It’s a commonly held opinion among IT professionals that the reason Windows is so prone to virus and malware attacks is due to its popularity. Windows powers approximately 87% of the world’s computers. While this is true, Windows’ vulnerabilities can be attributed to more than just the operating system’s popularity. Windows attacks have a lot to do with the basic architecture of the operating system itself. With each new version, the Windows operating system [typically] tends to become more secure than previous versions but, that’s not to say that the newest versions are 100% bullet proof.

Here are the most recent malware infection trends for various Windows operating systems according to the Microsoft Security Research team.

Still running Windows XP SP3 in your environment? If so, be aware that end of support for Windows XP SP3 is April 8, 2014. If you are still using Internet Explorer 6, you haven’t been receiving security updates for your browser for quite some time.  It’s very important that you start planning out a migration strategy to move your systems to Windows 7 or Windows 8 within the next year. In the meantime, if you are running Windows XP with IE6, it’s critical that you upgrade to a version that is currently supported. You can download IE8 for XP here.