Apple, Microsoft Ranked As Top Vulnerable Vendors

In its threat report for January 2010 to June 2010 published on 25th August, 2010, IBM X-Force ranked Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe systems as the manufacturers of products having maximum vulnerabilities.

Experts have revealed that increased number of vulnerabilities offers an appropriate way to the cybercriminals to infect the users' PCs with malware, phishing, and other malicious contents.

According to the data, IBM X-Force examined and listed 4,396 new vulnerabilities during January 2010 - June 2010. With an astounding rate of 4%, Apple was ranked No. 1 having maximum vulnerabilities. Microsoft acquired the second rank, while Adobe was on No. 3. Adobe was listed on No. 9 in 2009.The astounding change in this year's ranking is mainly due to an increase in issues relating Adobe Reader and Flash Player.

The software vendors have been ranked by IBM on the basis of percentage of unpatched vulnerabilities; the top most offender was Sun, which is a part of Oracle now. It did not fix 24% of detected open security threats, most of which were in Java.

Placed at No.2 is Microsoft with 23.2% of unpatched vulnerabilities, an increment from 15.8% in 2009. Microsoft is followed by Mozilla Foundation (3rd Place) with 21.3 % of unpatched vulnerabilities, which is nearly twice as compared to 12.1% in 2009.

As per the report, in terms of vulnerabilities Microsoft surpassed other vendors with critical and high CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) ratings, accounting for 73% of those. Whereas Linux is at No. 1 position, followed by Apple at No. 2.

The report also mentions that, half of the vulnerabilities appear as Web application bugs, and it is not surprising that the two major types of attacks are JavaScript and PDF exploits. As per IBM, it has seen a 37% rise in PDF attacks year-over-year, due to a botnet named Zeus.

General Manager, IBM Security Solutions, Steve Robinson said that, the 2010 X-Force report revealed that though the threats were increasing, the whole industry was getting more and more alert about disclosing vulnerabilities. This emphasizes the growing alertness among the clients to keep on finding better security solutions which help them manage the risks in a better way and making sure that their IT infrastructure was safe by design, as reported by fiercecio on 25th August, 2010.

Related article: Apple Patches QuickTime 13 Month Old Flaw

» SPAMfighter News - 9/6/2010