Dear fellows:
We need to put things in perspective, calm and easy.
I could just say that the statement from Microsoft's CEO is
false, but I'll not. Instead I'll will just describe some
facts and then you reach your own conclusions.
The main problem with security on windows and other operating
system is in their base.
Unix like OSs are closed systems by default while Microsoft
Windows is a open system by default.
On Unix like OSs in order for a user to run anything you need
first to give him necessary permissions to do so. Otherwise
not even a byte the user can read from whereever.
On Windows you can do what so ever and then you starting
removing power to a user (closing the system to that user).
When a trojan or a virus infect an OS it operates under a
user account, so it inherits the system previleges of the
user under who's account it is running and only that user.
On Windows OSs because the users by default are at least
machine administrators the virus or trojan is able to do
whatever that user can, so it damages the system alot more
than on Unix like OSs.
Try as a normal user on Unix based systems to access the
configuration files. Yes in many of them you are even able to
read those files, but you can't change a thing on them.
Try to delete a file in the /USR (kind of Program Files under
windows) directory for example, you can't.
Try to map a network drive or even access to your CD-ROM it
will tell you that only the system administrator can do that
and because on Unix nobody works as system administrator then
the system core never has a virus. In the worst case scenario
only the files created by the user can be deleted or damaged
not the files from other users so even if we had virus on
Unix the impact over the system would be very small (to the
user level only).
On Unix, as soon a user logs out from the system all
applications running with that user permissions are forcelly
terminated by the OS itself.
Because the Unix system administrator (ROOT) only logs in for
bref moments (the way it should be used) root has no internet
mail, only local mail, root has no need to browsers (you do
it under or normal user account) and so on.
On windows virtually any user can delete, create or modify
any files, becuase by default your user is the system
administrator.
Now just think a little
Best regards
Joao Ribeiro da Silva