New report shows WindowsXP's infection rate is 6x higher than Windows 8

On Tuesday, Trustworthy Computing released volume 15 of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, which provides threat intelligence and analysis of cyber threats in over 100 countries/regions worldwide.

The report found that in the first half of 2013, nearly 17 percent of computers worldwide that run Microsoft real-time security products encountered malware that tried to get on or stay on those systems, but Microsoft anti-malware products blocked this from happening.

What’s interesting is the difference between encountering malware and actually being infected by it. During the first half of 2013, currently supported versions of Windows desktop operating systems (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8) all had roughly similar malware encounter rates "“ between 12 and 20 percent. But Windows XP systems had an infection rate that was six times higher than Windows 8.

New cybersecurity report details risk of running unsupported software