Pjotr wrote: ⤴Fri Sep 07, 2018 6:17 pm
gm10 wrote: ⤴Fri Sep 07, 2018 2:05 pm
You don't even need to look far. Just look at the convoluted scripts I like to post to help to some users here and that I'm sure only a small number of the users here can even understand. If I was a malicious actor I could easily take over systems that way. Users expect complexity from Linux, they will never suspect.
And horribly convoluted they were indeed.
But that's more a matter of social engineering than of intrinsic OS security.... When one doesn't use shady non-repo software and scripts one doesn't understand enough, Linux is very secure indeed. The repo system is pretty effective in barring malware. Plus let's not forget the permissions system.
You are quite right, but that shoe fits Windows just the same. NTFS has a similar permissions system, the OS has the same or even better security layers (these days, let's forget Win95/98 ever existed), but all the social engineering focusses on Windows. You just don't get the equivalent of naked_pics.exe in Linux.
Pjotr wrote: ⤴Fri Sep 07, 2018 6:17 pm
Not that there's no incentive to attack Linux. Almost all servers worldwide, run on Linux. That's a pretty valuable target for criminals.
You'll notice I specifically mentioned Desktop Linux. The Linux eco-system is rather diverse. The core is very secure but also not very accessible. It's the software that builds on top of it that brings it to the masses, and brings the security risks with it.
Servers run a restricted selection of software that receives much more scrutiny than other software, but even that software can and does have critical bugs, sometimes undetected for many years. Has happened and will keep happening.
Desktops, however, run a wide selection of software and users install an even wider selection of software to them, and often have certain security restrictions weakened for the sake of convenience. That comes at a cost to security.
Pjotr wrote: ⤴Fri Sep 07, 2018 6:17 pm
It's maybe not quite fair to compare server security with desktop security, but you get the point. If you treat your OS with basic common sense and basic prudence, desktop Linux is far more secure than desktop Windows.
I never had malware on my Windows, either. Common sense gets you a long way. But stuff like naked_pics.exe doesn't get developed and emailed to people with common sense. And it would find its target demographic in the Linux world as well, I'm sure of that.