Microsoft: Windows Vista more secure than Linux and Mac OS X

"Windows Vista has an improved security vulnerability profile over its predecessor and a significantly better profile to comparable modern competitive operating systems," stated Jeff Jones, director of the Trustworthy Computing initiative at Microsoft's Security Business Unit.

The Windows Vista 6-month Vulnerability Report (PDF) compared the number of flaws during the 90 days after the application's launch for Windows Vista, Windows XP, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (RHEL4) Workstation, Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED10) and Apple Mac OS X. (Also see table on page two)

Vista beat the other operating systems on nearly all fronts, according to the report, logging the fewest fixed vulnerabilities and the fewest repairs with a severity rating of 'high'.

Microsoft's operating system ranked second in the number of unpatched flaws after 90 days, trailing behind only Windows XP.

Apple's OS X ranked third behind the two Windows versions, followed by Ubuntu, SLED10 and RHEL4.