Legacy systems will provide more resistance to viruses than any MS based system mainly due to the lack of coders with the knowhow to write viruses for such systems.
Not so. You can still find exploits for legacy systems. In fact a lot of them are used as "teaching aids" for newbies. Maybe no one knows the systems but who cares when there are already root kits written and available for download? Remember the talk exploit? Legacy systems are "legacy" because they haven't been updated.
In any case a system using NFS/NIS would be especially vulnerable to traffic floods by MSVirii due to the lockups that can happen when high traffic causes such file/security systems to fail.
As are all network services. The question I would be asking is: why would a power grid rely on a net connection to remain stable, even a local network? What happens when the janitor trips over a cat5 cable?
As a safety precaution the legacy networks should be extremely firewalled, and not allowed to work on any shared media that also caters to any Microsoft systems. Such seperation of the network would prevent either from spamming the other to death.
While it might be possible (but unlikely) to separate the MS systems and the non-MS systems that alone won't protect your network. As we saw with the Slammer worm, the routers are susceptible to attack as well as the local computers. A fast spreading worm can take down your ISP as well as the entire Internet. A backup link will not help you then.
I don't believe that switching from closed source to open source will offer a cure for human stupidity. Just because Linux can be secure doesn't mean that you or your network is safe. There is no substitute for a knowledgeable (and empowered!:-) network administrator who will take a proactive approach to protecting his/her network.
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Legacy systems will provide more resistance to viruses than any MS based system mainly due to the lack of coders with the knowhow to write viruses for such systems.
Not so. You can still find exploits for legacy systems. In fact a lot of them are used as "teaching aids" for newbies. Maybe no one knows the systems but who cares when there are already root kits written and available for download? Remember the talk exploit? Legacy systems are "legacy" because they haven't been updated.
In any case a system using NFS/NIS would be especially vulnerable to traffic floods by MSVirii due to the lockups that can happen when high traffic causes such file/security systems to fail.
As are all network services. The question I would be asking is: why would a power grid rely on a net connection to remain stable, even a local network? What happens when the janitor trips over a cat5 cable?
As a safety precaution the legacy networks should be extremely firewalled, and not allowed to work on any shared media that also caters to any Microsoft systems. Such seperation of the network would prevent either from spamming the other to death.
While it might be possible (but unlikely) to separate the MS systems and the non-MS systems that alone won't protect your network. As we saw with the Slammer worm, the routers are susceptible to attack as well as the local computers. A fast spreading worm can take down your ISP as well as the entire Internet. A backup link will not help you then.
I don't believe that switching from closed source to open source will offer a cure for human stupidity. Just because Linux can be secure doesn't mean that you or your network is safe. There is no substitute for a knowledgeable (and empowered! :-) network administrator who will take a proactive approach to protecting his/her network.