More compared to what? Win7? Win7 has been out longer so it should need fewer patches. How many of the patches were due to "security"? As for more secure:

http://www.howtogeek.com/128182/6-ways-windows-8-is-more-secure-than-windows-7/
http://www.itworld.com/consumerization-it/372106/windows-7-has-6-times-more-security-threats-windows-8-according-microsoft
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2013139/windows-8-raises-the-bar-for-pc-security.html
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-8-Is-the-Most-Secure-Operating-System-on-the-Market-Security-Expert-305566.shtml

Win8 is also better than Win7 in other ways
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/138177-under-the-hood-of-windows-8-or-why-desktop-users-should-upgrade-from-windows-7
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/time-eat-crow-windows-8-better-windows-7

>>Hogwash Win 8 is not that difficult to use. It's also more secure than Win7. Go with Win8 Pro. It supports Hyper-V for virtual machines. And always 64 bit now.
>
>Embolded part debatable - more security fixes needed/encountered last year for W8. I see that as settling down/shaking out early bugs in an inherently more secure system and also argue for W8, but would not state it this way.