Is Windows 7 secure enough? Google says no
June 22, 2010 by Steve HannafordPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Security
Microsoft’s dominance of the corporate computing market may have just taken a blow after this recent move by one of its biggest competitors.
Google has been steadily implementing a new operating system policy, according to a report in the Financial Times. While Google has not publicly acknowledged the move, the paper found a number of Google employees willing to talk off the record.
It is migrating almost all of its 10,000 worldwide employees to either Macintosh OS X or Linux operating systems, due to concerns about data security. The loser here: Microsoft Windows.
Also in the mix is Google’s own Chrome OS, due to be officially released in the fourth quarter of 2010.
The move began after a major malware attack on Google’s Chinese division earlier this year, with major loss of data to hackers. Google, which retains search histories for the majority of worldwide computer users, is extremely sensitive to any data loss.
According to one source, Google workers who want or need to stay on Windows (for testing or development) have to get approval form the corporate CIO at Google.
Windows has had, and still has, the reputation of being the most vulnerable of operating systems, despite security upgrades to the current version. What is not clear is whether the vulnerability is inherent to the basic architecture of Windows itself, or that its domination of the market attracts the most talented hackers, who might otherwise dream up more clever assaults on OS X or Linux if they had a bigger share of the market.
It is true that Google has become more and more of a competitor with Microsoft, in the area of search engines, browsers, applications, and soon, operating systems. Is that influencing its policy? And if it is, Google is also at odds with Apple in a number of product areas, so why is it sending so much new business to another rival?
Meanwhile, Microsoft is counterattacking the unconfirmed rumors, Windows supporters are boasting that even hackers acknowledge that Windows security is better than ever, and that Google itself has some serious security issues — and Apple is not so great either, and getting more vulnerable as it gains market share.
Can’t we all just get along? In our opinion, a big shakeup in the operating system world — and a move away from a Windows near monopoly along with some real competition — should improve data security for everyone.
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Tags: Apple, Chrome, Google, operating systems, Windows
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