Study shows Windows 7 vulnerable to 8 out of 10 viruses

Researchers loaded a full release copy of Windows 7 on a clean machine and configured it to follow the system defaults for User Account Control (UAC) - without any anti-virus software. They then grabbed the next 10 unique samples that arrived in the SophosLabs feed to see how well the newer, more secure version of Windows and UAC held up. It was discovered that the machine was vulnerable to 8 of the 10 viruses employed in the test.

Among the sample malwares used include Troj/FakeAV-AFY, Troj/Bredo-M, W32/Autorun-ATK, Mal/EncPK-KY, Mal/EncPK-KP, Troj/Agent-LIW, Troj/Banker-EUT, Troj/FakeAV-AFX, Troj/ZBot-JN and W32/Autorun-ATC.

Only Troj/Bredo-M, W32/Autorun-ATK and Troj/Banker-EUT failed to execute on machines running with UAC.

However, the User Account Control only managed to block one sample, W32/Autorun-ATK, as compared to machines without the UAC. But its failure to block anything else proves that UAC's default configuration is not effective at protecting a PC from modern malware, says SophosLabs.

Chester Wisniewski of Sophos said, "You still need to run anti-virus on Windows 7. Microsoft, in the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report released yesterday, stated that "The infection rate of Windows Vista SP1 was 61.9 percent less than that of Windows XP SP3."

"But let's not get complacent. Microsoft seems to be saying that Vista is the least ugly baby in its family. You can be sure the next report will highlight its even less ugly younger sibling, Windows 7," he added.