Top 10 Most Secure Operating Systems

1. OpenBSD: By default, this is the most
secure general purpose operating system
out there. The proof in the pudding? The
fact that it suffered only two remote
attack vulnerabilities in the last decade
serves as solid evidence of its stringent
security and strict auditing policy.
Moreover, OpenBSD lacks a large enough
attack surface (care of running numerous
web applications) for hackers to exploit.
2. Linux: Linux is a superior operating
system. When customized it can be set
up to extremely secure. Linux has an
impressive vulnerability patching policy.
3. Mac OS X: This Apple-made OS handles
user permissions better than, say
Windows XP, but it still contains an
indecent number of vulnerabilities and
remote exploits in its systems. That,
coupled with Apple's slow response to
many of its security issues, has landed
this operating system at the bottom of
this list.
4. Windows Server 2008: Say what you
will about a Microsoft operating system's
security; at the very least, they know how
to improve and they've gone through the
very worst security threats that the
Internet can dish out. This iteration of
Windows Server has improved backup and
recovery, user account control, web
server (IIS) role, and server role security
configuration.
5. Windows Server 2000: This operating
system is so secure that it took nearly a
decade before Microsoft can come up
with a better one. This OS for network
servers, notebook computers, and
corporate workstations continues to get
monthly security patches even after nine
years since its release.
6. Windows Vista: Microsoft attempted to
fix the security issues that has plagued
Windows 95, 98, ME, and XP, but they
ended up alienating consumers instead.
The main complaints that people aimed
against the polarizing OS—confusing
security policies and the lack of backward
compatibility with older applications—
were actually security measures that were
supposed to make Vista a lot more
protected from breaches and hacker
penetrations.
7. Windows Server 2003: The good news
is that Windows Server 2003 is still a
more secure OS than Windows XP. The
bad news is that, security-wise, it's even
worse than its earlier prototype, Windows
Server 2000. Nevertheless, it features
competent security improvements like
default disabling of vulnerable services
and a built-in firewall.
8. Windows XP: It became one of
Microsoft's greatest and most long-
running releases (mostly because of
Vista's failure to connect to the general
Windows-using consumer base).
Tragically, it's also one of the most non-
secure operating systems of all time as
well.Because this OS runs a lot of
network services by default and allows
users to access full privileges by default,
it also gets hacked and breached on a
nigh-daily basis by default as well.
9. HP-UX 11i: Even though it's not one of
the most commercially successful
operating systems in the market today,
this Unix-based Hewlett-Packard OS has
been included in this list because of its
superior security policies to several more
popular operating systems (namely, Mac
OS X, Solaris, and Linux).
10. Solaris: This Sun Microsystems Unix-
OS variant is on the lower notches of this
article's security hierarchy because it's
not inherently security-focused. Because
of certain business-related circumstances
as well, most of the Solaris source code
has already been published via the
OpenSolaris project.