At 12:35 AM 1/24/03, you wrote:
>I've been having a conversation with my sysadmin at work and he feels
>that windows 95 is more secure than windows 2000, or windows XP. He
>feels that he is more secure than if he were to upgrade. Never mind
>that he has never applied a service pack, or browser update (running
>win95a) and IE4.
>
>I contend that 2000 and XP are probably the better choice.
>
>Here are a few of my reasons.
>
>Current Updates - win XP and 2000 have Microsoft's attention and they
>generally release updates often.
>
>Law of averages - the more holes that an OS accumulates over it's life
>span, the more public the info on the exploit is. Newer operating
>system exploits are generally only used by experienced hackers who keep
>right up on top of things. The less people who can exploit you the
>better.
>
>Physical security - A win NT based system has the ability to lock the
>desktop and restrict accounts. Win 95 does not.
>
>Security logging - NT systems at least have a log to look back at
>
>No Support - old systems like win 95 may have more holes undiscovered
>and they will not be patched.
>
>I am going to mention firewalls as an additional precaution.
>
>Does anyone have any other reasons as to why one should not feel secure
>with an older Microsoft OS?
>
>I also ran across an article recently that referenced that Microsoft
>used to be #1 on the security advisories list, but they had been doing a
>good job, and that other operating systems were showing up more often
>lately. Anyone seen this? I can't remember where it was?
>
>Thanks
>Dan Ellis
Hey Dan,
I think you have done an excellent job in summarizing the key reasons why
you should run a more current OS than '95. Microsoft OSes have such a
large share of the market of course they will have the most security
issues. It is just a fact of life that you need to keep your OSes patched
and up to date.
I'd be very concerned if any sysadmin feels Windows '95 is more secure than
Windows NT/2000/XP/2003, etc. That's hard to believe.
Kevin
------------------
Kevin Bachelder
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer - Windows NT 4.0 (MCSE)
Microsoft Certified Professional - Windows 2000 (MCP)
Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA)
CompTIA A+ Certified Computer Repair Technician (A+)
The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering
Mandrake Linux or Red Hat Linux CD sets along
with the OpenOffice CD... at a great price!!!
http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml
|
