Vista at One Year: Best Windows Security System Ever

One year on, how is Vista's vaunted security, often touted by Microsoft as the main reason people should upgrade from XP, holding up? Surprisingly well, in fact. According to security researcher Jeff Jones, Vista remains an exceptionally secure OS, with about half the number of vulnerabilities in year one as XP over the same relative time frame.

I wrote about Jones' research previously, when he made the same analysis at Vista's six month birthday.

According to Jones (who works for Microsoft, by the way, though I still trust his overall findings), the picture today is pretty much the same as it was when last we checked in. I don't worry much about his comparisons to non-Windows OSes (all of which are totally insecure if you look at his numbers), but remain intrigued by how secure Vista seems to be. While booting up a new Vista computer still means downloading about 30 patches, that's nothing compared to the hundreds that XP requires.

That said, Vista is still young and will increasingly be targeted by hackers as it increases its market share. (XP still has a 76.9% market share compared to Vista's 10.5%.) As that number grows (and it inexorably will), its security exploits will likely get worse. But for now, well, at least there's something good going on with the OS.

Enjoy the full report here [PDF link].