It's not Windows versus z/OS. Whether it is number of instances or number of viruses or number of mentions in airline magazines, that battle was over a long time ago.
"Windows has more viruses than z/OS" is not a substitute for being up-to-date with support and patches. "But Windows is much worse" will not get your data or your money or your ATM network back. I work for a z/OS security software vendor. We had a prospect tell us they were not going to buy our product because "they had a lot of Windows systems and only one z/OS system, so they were not focusing on z/OS." Do you see the logical flaw there? It's not the malware you know about that should worry you the most. The phrase "zero day exploit" comes to mind. Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of R.S. Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2017 8:30 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Running unsupported is dangerous was Re: AW: Re: LE strikes again W dniu 2017-07-12 o 15:53, Charles Mills pisze: >> I know some malware for Win10, but I cannot remind any for z/OS 1.4... > Partially because most of the community has a policy of publicizing > vulnerabilities, but z/OS does not. The fact that you do not know of > any malware for z/OS 1.whatever does not mean that it does not exist. > > Or expanding on Timothy's point, if you were developing malware, you > would have an interesting decision which of the two operating systems to target. > Windows is high number of instances/low value each -- kind of the > WalMart shopping of malware opportunities. z/OS is low number of > instances/high value each -- kind of the Tiffany of malware > opportunities. With Windows you would take a shotgun approach: "how > many machines can I infect, and hope to make some money off of a > percentage?" so naturally some number of your targets would end up > discovered and publicized. With z/OS, you would take a very targeted approach: "what one machine can I break into and steal a lot?" > Whether you were successful or not, there might not end up being any > publicity. > > Phrasing it differently, for Windows you would develop "malware" -- > mass market malware, that would end up with a name and publicity > (named by the anti-malware folks, not the authors). For z/OS, you > would develop a specific targeted attack. It might be an "approach," > not a "malware package," and might not end up with a name (other than > "XYZ Bank's ATMs were down for the third day in a row ..." or "ABC > Airlines experienced a massive outage yesterday ..."). > > The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. True, but ...I still rely more on z/OS 1.4 than on Windows 10. In case of Win10 I have proofs of evidence - it is a little bit more than lack of proofs. BTW: z/OS is quite old (including previous names) - how many viruses are known for this system? Yes, I know, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence - however it's 50+ years of the absence! Last, but not least: I'm NOT saying that running unsupported (and not patched) system is something good. Even for zOS family. However keeping very important data in Windows system is also not good idea, is it? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
