wuench
Senior Member
Just because it's embedded doesn't make it any more secure. It's still running a turing complete operating system, it still has a kernel, and most importantly, it still has software listening on network ports serving out an application. Embedded or not, the risk is about equal.
The only way an embedded OS is more secure is if it's something that's a black box, or used by very few people. And that's only because there are less public exploits for them.
I would even say it may be less secure. Embedded devices usually don't have the resources to run all the security services and aren't tested and locked down the same as a PC. If you ask the vendor they will most likely tell you it wasn't meant to be exposed to the internet. The only thing that helps is that most hackers aren't targeting them at the same level as known OS's. There was recently an article on one of the web sites (can't remember which one right now) about a security researcher showing how to easily enter a corporate network by compromising their printers, for example...