried Linux before and i can say "No thank you"

 

[Hungry Man]

64bit Ubuntu... lmao it's impossible... especially with Unity on a laptop omfg

 

[Linuxfever]

Simple fact :

-Windows XP was released in 2001
-Windows 7 was released in 2009

Windows 7 is a newer and updated operating system, when Microsoft build it they've taken into account the XP flaws , so comparing the security level in XP and 7 it's like comparing a Norton Internet Security 2005 with Norton Internet Security 2012.
Windows XP is running on old machines and even if Microsoft would like to kill this old operating system, the incapacity of the XP users hardware to run 7 makes this task impossible.This is one of the reasons why Microsoft didn't upgraded the requirements for the Windows 8 build.
I do a agree with Hungry Man, there is an abundance of security software for Windows, so securing a Windows XP operating system isn't impossible.
Do you guys really think that Unbutu or Mint won't have in 10 years the same malware problems that Windows has right now (if they increase their market share) ?

 

[Hungry Man]

Difficult to say. I can't imagine what Ubuntu or Mint will be like in 10 years.

I know they'll likely not be as popular as windows or even OSX though... well maybe OSX.

Every operating system is vulnerable. So every operating system can be targeted. If Ubuntu/ Mint suddenly became 50% of the market, yeah, I bet we'd see socially engineered malware that attempts to run on those machines. Similar to the Malware Defender that attacked OSX... difficult to install and incredibly easy to remove.

 

[jamescv7]

Well this clearly showed XP Systems can be much vulnerable since security built in were not effective as other OS (Vista and 7) which are latest.

 

[win7holic]

I've tried to use ubuntu, but I can not do anything I want. but, I use windows, windows everything to me.

i have great laptop specs, it for windows 8 (coming soon) for now, sometimes just testing new software and games.