"Exclusive reliance on Microsoft's Windows operating system
could make companies vulnerable to greater damage during a
cyberattack, according to an upcoming report from
business-technology consultancy Gartner.
"A draft copy of the Gartner research note seen by CNET News.com
mirrors the conclusions of seven prominent security researchers,
who released a paper stating that Microsoft's dominance in software
could have serious consequences for national cybersecurity. The
Gartner report is scheduled to be published Friday.
"Both reports argue that allowing the bulk of information
infrastructure to rely on a single code base--or monoculture--could
result in a cascading failure, taking down large parts of the
Internet in a manner similar to an electrical blackout. The
research note focuses on a corporate--rather than national--scale,
arguing that for companies, diversifying desktop operating systems
could be a good defense against such catastrophe..."
