Re: The Register: OpenVMS among most-secure of operating systems

From: Bob Ceculski (bob_at_instantwhip.com)
Date: 01/09/04 

Date: 9 Jan 2004 06:11:21 -0800

Andrew Harrison SUNUK Consultancy <Andrew_No.Harrison_No@nospamn.sun.com> wrote in message news:<btk2br$a43$1@new-usenet.uk.sun.com>...
> Keith Parris wrote:
> > Software vulnerabilities still dog operating systems
> > http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=13420
> >
> > "Proprietary systems are the least vulnerable
> >
> > The operating systems with fewest vulnerabilities in 2003 are HP's
> > OpenVMS, IBM's OS/400 and IBM's zOS.
> >
> > These three are all proprietary and they all have security that is
> > fully integrated, not applied as some kind of after-thought. Certainly
> > they come with a decent price-tag but they can be well worth the money
> > when the result is fewer security problems, less unscheduled downtime
> > and less downtime for patching."
> > ...
> > "the most secure operating systems continue to be certain proprietary
> > systems from HP and IBM. Some may refer to these more secure systems
> > as legacy systems but if legacy means secure and reliable it seems
> > that legacy should be the preferred option."
>
> Unfortunately its a pointless piece of research because OpenVMS
> security advisories do not get reliably reported to CERT, Bugtraq
> etc so counting the ones that do only catches the excpetions to
> the rule.
>
> You know this, I know this, its well documented so why did you
> bother posting a reference to the The Registers article its
> not very responsible behaviour on your part is it.
>
> Regards
> Andrew Harrison

and I have been on VMS for 19 years now and security mup kits are
rare ... only 2 that I can remember ... that last security bug
found was decwindows, and how many people use decwindows? UCX
has had some issues, with TCPware having even less, but as I have
shown you, VMS squashes many tcpip bugs cold in their tracks with
that nasty little "ACCESS VIOLATION ERROR" ... you sound desparate
Andrew ... are your slowaris customer tired of being in the CERT
of the week club?