Study Finds Windows More Secure Than Linux

Posted by Zonk on Thursday February 17, 2005 @05:05AM from the an-interesting-definition-of-secure dept.

cfelde writes "A Windows Web server is more secure than a similarly set-up Linux server, according to a study presented yesterday by two Florida researchers." In addition to the Seattle Times article, there is also coverage on VNUnet. From the article: "The researchers, appearing at the RSA Conference of computer-security professionals, discussed the findings in an event, 'Security Showdown: Windows vs. Linux.' One of them, a Linux fan, runs an open-source server at home; the other is a Microsoft enthusiast. They wanted to cut through the near-religious arguments about which system is better from a security standpoint."

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Re:A lot more could certainly be done... by n0-0p · 2005-02-17 05:55 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's pretty easy to make Apache chrooted under linux. With Apache2 you still need to allow dynamic libraries though, which often bothers people. Having hardened both Windows and Linux servers on a regular basis, I'd pick Linux every time. It can be locked down much more than Windows. I haven't found anything that compares to a combination of PP buffer protection on binaries, chroot jailed services, iptables, and SELinux policy. I just don't understand why more vendors haven't tried to create default installs that support this level of security.