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Windows vs. Linux Security, Once More
TAGmclaren writes "The Register is running a very interesting article about Microsoft and Linux security. From the article: 'until now there has been no systematic and detailed effort to address Microsoft's major security bullet points in report form. In a new analysis published here, however, Nicholas Petreley sets out to correct this deficit, considering the claims one at a time in detail, and providing assessments backed by hard data. Petreley concludes that Microsoft's efforts to dispel Linux "myths" are based largely on faulty reasoning and overly narrow statistical analysis.' The full report is available here in HTML form, and here in PDF. Although the article does make mention of OS X, it would have been nice if the 'other' OS had been included in the detailed analysis for comparison."
Nicholas Petreley is a Linux advocate... there is a basic problem with a partisan person presenting a "fair and balanced" argument. Kinda like doing research with fixed goals.
I'd rather see OSX security compared to Windows. I only have one user adventurous enough to use Linux on their desktop. The rest are about 70/30 Win/Mac.
meh..any system is only as secure as its users anyway..which i suspect is why linux has practically no problems.
Basically anyone who knows what a terminal window is isn't likely to run suspect attachments or not configure a firewall
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this post is too small to contain.
Though this was interesting, it would be nice to see something comparing OS X security to Windows security. When you think about it, they're both relatively proprietary OSes. Sure, Microsoft has there "Shared Source" stuff, and OS X is based on Open Darwin, but really the two would be a better match because of thier commercial status.
Sure, there are enterprise Linux distros from coimpanies like Red Hat, but you can still get a lot of use out of a non-commercial distro. There are so many ways that you can change Linux to make it more secure that comparing it to a rigid commercial OS is a bit inappropriate. I'm not saying that I think the article was pointless, just that we should give equal attentention to systems like OS X or even some of the other commercial UNIX distros for that matter.
Saying "I'll probably get modded down for this" in a post is the best way to get it modded up.
The article is not misleading because the author is a linux advocate.
e .html
Now you are right if you want to remind readers to keep that in mind, but dismissing an article not on the base of its merits, but because the author is supposedly biased (mind, you didn't show or prove in any way that he was actually biased, you just wanted us to take it for granted) is a logical fallacy.
If you don't like the findings of the article, please tell us why, simply accusing the author of bias won't change the facts, sorry.
Argumentum ad Hominem
"Circumstantial: A Circumstantial Ad Hominem is one in which some irrelevant personal circumstance surrounding the opponent is offered as evidence against the opponent's position. This fallacy is often introduced by phrases such as: "Of course, that's what you'd expect him to say." The fallacy claims that the only reason why he argues as he does is because of personal circumstances, such as standing to gain from the argument's acceptance."
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomin
"Circumstantial: A Circumstantial Ad Hominem is one in which some irrelevant personal circumstance surrounding the opponent is offered as evidence against the opponent's position. This fallacy is often introduced by phrases such as: "Of course, that's what you'd expect him to say." The fallacy claims that the only reason why he argues as he does is because of personal circumstances, such as standing to gain from the argument's acceptance."e .html
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomin
Our Linux boxes get owned just the same as our Windows boxes do.
Then your Linux admins don't know what they're doing.
What this report does is focus on the default potential for abuse by looking at recient publically known issues.
That's handy, though if you only go with that and expect that your systems are secure you'd be better off doing what my friend did.
General rules;
If it's visible over a network, it's potentially abuseable. (http://www.nessus.org, http://www.insecure.org/nmap)
If it's running locally, it's also abuseable. If you don't absolutely positively require it, remove it -- even if it runs by some proxy process (inetd/xinetd or a similar daemon under Windows).
Wrappers, permissions, isolation at the router level...all should be configured.
Monitor log files and check systems. Automate what you can.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
"And how do you download the latest service packs?"
Certainly not by downloading them directly to the server via IE, that's for sure.
In small shops, you would download the patches with your workstation, and then copy them to the server over the network or using a CD-R, and install them manually.
In larger shops, you would set up a Software Update Services (SUS) server or SMS server to deploy the patches to the servers exactly when you're ready to do so (after testing in your lab first, of course).
You should never be using IE on a critical production server. End of story.
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