"Our postbag has been overflowing, following reports
that certain distros of the Linux operating system suffered more
security vulnerabilities than Windows last year.
Because all Linux distributions use the same kernel, figures
cannot be aggregated for the open source OS. But readers have also
pointed out that confusion has resulted from the fact that Linux
distros typically ship with bundles of applications, which may also
be prone to vulnerabilities.
According to the figures gathered from SecurityFocus's Bugtraq
mailing list, mainstream Linux distros such as Mandrake 7.2, Red
Hat 7.0 and Debian 2.2 had 33, 28 and 26 security vulnerabilities
reported last year respectively."