Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) - Volume 4

Via DarkReading.com -

Here’s another reason to hold onto your laptops: 57 percent of publicly disclosed security breaches came from lost or stolen equipment in the second half of last year, compared with only 13 percent from hacking and malware, according to Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report, which was released today.

The new Microsoft report, which focuses on vulnerability and exploit data it gathered from July through December of 2007, found that exploits, malware, and hacks made up only 23 percent of security breach notifications between 2000 and 2007.

And the software giant recorded a whopping 300 percent jump in Trojan downloaders and droppers detected in the second half of ’07, as well as a curious 15 percent drop in the disclosure of new vulnerabilities. Overall, vulnerability disclosures decreased by 5 percent for all of 2007.

It was the decrease in vulnerability disclosures that most caught Microsoft by surprise, says Jimmy Kuo, principal architect of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center. “This is the first time since 2003 that there’s been such a decrease,” Kuo says.

The finding also surprised other security experts, including Doug Camplejohn, CEO of Mi5 Networks. But Camplejohn warns that one data point doesn’t make a trend. “It remains to be seen whether there's a true downward trend here, or whether vulnerability discoverers are just being more tight-lipped about vulnerabilities,” Camplejohn says.