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Admins say Linux Much More Secure than Windows
Golygydd Max writes "Linux is more secure than Windows. It's something that we've all heard before; however, this is not the opinion of yet another consultant but the opinion of sysadmins themselves. A survey of 6,000 IT staff by BZ Research, reported by Techworld, has found that 74 percent considered Linux secure or very secure, as opposed to 58 percent who found Windows to be insecure."
"Increasingly easy to use" is probably true, but I'm thinking the real story buried in there is how much of their business userbase Red Hat has given up in the last couple of years...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
News flash! Bagels and cream cheese popular together!
I'm not using Linux, but FreeBSD, and I must say not only does it feel safer, but it feels more comfortable to work on. Just the ability to work from the commandline and the ability to really kill processes without getting messages that I have no access to them makes me life easier.
And after reading the piece on the Longhorn demo I thought why they make such a fuss over things that's already here with KDE. (can't tell about the Apple, never used it)
In my humble opinion, Microsoft has to catch up with at least FreeBSD, and most likely GNU/Linux as well.
home
The earth is round.
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Does the lack of response to this article means that we are all sick of "Linux R00lz!" propaganda?
Please. a Commodore 64 is much more secure than Linux. Try breaking into it from the internet.
I'll put a properly configured Windows 20003 server againt a properly configured Linux server. Neither will win. On the other hand, a Windows 2003 server with a good admin, will be significantly more secure than a linux one with a bad admin.
Who can argue....not I.
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
Linux is more secure than Windows. It's something that we've all heard before; however, this is not the opinion of yet another consultant but the opinion of sysadmins themselves
from the article:
The security survey, carried out by BZ Research, polled 6,344 software development managers about the security of different enterprise operating systems. Managers consistently ranked Linux as more secure than Windows...
frankly as a frontpage story this lacks any real information, and anything to comment or discuss. Are there any more details, or do we have to spend $1200 dollars to find out more?
Can we assume this is another statistically invalid survey?
In other news, other admins declare that Microsoft's Windows XP is easier to use, and more secure.
You'll always find stories to support both arguments.
I would like to include my opinion here.
I know a LOT of admins (im an admin myself). And I must point out that 90% know VERY little about Windows security. E.g. "Have you ever configured a Group Policy before?" And most of them would say "Har har! Group Policy? Is that something new that creates a blue screen?".
Well I've got news for you. Windows is VERY secure nowadays. BUT it require admins to lock-down the OS (e.g. do not give users admin-rights or similar). By looking at our own stats at my workplace, the largest security problem nowadays is NFS and mis-configured Linux computers. BTW did I also mention that most of the Windows boxes have a far better on-line time than Linux? I know they have to reboot quite often, but that's about it. The reboots are at night-time anyways.
As an aspiring admin the only security I care about is job security.
Noone has asked me... But here is my opinion. Insecure: Windows. Secure: Linux, FreeBSD. Very secure: NetBSD, OpenBSD. Nothing but my own statistics...
the more of us that choose to support windows users , the more secure our jobs are because of the insecurity of the product they use. The more windows f's up , the more money Ill make supporting the users that use such product. So in esence, having inferior product makes me more money.
Alternately however, it makes me work more time, which probably means Ill burn out faster than a *nix admin , who doesnt have to to work as hard or as much.
So really its a trade off.
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
The MS OS is now brain-dead to keep updated--it can be set to perform automatic updates. But updating commercial userland applications is quite a drag--MANY different vendors (some of which make you jump through hoops to prove you are entitled to updates) & almost as many packaging systems for updates & none of it is automated. There have been some apps to keep on top of the more popular packages for you & allow you to update all packages in their database.
But updates on open source desktops are GREAT. The *nix/*BSD distro has already gathered all the packages for you & with a simple 'apt-get update/upgrade' or an 'emerge -u' or a 'make update && portupgrade -ra' (all of which can be cronned & either set to automatically update or email you which packages have been updated) is a good thing!
Once a month or so, we update all apps on our Windows boxes. It requires FAR less interaction to do daily updates on our *nix machines.
Linux Much More Secure than Windows . . . ,which is mainly with solaris and linux , though i am fully qualified to run a windows server and have , i just honestly could not say i trusted the system as much.
see
Its true as-well , my job is to keep my server secure and operational and i can achive this with far greater efficency with unix type OSs such as solaris or linux
I admit alot of this is my experiance
This may be a biased opinion and i wont argue if you acuse me of being slightly against using windows() , once bitten twice shy and the ammount of times ive had patches from MS software bite back i have good reason for distrust.
Linux is by no means perfect (this is why i still have solaris ) and is lacking in a few areas( far fewer than even just this time last year , and improving daily)However the only thing that microsoft currently has over linux(in my opinion) is the quantity of official drivers and software releases from various companys.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Mu! damnit! http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?MuAnswer
You know, I'd stick my neck out here and say NO! It depends! This is all about default settings.
What IS Windows? What IS linux?
Is Windows a machine ruinning an old copy of IE with a single auto-login user running as admin?, hundereds of services running from the likes of nvidia and ATi, - to most minds the assumption is yes.
And I know for one my linux box isn't setup as tight as it could be because I know how much hassle that entails. The process running this browser has enough permissions to wipe out my data drive; I like to save pictures there after all. What am I to do - setup sudo to another user and script it's launch? - how many do that? Do you?
Is linux a 2.6 kernel and Firefox?
This is all very silly.
One day something will pop up that will hijack Firefox or Konqueror (more likely as less frequently updated) just the same as IE. If it has less of an effect it'll be due to linux users keeping an eye on things.
A blog I run for the wealth
I was going to shout FUD, but then I realised that this is a pro linux article, so it should be lauded and pointed to as proof of the one through way that I have been told to belive in.
Oh, sorry this is also FUD - no data to back it up is publicly available. You can't criticise pro MS surveys and then refuse to apply the same critial eye to pro Linux ones (hold on this is slashdot, you can).
Both Linux and Windows are large, complex systems with large amounts of badly written software (yes, believe it or not, the choice of license doesn't have anything to do with security.. the programmers for commercial and open-source software are drawn from the same pool of incompetence).
I do agree that with free operating systems 1) it's easier to lock down and remove unneeded bloat and 2) you don't have to *pay money* for the security holes like you do with Windows, but make no mistake, any admin has to work *hard* to lock down their systems.
So this survey is nice and fuzzy and all but it's just like saying "most doctors agree, cancer is easier to treat than AIDS".
Sincerely,
Grizzled Old Sysadmin
Actually, there are Commodore 64s that are online, both client-side and server-side. Contiki gives you a text web browser, an irc client, a web server, and more.
You could connect with a modem, or with an ethernet plug with the Retro Replay expansion.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!