CSCD 303 Essential Computer Security Spring 2013 Lecture 8 - Desktop Security OS Security Compared Reading: See References

Overview Briefly, Overview of Linux Security OS Vulnerabilities Linux Windows Max OS X

National Vulnerability Database Classifies and organizes reported vulnerabilities for various software programs and systems Mitre has the contract to maintain this database You can search this database for all the vulnerabilities associated with a system

Evaluation: Windows Vs. Linux Vulnerabilities The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) uses its own set of metrics to evaluate severity of any given security flaw Query CERT vulnerabilities notes database for “Windows” and “Linux” keywords to examine metrics for 40 most recent reported vulnerabilities A number between 0 and 180 expresses final metric, where number 180 represents the most serious vulnerability The ranking is not linear – In other words, a vulnerability ranked 100 is not twice as serious as a vulnerability ranked at 50 CERT considers any vulnerability with a score of 40 or higher to be serious enough to be a candidate for a special CERT Advisory and US-CERT technical alert

CERT: Query Result for Keyword “Microsoft”

CERT: Query Result for Keyword “Microsoft” (continued)

CERT: Query Result for Keyword “Linux”

CERT: Query Result for Keyword “Linux” (continued)

CERT: Evaluation of Query Results for Microsoft and Linux CERT web search capabilities do not produce perfectly desirable results in terms of granularity or longevity – Especially True for Linux The “Linux” search results include a number of Oracle security vulnerabilities that are common to Linux, UNIX, and Windows – In Top 40 CERT results for “Microsoft”, Top entry containing the severity metric of 78 5 entries have a severity rating of 40 or greater – In Top 40 CERT results for Linux Top entry containing the severity metric of None other entry have a severity rating 27 or greater

Vulnerabilities Recent years, lots of comparisons – 2007 brought improved security with Windows Vista and Mac OS X Leopard – Compiled security flaws in Mac OS X and Windows XP and Vista and placed them side by side – Vulnerability statistics from third party vendor Secunia and broke them down by Windows XP flaws, Vista flaws, and Mac OS X flaws

Table of Flaws Windows vs. Mac Windows XP, Vista, and Mac OS X vulnerability stats for 2007 XP Vista XP + Vista Mac OS X Total extremely critical Total highly critical Total moderately critical Total less critical Total flaws Average flaws/month

Analysis of Data Apple had more than 5 times number of flaws per month than Windows XP and Vista in 2007 – Most of these flaws were serious – This seems to go against conventional wisdom Noteworthy... – Windows Vista showed fewer flaws than Windows XP, Windows Defender and Sidebar added 4 highly critical flaws to Vista that weren’t present in Windows XP

Update - Pwn2Own 2009 Want to guess the results of 2009? – Charlie Miller has done it again – 2nd consecutive year, security researcher hacked into a fully patched MacBook computer by exploiting a security vulnerability in Apple’s Safari browser – Miller launched his drive-by attack and claimed the $10,000 top prize. He also got to keep the MacBook machine – Miller said he came to the CanSecWest security conference with a plan to hack into Safari and had tested the exploit carefully to ensure “it worked the first time.” falls-in-seconds/2917 Current results beyond

Microsoft Vulnerabilities September 2009 Over 90% of the attacks recorded for Microsoft targeted the buffer overflow vulnerability described in the Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067

References The Register Security Report: Linux vs. Windows nux/#execsummary ty_showdown_mac_os_v Security vulnerability showdown, Mac vs. Linux vs. Ubuntu erability_showdown_mac_os_v IBM report: Vulnerabilities still going unpatched Mac versus Windows vulnerability stats for

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