On August 17, 2005 03:25 am, Paul Smith wrote: <snip> > I am a very happy user of Linux (migrated from MS Windows one or two > years ago), but one could speculate that MS Windows based systems are > more prone to be attacked (by virus, worms, hackers,etc.) than the > Linux ones just because the former are in much larger number and, > therefore, it is more encouraging and motivating for the attackers to > do such a things. On the other hand, since there are much more MS > Windows users, there are consequently much more potential attackers > (among those users), increasing the probability of success with > attacking MS Windows based systems. > > Paul It's also an order of magnitude harder to write a worm, virus etc that will successfully attack a *Nix OS than it is Windows. At least part of it is the requirement in most systems to have separate root and user passwords. Add the idea of access control and now you have it.
With some recent "easy to use" Linux system this guard as been erased. Some distros don't require a root password at all to function or have the core system altered. These are, regretably, open to attack. This is not to say there aren't rootkits out there and other nasties just that it's harder to get to the spot to actually cause damage in *Nix than it is in Windows. And yes, I know that WinNT, 2K and XP all have administrator password settings but the vast majority of boxes out there, even in the corporate world, are the admin password is set to the same password as the primary user if it's set at all. Add to this that scripting in Windows with VBA Script, for example, is automatically executable by literally dozens of processes by default. The opposite is the case with *Nix in that you have to make a script explicitly executable with the slash bang. There are exploits of open source applications. BIND has had a history of problems with exploits. Apache had had it's share of exploits as well though far fewer than IIS in raw numbers and a lot fewer if you consider "market share". The reality is that POSIX systems are more secure because they have been designed from way back in the Mutlics days to be that way. Windows is a single user system (not a very good one at that) that has been shoehorned into the Internet and that shows. ttfn John
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