Security News > 2020 > April > We're going on a vuln hunt. We're going catch a big one: Researchers find Windows bugs dominate – but fixes are fast

A study of vulnerabilities - bugs that can be a gateway for malware or allow privilege escalation by an intruder - shows that Windows platforms have the most by far, but that they also tend to be fixed quickly, compared to Linux systems or appliances like routers, printers and scanners.

The assets analysed mostly exclude mobile devices, leaving the top five most common platforms as Windows 10, Linux, Cisco, Windows 7 and Windows 2012.

Windows devices dominate with the bad news being that "a Windows-based asset typically has 119 vulnerabilities to manage in any given month" - compared to 32 for the Mac, 27 for Linux and 4 for appliances.

"The average Windows 10 PC has 14 weaponized bugs," said the researchers, while Windows 7 has 18.

Looking at the detail of the report, it is also notable that older Windows systems tend to be harder to keep secure, and that third-party Windows software gets fixed more slowly than Microsoft software.

News URL

https://go.theregister.co.uk/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/28/vulnerabilities_report_9_million/