Stats on Microsoft Insecurity in 2006

The Washington Post has an interesting article today in which flaws for Windows and Internet Explorer in 2006 were examined, and the amount of time in which that flaw existed, vulnerable, was compiled.

For a total 284 days in 2006 (or more than nine months out of the year), exploit code for known, unpatched critical flaws in pre-IE7 versions of the browser was publicly available on the Internet. Likewise, there were at least 98 days last year in which no software fixes from Microsoft were available to fix IE flaws that criminals were actively using to steal personal and financial data from users.

In contrast, Internet Explorer’s closest competitor in terms of market share — Mozilla’s Firefox browser — experienced a single period lasting just nine days last year in which exploit code for a serious security hole was posted online before Mozilla shipped a patch to remedy the problem. Source: Washington Post

Hmm, this makes me feel waaay better since I changed to Firefox as my primary browser. Although that was mostly driven by my issues with IE7, I’ve been happy with my switch, and especially with the wide number of extensions available for it.