Critics Pile on Microsoft Over Security
by Scott Bekker
10/2/03 ? Critics continue to pile on Microsoft after damaging worms and viruses slammed Windows operating systems worldwide in August and September. Two massive security sideswipes hit Windows in August: the extremely successful mass-mailing worm Sobig.F and the Blaster worm that exploited a security flaw in DCOM RPC, affecting most supported versions of Windows. In early September, Microsoft warned that the underlying flaw that allowed Blaster could also permit other attacks even on machines that had already been patched. A new patch was issued.
Shortly after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admitted that his company was "embarrassed" by the flaws that Blaster took advantage of, a group of seven security experts released a report asserting that the ubiquity of Microsoft's software worldwide has created a major security risk, similar to the dangers in agriculture of planting only one strain of crop.
rest of article at ENT Magazine