"The Waltham, MA company has been issuing annual reports on Windows applications with the highest critical security problems. The most recent press release identifies "the Dirty Dozen," among which Firefox versions 2.x and 3.x rank at the top of the list, followed by Adobe Acrobat 8.1.2 and 8.1.1, Microsoft Windows Live (MSN) Messenger 4.7 and 5.1, Apple iTunes 3.2 and 3.1.2, and Skype 3.5.0.248.
"According to Bit9, these applications have a few things in common. They run on Windows, are popular among users, and IT organizations don't consider them potentially malicious. The critical factors that put them on the Dirty Dozen list are that (a) at least one security hole was found, (b) they usually rely on users rather than IT admins to apply upgrades or patches, and (c) they can't be centrally updated with free enterprise tools."
