Android OS became the most vulnerable platform in 2019

The Android operating system became the most vulnerable platform in 2019. Specialists of TheBestVPN portal made this conclusion during the analysis of vulnerability statistics in various operating systems and software products for the end of 2019.

According to TheBestVPN experts, we are all vulnerable when we connect to the Internet, but some technology products are more prone to intrusion.

“To determine which products are most susceptible to bad actors, we used recent data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s National Vulnerability Database, which updates frequently. Our findings outline the type of vulnerabilities that users should be privy to and indicate the severity of attacks”, — said the reserchers.

If in 1999 were recorded only 894 vulnerabilities, in 20 years this indicator increased almost 14 times – up to 12 174. In 2018, was recorded the largest number of vulnerabilities – 16 556, 1 197 of which were contained in the free Debian GNU/Linux OS.

In 2019, the leader in this rating was Android OS with 414 vulnerabilities discovered during the year. Second place belongs to Debian Linux (360 vulnerabilities), and in third – to Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10 (357).

Despite this situation, every year Android has less and less problems. Last year, were discovered 525 vulnerabilitie, and a year earlier – 843. Over the entire existence of Android, in it were found 2563 vulnerabilities.

We wrote about the most critical bugs of the last year, for example, about vulnerabilities in VoIP Components or about RCE-bugs.

In total, in 2019 were detected 12,174 vulnerabilities were detected. 25.3% of all problems allowed attackers to execute arbitrary code on devices, 17.7% related to vulnerabilities like cross-site script execution, and 13.9% related to buffer overflows.

Over the past 20 years, companies have become more dependent on digital data and cloud computing, which has increased their exposure to cyberattacks. In 2019, 668 vulnerabilities were recorded in Microsoft products. Since 1999, total number of vulnerabilities consisted 6,814 cases, making Microsoft the most vulnerable supplier in the last 20 years. Oracle (6,115) and IBM (4,679) follow it.

“We live in an increasingly connected world, and that comes with pros and cons. The best way to stay protected is to remain vigilant and informed.”, — warn TheBestVPN researchers.