A recent experiment has revealed that versions of the Windows operating system can be easily hacked in as little as 60 minutes.
Windows XP Professional versions that do not have security patches installed can be hacked in just 1 hour and 12 seconds. Meanwhile, an attacker needs about 1 hour and 17 minutes to breach an improperly patched Windows 2000 Server. For Windows Server 2003, the attacker will need slightly more time.
In contrast, throughout the 6-week trial, Linux server versions—specifically Red Hat and SuSE servers—remained secure and could not be breached, even though these versions were frequently connected to the Internet.
In another experiment, attackers only took 30 minutes to successfully compromise Apple’s Mac OS X operating system, even though it had the latest patches installed. “Hacking Mac OS X is incredibly easy,” a hacker who participated in the trial asserted.
