Microsoft Windows: The Target of Nearly All Malware

Microsoft Windows: The Target of Nearly All Malware

The Known

A short article from The Register delineates the concern for data centers.

The vast majority of malware - more than 99 per cent - targets Windows PCs, according to a new survey by German anti-virus firm G-Data.

G-Data reckons 99.4 per cent of all new malware of the first half of 2010 targeted Microsoft’s operating system.

Some would suggest that this is not news, but an understanding of what is already known.

The Predicted

With the increase of Windows viruses and worms up, the trend is expected to get much worse.

G-Data reckons the rate of virus production in 1H10 is 50 per cent up from the same period last year. It predicts 2010 as a whole will witness two million malware samples.

What is a Network Operation Center to do?

The Smart Road

Any reasonable Network Operation Center knows that exposing Microsoft Windows directly to other customer networks and directly to other supplier networks is an incredible security risk.

There are ways to mitigate that risk.

G-Data reckons the rate of virus production in 1H10 is 50 per cent up from the same period last year. It predicts 2010 as a whole will witness two million malware samples.

Deploying Microsoft Windows on customer and supplier facing networks is a risk that should be avoided when nearly all of the risk can be eliminated by deploying another operating system.

If mission critical software has to run in a business, the software runs under Solaris.