“Computer security experts said on Thursday the recent “SQL Slammer” worm, the worst in more than a year, is evidence that Microsoft’s year-old security push is not working.

‘Trustworthy Computing is failing,’ Russ Cooper of TruSecure said of the Microsoft initiative. ‘I gave it a ‘D-minus’ at the beginning of the year, and now I’d give it an ‘F’.’

‘Microsoft was completely hosed (from Slammer). It took them two days to get out from under it,’ said Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer of Counterpane Internet Security, a network monitoring service provider. ‘It’s as hypocritical as you can get.’

‘We should have done a better job’ in protecting the company’s own network, Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s security business unit, said on Wednesday. ‘We understood some things customers were facing and it, in some ways, helped us. It was a learning course.’

In the meantime, Schneier said he was thinking of switching from Windows to the Macintosh platform because of all the security issues. ‘My wife has a Mac and she doesn’t worry about viruses, trojans, leaks…,’ he said.

A Consumer Reports survey last year found that virus infection rates on Macs are half what they are on Windows, noted Smith. ‘Is that because Macs are safer? I think the answer is yeah,” reports Reuters. Full article here.