Computer and Network Operating Systems

Regardless of the manufacturer or whether it’s an open standard or proprietary product, every operating system (OS) has vulnerabilities that need to be addressed through patches, upgrades, and best practices. Every time a major upgrade comes out, the possibility for new or even revived vulnerabilities can, and does, appear.

While a company tries to produce and deliver a secure final product, the addition of new features, implementation of new standards, and even hardware changes can lead to potential problems that don’t get caught in prerelease testing.

Given the number of lines of code in most modern OSs, it isn’t wholly unreasonable that some problems will slip through. While our focus is security, the OS developers and product testers are looking at usability, accessibility, features, performance, stability, backward compatibility, and many other characteristics, plus security. Right or wrong, it’s also important to remember that security hasn’t always been the highest priority of developers, product managers, customers, product reviewers, financial analysts, writers, and so forth.