Most people consider Mac or Apple the safest operating systems and know Windows as the less-cool, virus-prone alternative.
However, according to the US National Vulnerability Database (NVD), Mac OS X and Apple iOS were the top 2 most vulnerable operating systems in 2014, with Linux Kernel in third place and finally Microsoft Windows 2008 in fourth place.
Top 10 Most Vulnerable Operating Systems in 2014:
Microsoft Internet Explorer, on the other hand, kept its reputation with the largest number of high vulnerabilities compared to any other application last year.
Top 10 Most Vulnerable Applications in 2014:
Total security vulnerabilities have increased significantly in the last few years. In 2014, a total of 7,038 vulnerabilities were reported, compared to 4,794 in 2013 and 3,532 back in 2011. However, GFI points out that the percentage of high security vulnerabilities actually decreased from 34% in 2013 to 24% in 2014.
Applications are responsible for the most vulnerabilities, specifically internet browsers “because they are a popular gateway to access a server and to spread malware on the clients” (GFI). Operating systems are only responsible for 13% and hardware devices for 4% of vulnerabilities.
Sources/Additional Reading:
http://www.gfi.com/blog/most-vulnerable-operating-systems-and-applications-in-2014/
http://thehackernews.com/2015/02/vulnerable-operating-system.html