A new report from Secunia shows that most application developers aren’t getting better at writing secure code. On the other hand, the makers of the most popular desktop applications are doing a better job of avoiding security bugs. Overall, the number of security bugs Secunia discovered in 2012 climbed 5 percent. But the fifty most popular applications had fewer vulnerabilities than last year.
Although Microsoft makes 29 of the 50 most common desktop apps on Secunia’s list, the company accounted for just 14 percent of the vulnerabilities discovered. “It has become harder to find serious vulnerabilities in Microsoft applications, so that’s why researchers are looking elsewhere,” said Secunia’s Thomas Kristensen. “In addition, they patch pretty quickly, so there is less payoff for finding vulnerabilities in their systems.”
The applications with the most security vulnerabilities discovered last year included Google’s Chrome (291 issues), Mozilla’s Firefox (257 issues) and Apple’s iTunes (243 issues).
Charlie has over a decade of experience in website administration and technology management. As the site admin, he oversees all technical aspects of running a high-traffic online platform, ensuring optimal performance, security, and user experience.
