IN THE war against computer viruses and worms, Microsoft had reason to smile last week. Not because it had managed to outdo the malicious programs, but because an independent security report slammed Microsoft鈥檚 competitors as being vulnerable to security breaches.
California-based antivirus firm Symantec released its biannual Internet Security Threat Report on 21 March. It says that between July and December 2004, 21 new vulnerabilities emerged in the open-source Firefox web browser, while Microsoft鈥檚 Internet Explorer threw up only 13.
And it wasn鈥檛 just Firefox that was on the receiving end of the warnings. Symantec also found that Apple鈥檚 Mac OS X operating system had 37 vulnerabilities. 鈥淚t is now clear that the Mac OS is increasingly becoming a target for the malicious activity,鈥� claims the company鈥檚 report.
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