*BSD is considered the safest OS

[Benjamin Walkenhorst]

Richard Cotrina wrote:

>Perhaps this is an old news, but it's interesting to post it to the list.
>
>A recent study made by MI2G, an UK company focused in data risk
>security, shows that *BSD and MacOS X were the less breached OS in a
>sample of more that 200K computers permanently connected to the internet.
>
>http://mi2g.net/cgi/mi2g/frameset.php?pageid=http%3A//mi2g.net/cgi/mi2g/press/021104.php
>  
>
heise.de questioned the credibility of the study. On the other hand they 
did a security survey
around december 2003/january 2004, and IIRC, their results were *pretty* 
similar to what this
study shows.
I do believe, the heise-study also mentioned that BSD-systems were not 
only rarely attacked because
of being so rare, but that the rate of successful attacks against 
BSD-based system was lower than
with, say Linux and Windows.

<speculation>
I for one do believe that Linux gets aways so badly not because Linux 
inherently insecure or "bad",
but because many Linux-machines do not - that's my impression at least - 
receive the degree of
administrative attention they would need. BSD - in my impression - 
attracts more experienced
users/administrators than Linux, having become rather "mainstream".
If you looked at the attacked Linux systems in more detail, I also 
assume you'd find the same to
be true for Red Hat/Suse vs. Debian systems.
I do believe that the same goes for windows - since it's so easy to 
handle, superficially, it will
tend to be operated by less experienced admins in general. Just remember 
that all the NT-worms
only got so successful because there uncounted unpatched systems out 
there...
</speculation>

Kind regards,
Benjamin