Almost nine-out-of-ten Windows operating system vulnerabilities could have been mitigated by removing the admin rights, according to a report released by security firm Avecto. Released on Thursday, the security report mentions that about 85 percent of critical Windows flaws could’ve been stopped before they entered your PC and affected the system files. The firm has compared the annual trends and reported 52% rise in the number of vulnerabilities reported.
The 2015 report explores the vulnerabilities affecting Windows, Office, Windows Server, Internet Explorer, and more. The trends observed are:
- 85% of all Critical vulnerabilities documented in the report can be mitigated by removing admin rights
- 99.5% of all vulnerabilities reported in Internet Explorer in 2015 could be mitigated by removing admin rights
- 82% of all vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft Office in 2015 could be mitigated by removing admin rights
As many people don’t know the meaning of administrator accounts, they are very common in household PCs. These accounts give the user an access to everything and the same privileges are invaded by a malware that strikes your system. So, a hacker can access your private data and modify Windows system files. Due to the same reason, many businesses tend to provide lower permissions to their users to mitigate the malware risks.
In its report, the company also scanned the entire vulnerability patch in Microsoft’s monthly security updates and saw the impact of these flaws on systems with fewer rights. The firm came to a conclusion that about 63 percent of the entire batch of vulnerabilities could be mitigated if user rights are toned down.