The third quarter report stated, “The increase in the number of attacks targeting Chrome may primarily be due to the browser’s increasing usage and popularity. The speed by which Chrome is developed, which limits the amount of time for internal and external bug testing prior to product release, may have something to do with Google’s rise in ranking as well.”

This quarter, Oracle was in second place with Trend Micro’s report stating that it was, “most probably due to the vendor’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems and its Java products. The fact that Oracle’s codebase is rather large and complicated to maintain may have also contributed to the rise in the number of exploitable bugs in its products, causing it to climb from the top 5 spot in the second quarter to the top 2 spot this quarter. “

Microsoft dropped to the third spot this quarter. A whole other kind of security issues by Microsoft made it to the headlines like them turning over the Rustock botnet case to the FBI, tracking scammers down, and stopping the Kelihos botnet. Another type of Microsoft news made it to the headlines like buying Skype, the upcoming release of Windows 8 and the Windows Phone 7’s Mango update.

Apple, although having a number of security issues, is at the fourth place with issues involving PDF security holes and iOS unsigned code operations.

Other breaches, scams, security attacks, and exploits that happened in the previous quarter were also reported by Trend Micro. Noted issues included the Justin Bieber video scam and the DroidDreamLight Android malware which affected LinkedIn users. The US was also no longer found in the list of top 10 spammers.

Offline Management

Microsoft Office 365 is billed as a contender to Google Apps. Generally though it appears Microsoft has the upper hand with more features, better support with other Office users, and also the ability to work off line, then sync the changes made when next connected to the Internet. Additionally users can utilise the ability to make any big syncs in the office, then work off line (or without syncing) while on roaming Internet. This strengthens the ability and functionality of the cloud computing system as users don’t need to be connected all the time.

Future

Microsoft plans to keep evolving it’s 365 suite and utilise the power of cloud computing. The main issues of data security and management are as always prevalent and also the pricing, while great, may be viewed expensive by large corporations who already have internal IT staff, servers, and such so they can easily just purchase the usual Office products and utilise other off line and user methods. For small businesses the Office 365 range can offer a great advantage and save in expensive IT infrastructure and management.