From TechRepublic:
Computers running Windows XP Service Pack 2 are 15 times less likely than those running XP or XP SP1 to be infected by some of the most dangerous forms of malware, according to a Microsoft security guru.
Jason Garms, who heads the company’s anti-malware product team, said Tuesday that this improvement had been revealed by an internal analysis of SP2’s performance.
SP2–a major security update released in August–was designed to turn on auto-update by default and consolidate security controls into a “security center.”
“A machine that had Windows XP or XP SP1 was 15 times more likely to have one of the highly prevalent top 20 worms installed than on a machine running XP SP2,” said Garms, who spoke at a conference sponsored by Australia’s national Computer Emergency Response Team, or AusCERT.