“A wave of new viruses that target Microsoft’s products has businesses throwing up their hands at the software giant’s seemingly endless security problems. ‘We moved all our mission-critical data off Microsoft servers. For trades, anything that directly affects our revenue, they’re on Unix boxes,’ said a technology officer at a worldwide investment bank. We had to hire people overnight just to load virus software. You can make a whole career out of fixing Microsoft products.’ The frustrated executive added, ‘I even got rid of my PC at home. Now I own a Mac,’” reports Stephen Lynch for The New York Post.

“Microsoft announced Wednesday that yet another critical security hole had been discovered in its Windows operating system. Officials said that if the problem wasn’t patched, attackers could delete data and install programs on victim’s computers. ‘Microsoft has taken a black eye on security,’ said Joe Wilcox, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research. ‘It’s reached the point of saturation. Some people are so frustrated that they don’t even have the energy to get mad,’” Lynch reports. “Wilcox added that Microsoft has done its best to try to repair the problems – it warned of the flaw Blaster used in July – but that virus-fighting has become a Sisyphean ordeal. ‘The Windows platform was developed pre-Internet, but the architecture hasn’t changed,’ Wilcox said. ‘It’s designed so programs can work together. That’s fine if you’re in a sandbox, but when you connect to the Internet, there are problems,’ he added. ‘Basically, Microsoft has been patching ever since.’”

“‘Don’t blame Microsoft for selling people the product they want,” said Ron Gulah, chief technology officer for Tenable Network Security, which found one of the recent Windows flaws. ‘People want easy e-mail. As soon as you add security measures, it doesn’t do what they want it to do,’” Lynch reports. “Gulah said that the companies complaining the loudest are the ones ‘who slashed the information technology department budgets.’ If system administrators keep up with security patches, it stops the viruses, he added.”

Full article here.