These days, Windows is a very secure operating system.
But there was a time when people dreaded the idea of hooking Windows up to the internet without a third-party antivirus. These days, doing so is totally fine. However, despite recent innovations from Microsoft, Windows still maintains the status of an insecure operating system.
Windows Was the Only Virus-Ridden Operating System
There was once a time when macOS simply didn’t get viruses. Because the operating system didn’t have many users, malware developers would only code their payloads to work on Windows. This was a big selling point for Apple, to the point where it aired one of its famous “Mac vs. PC” adverts based around its products being immune to viruses.
Of course, macOS and iOS are a lot more popular now than they once were. This has led malware developers to code payloads that work with Apple’s systems, meaning that Windows isn’t the only one out there that can get viruses anymore.
Granted, macOS is less malware-prone than Windows, but it’s a far cry from its status in the early 2000s, and there are now free antivirus apps for macOS you can use. Even the old adage of “Linux can’t get viruses” has turned into a Linux myth that holds no water these days.
Windows Is the Primary Target for Malware
Windows was targeted so heavily in the early 2000s because it was the most popular operating system. Given that malware developers want their tools to spread as far as possible, it only makes sense to go for the most-used OS.
And that’s still true today. According to StatCounter, Windows makes up 71.46% of the total market share at the time of writing, and companies use Windows to handle critical infrastructure. As such, there are tons of attempts on Microsoft’s security, with malware developers trying every trick in the book to get their payloads onto people’s hardware.
While viruses were originally just a destructive force, things changed when ransomware became a popular choice for criminals. Now, instead of erasing data or bricking a PC, bad agents can develop malware that holds people’s systems hostage until they pay huge amounts of money to unlock them again. And businesses have the deepest pockets of them all.
As such, malware developers make a ton of viruses for Windows, and it’s hard to go a week without seeing a new strain making the rounds. It gives the impression that Windows is an insecure system, but really, it’s just a popular choice for bad actors to target due to the potential gains they can make. If businesses opted for another operating system, there’s a good chance that whatever they picked would see a lot more malicious activity targeting it, not because it’s weak, but because it’s popular.
Microsoft Defender Used to be Awful
Unfortunately, Microsoft can’t wiggle itself out of this reason so easily. It’s pretty much a fact that Windows’ built-in antivirus, Microsoft Defender (once called “Windows Defender”), was just plain awful. It was bad at detecting viruses and took up a lot of system resources. It was common practice to install a third-party antivirus the second you booted up a new or reinstalled copy of Windows. Going online with the default settings was just asking for trouble.
Fortunately, these days, Microsoft has really picked up the slack, and Defender is all the antivirus you really need. However, the memories of the awful Microsoft Defender still linger, so it’ll take a while for everyone to warm up to the idea of using it.
Windows has a bad reputation for being insecure, sometimes due to its history, and sometimes due to how often bad actors lay siege to Windows machines. However, it’s still a secure OS for general use, and you should be safe to use it right out of the box without catching anything nasty.
