I read this report about a study into OS security and unsurprisingly in my opinion Linux didnt fair to well.
Around the middle it talks about "security through obscurity" which means that an OS will be more secure because less people use it and so people are less like to make viruses for it.
This isnt taken into account for this study so its amazing that Linux did so badly and Windows did slightly better than some might first expect.
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/secur...0801,97157,00.html

Yeah, I think mainly Macs are secure due to the fact that few people see a need to find a backdoor or any security vulnerability because it's the minority that use it...Your average run of the mill n00b uses Windows, very few n00bs use Macs, some do, but not as many as Windows. So there are more people to h4xx0r on Windows OSs in general so of course they are going to be target 1.

It surprises me really that xp is that bad, I can't see this, but its probably people that aren't well protected with any firewalls or anything, and also the people that are gullible when it comes to popups etc. The statistics are still quite shocking though.

Yeah the fact that it was based on the number of intrusions is a huge misrepresentation of how secure the operating systems are.  Web servers are generally the most popular target for attacks because the effect is universally visible.  90% of PC attacks will be on windows systems because it's the most popular platform in that market.  The fact that they are in the limelight also outbalances the strength of security because people trying to cause impersonal damage will look at the most popular platforms and therefore scrutinise it more for holes, because that causes the maximum impact.

I'm not saying that OSX and BSD aren't securer platforms but these stats should be read with caution

mad_onion, have you been reading MS's "Get the facts"? Did you know that Novell has launched a campaign so you can get the (in their opinion) real facts?

I know you won't believe anything from a non-MS certified source, but hey, it's an interesting read anyway

http://www.suse.com/us/company/press/press_releas...ve04/response.html