Microsoft has touted Windows Vista as the most secure Windows operating system available, ever since the debut of the Wow. But the aftermath of the last company monthly security update cycle reveals that Windows Vista is in fact growing to match the lack of security delivered by Windows XP, various Linux distributions and Apple's Mac OS X. At the Financial Analyst Meeting 2007, Kevin Turner, Microsoft Chief Operating Officer, comparing Vista to XP, Linux and Tiger, claimed that the Redmond company's latest operating system is twice as safe as its predecessor's.

According to Turner, Vista only accounted for 12 security vulnerabilities in the first 180 days on the market, while Windows XP had 25. Turner then emphasized the fact that Vista was also plagued by less security vulnerabilities than Mac OS X and the Linux open source operating system. Well, Almost two months later, Vista is doing its best to catch up. If the operating system was affected by just 12 security vulnerabilities in the first 180 days of general availability, in August, Microsoft patched no less than nine flaws.

Still, it is largely a matter of perspective. While the nine holes plugged in the August Security Bulletins release come with severity ratings of Critical and Important as the vulnerabilities allow for remote arbitrary code execution in the eventuality of a successful exploit on Vista, the fact of the matter is that only three flaws directly impact Vista. The remaining six vulnerabilities are associated with various components that ship by default with the operating system such as the Microsoft XML Core Services, Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player 11.

And even the flaws in Vista are disputable. In this regard, the three vulnerabilities in Windows Gadgets on both 32-bit and 64-bit Vista can be connected to the Windows Sidebar and the items it integrates instead of the operating system.

"These vulnerabilities could allow an anonymous remote attacker to run code with the privileges of the logged on user. If a user subscribed to a malicious RSS feed in the Feed Headlines Gadget or added a malicious contacts file in the Contacts Gadget or a user clicked on a malicious link in the Weather Gadget an attacker could potentially run code on the system. In all attack vectors, users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights," Microsoft explained.

Ultimately, it is all a matter of perspective whether we consider the vulnerabilities in the components included in Vista flaws of the operating system or not.