Biggest malware threats still work on Vista

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Such a worn-out cliche saying might have a little more life in it yet. No, the OS hasn't already got virii coded for it the very day of release (though that wouldn't be implausible by any stretch). Instead, despite all efforts to secure Vista like Fort Knox, some of the current bugs can still find their way in.

Apparently three of the biggest Malware threats for the month of November are still fully functional on Windows Vista, at least according to Sophos. The renowned security gods have put the new operating system through its paces, and have found that several of the holes that malware used to exploit are still alive and well. Stratio-Zip, Netsky-D and MyDoom-O, which combined made up just under 40% of malware in November, each function on Vista.

Of course, a little further study yields that most of these exploits prey on the (dys)functionality of Internet Explorer 7, and have little to do with the OS itself. However, one can be sure that the security companies are grinning from ear to ear over the news. Clearly, it's not time to put that virus scanner on the shelf quite yet...

Have you got a thought on the security issue? Are you mad that MS didn't find a way to fix this yet, or are you of the mind that we have to delineate between the operating system and the web browser that it runs? Tell us your thoughts in our forums.