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Bill Gates hasn’t run Microsoft for many years, and never designed operating systems, though he was very good at recognizing and hiring some of the best computer scientists in the world. Gates, while he has wasted billions on ill-informed politically motivated projects, delegated lots of Microsoft’s resources to addressing security issues about twenty years ago. Be skeptical when you read trade publications that sell computer security products, with articles provided by the vendors.

SCADA systems should be off the Internet, and many of them that I’ve had experience with are. The potential for sabotage is certainly real. For an extremely well-informed description of cybercrime and sabotage read Mark Russinovich’ novels, Trojan Horse, or Zero Day, or Rogue Code, almost certainly real examples enhanced by some characters and plotline. Mark is the CTO of Microsoft’s AZURE, the marketing name for its cloud service, and has created what are probably the most used tools in the cyber community, and among the most used by Microsoft engineers. After earning his PhD at Carnegie Mellon Mark and Bryce Cogswell, and later, Dave Solomon, from DEC, started a company called Winternals, which Microsoft bought in 2006. Mark, a co-author of the Windows Internal Reference manual, have fought some of the most pernicious malware ever created, and, it is rumored, created some of their/our own.

The heart of Windows 10 and every other Windows OS since Window 3.1, and very very similar to DEC’s VMS kernel, for which use Bill Gates paid some 600 million dollars; Both kernels had the same architect, Dave Cutler. Time will tell, but it is not unreasonable that the NT kernel, could make embedded controllers, now marketed as Internet of Things devices, much more secure than they used to be. Both versions of VMS and versions of Windows have qualified for DOD Class B2 security certification, which is very rigorous. Be skeptical when a marketing magazine makes unsupported comments about OS penetration. Most penetration comes through unprotected ports, and from naïve programmers of applications that should not have been trusted which get run by naïve users who blithely run with administrator privileges.

Microsoft is adding more and more protections against unauthorized access, and sponsors innovation among its partners. Todays smart phones often have quad-processors and gigabytes of memory. Their operating systems, such aw they are, are crude. Windows 10, a stripped down version, with a partitioned kernel mode (ring 0). No real time OS offers either such a mature kernel, or the security potential of Windows 10. I doubt that there is a commercial OS as secure, and no consumer system comes close.

Whether you run Mac OS. Linus, or Windows, don’t do your usual chores, browsing, email, Skype, etc. with administrator privilege (or root, or system). Make yourself a separate account with privileges and don’t lose the password. Don’t let anyone access your USB ports or use memory sticks loaned by others. Don’t open email attachments; save the file, which causes your up-to-date malware software to scan the file as it copies it. Spend $100 and buy a 3 or 4 terabyte desktop drive, preferably with USB3 capabilities and backup your computer every day. Windows has two backup utilities, File History and the Windows 7 Backup. They are both fine, and don’t copy unchanged files.