Don’t believe these four myths about Linux security

With so many Linux distros, it is hard to disregard the possibility that some of them by default have features, intentionally built in by their creators, to perform malevolent, hardly detectable functions, without the knowledge of a user. Privacy issues that have been raised regarding Windows 10, can hardly be surprising, given the prominence of the most popular desktop system but more obscure (even more popular distros) might never raise any suspicion among less tech-savy users.

I agree we Linux users should improve our security, for different reasons. There are many techinques nowadays to sandbox our apps in case they have vulnerabilities. Installing an antivirus is obsolete. The antivirus are innefective against the polymorphic viruses of the 21st century. And if you don’t want to infect windows users, all you have to do is delete the autorun.inf files that your usb disks gets whenever you plug it in a windows box.

Trust your open-source-OS security on propietary software. It sounds like a pretty good strategy!

A bad article by an inexperienced user. I’ve been working with Linux for over 10 years, both privately and professionally, and Linux is far more secure than they describe it here. Their embedded myths are the reality, which by no means describe something that does not exist. And the majority of all attacks on Linux were due to unsafe configured systems, not to general problems that made attacks possible. In addition, there is a very fast closure of safety gaps, which considerably hinders potential exploitation. Likewise, no system can be secure if you take a standard installation, and nothing else will do, nor protect your services, or even use unsafe passwords. Above all, Ubuntu-based systems are not, under the auspices of Canonical. In many respects, Ubuntu is incompatible with the source, has poor repository maintenance, uses Sudo in a highly uncertain way, splits from the community to go exotic dubious ways, and is a bad role model for what Linux can be. But Mir is a straightforward example of this nonsense. For years announced, and while Wayland is already being actively spread, Mir is just an immature concept. Likewise, Snappy compelling AppArmor to be half-safe, compared to Flatpak. In short, Canonical is a disgusting software shack that denies ways that no one wants to go seriously in mind.

Even if Linux is significantly resistant to a variety of threats, it is important to say that real security always means work. There are so many ways to secure Linux, which are often not used, although they are easy to use. Not unnecessarily complex constructs like SELinux, or the semi-giant AppArmor, both with a kernel exploit away from the window, but primarily GrSecurity, as well as sandboxes, virtualization using Xen / KVM, Systemd, Firejail, Namespaces, seccomp-bpf, Linux-Capabilities and more. You should also always use LVM-Volumes, and create an effective Volume-Separation, as well as assigning your own security zones for each area. Here, Linux offers so much to come close to a security of 100~%, but it is hardly used. It is also impossible to speak of myths when the unique potential is simply not exhausted. So many security problems could have been prevented, whether in terms of servers, Android and more. But as long as the wrong people determine about security in companies, nothing changes. They do not pay for something that only costs money, and does not bring any visible yield.

Big targets are big business for personal data and average consumers who fall prey to phishing schemes. I am sure many big businesses rely on Linux based servers. That does not stop anyone from finding ways in. The quicker we all realize that its motivation not vulnerabilities that inspire hackers. I personally don’t use Linux on a desktop because I don’t like a single distro I have tried. Its not that these Linux developers have not tried, they have improved many Linux distro’s dramatically. But so has Windows and Mac OS and in my opinion which is just that, I focus more on usability and familiarity then this ideal that Linux is somehow immune to security threats. We all know that is not true so why use Linux with a false understanding that its better?

Linux security can be very bad: people have developed a few rootkit that can be hidden when loaded. The new fanotify can be used by bad guy to hide critical change.
Sudo/ssh and other security software’s passphrase/key can be easily stolen by malicious person in data center or cloud.
Only use WZIS Software’s CaclMgr as privilege delegation software and make all privileged works under this software’s control, the system will be more secure.

Hhmmm I remember these comment sections being quite different. Odd that this was posted March 26 2015, yet not a single soul who read it posted a comment till almost 5 months later. I find it odd because you would think that during this 5 month period you would have a wave of Linux user responding and challenging your info and claims. Probably quite passionately and even visceral at times. Yet as the years go by the comments seem to be somehow bland with hardly even a handful of Linux users actually getting technical and refuting the claims made here. There is no way, that not even a single Linux user, didn’t comment on this for almost 5 months. Certainly one of them had to have some kind of useful insight. I know people can often be rude and throw fits when their “fanboy” faith is challenged but I think your spam filter might be acting more like a censorship. You can say I’m full of it and that’s fair, but the fact is how would we know? It’s all Sophos. Your article’s, software, research/finding, sites that handles comments and every source you listed is created, hosted and monitored by you. Whether it be Naked Security, News.Sophos or just plain old original Sophos, its all Sophos! Even though parts of your info comes from other sources nothing is cited or supported clearly by outside sources. You keep refuting others claims and insist that the community is refusing to accept change about the reality of Linux security yet you want people to blindly take your information as fact. Which don’t kid yourself is the reality. For this very reason is why researchers spend so much time and energy meticulously citing sources and not just throwing in small fragments of info with limited scope. Quite frankly it doesn’t upset me if Linux is not as secure as I though and I haven’t really seen anything about Sophos being a bad company. Your comments even seem like you are informed. The problem is, the environment is so intentionally sterile and purposefully built to insulate by providing all the knowledge when its just a rabbit hole of one Sophos claim being supported by a previous Sophos claim. Sorry for the rant, but the point is to easy to understand. This gives me close to nothing useful, because if I don’t want to blindly trust you then I have to go track down all the complete sources and do all the work and research for myself. So no, after looking at this I will not be touching your antivirus because you seem to have a structure in place to isolate users with your voice and facts as much as possible. Nothing is free and what Sophos gets out of user was conveniently side stepped without a single question.

such an amazing article about linux hosting .

Market share has a lot to do with how big a target a OS is. Malware has a much better chance of succeeding on a bigger market platform then on say a small one like Linux desktop. The focus would obviously be on Windows and cross over malware that affects different OS’s is just a bonus that sometimes happens with a exploit that can happen on multiple OS’s. My question has always been to a Linux or Mac OS user who claims they are malware immune. Exactly, how do you know that for sure, since you don’t use any security applications? Is this just based on assumption? Lot of malware works in the background with little or no notable issues that the end user would detect.