Microsoft: Vista Threatened by ActiveX Bugs

In the most recent installment of its twice-yearly security intelligence report, Microsoft said that PCs running Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) were more than three times as likely to be infected with malware as computers running Windows Vista SP1. Machines powered by the newest XP security update, SP3, meanwhile, were more than twice as likely to be infected.

According to Microsoft, in the six months from January to June, its Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) cleaned malware from just three Vista SP1 machines per thousand times the tool was run. Meanwhile, during the same period, MSRT found and wiped malicious code from 10 Windows XP SP2 systems and eight XP SP3 PCs per thousand executions. Microsoft updates and automatically redistributes the software tool to Windows users each month on Patch Tuesday.