Suggestions forum?
Quote from: poppy I am no expert, but now that more people are using this OS might it only be a matter of time before it becomes a target too?
Yeah one day Linux might even break the 1% market share barrier
Do like the original idea of the post.
Quote from: James_H Poppy - just ignore them. I usually point out that most spam comes from root-kitted Linux boxes rather than Windows ones. The Linux mob tend to shuffle along quietly then.
Really?! On your LAN may be. On three mailboxes that I have been monitoring for the last 2 years SPAM (almost exclusively) come from compromised MSWindows boxen in developing countries (China & satellite countries, India, Eastern Europe and South America). Of course the message headers can be forged and they're not always identifiable, but if you have some publicly recognised statistics (i.e. not Microsoft sponsored FUD) please post a link.
Quote from: James_H Linux may well be less vunerable when its looked after, but many people see statements like 'I have Linux so I'm fine' and decide to give it a go themselves.
No machine is secure when configured with silly or no passwords and it is running as root. Yes, even in Linux you cannot always protect people from themselves.
Quote from: James_H A badly configured Linux box is not much safer than a badly configured Windows one.
Absolutely true. However, the majority of MSWindows users both in absolute numbers and in percentages are clueless compared to the Linux user base (if I only I had a beer for every MSWindows box that I configured and was asked by its owner to remove the user password . . .)
Quote from: MickKi
Quote from: James_H Poppy - just ignore them. I usually point out that most spam comes from root-kitted Linux boxes rather than Windows ones. The Linux mob tend to shuffle along quietly then.
Really?! On your LAN may be. On three mailboxes that I have been monitoring for the last 2 years SPAM (almost exclusively) come from compromised MSWindows boxen in developing countries (China & satellite countries, India, Eastern Europe and South America). Of course the message headers can be forged and they're not always identifiable, but if you have some publicly recognised statistics (i.e. not Microsoft sponsored FUD) please post a link.
My most humble apologies - on pulling out my source I am reminded that it was referring to Linux servers being the home of many Phishing sites, rather than spam sources.
The source is our favorite online tabloidesque tech 'paper', their source is Dave Cullinane CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) at Washington Mutual.
Warning, selective quote coming up:
Quote More interesting is that most of the compromised machines were not Windows machines. "The vast majority of [the phishing sites] we saw were on rootkit-ed Linux boxes, which was rather startling. We expected a predominance of Microsoft boxes and that wasn't the case."
The rest of the article is here
Quote from: poppy The Linux user base may well be more knowledgable than we lesser mortals who use Microsoft Windows but surely this is even more reason not to make statements like the one above?
Apologies, I did not mean to sound disrespectful to any MSWindows users who might be technically less savvy than your average Linux user. What I was trying to illustrate is that the two populations of users are dissimilar in specific ways and this should be taken into account when one tries to draw meaningful comparisons. The point made by James_H that badly configured machines (irrespective of their OS) are susceptible to abuse is sound and true.
Quote from: poppy BTW is it really necessary to pepper every post with quotes? I thought that the overuse of these was against forum rules.
Fine, but then answers to specific points get easily lost and in complex discussions can be confused. I won't use any more framed quotes from previous posts - let's see if I can keep it coherent . . .
@James_H: If you read some of the responses to the article you mentioned, you will be well entertained.
However, what you *should* definitely read is this report from which I quote:". . . and while the company is not releasing the results of this analysis, it did uncover a huge number of hacked, botnet computers, said Dave Cullinane, eBay's chief information and security officer, speaking at a Microsoft-sponsored security symposium at Santa Clara University." [emphasis mine]
I might as well have guessed, errm . . . hold on! I did guess!!
Anyway, I digress. Back to the topic of antivirus products: I have always had good success with Nod32 by Eset software and when I used to monitor MSWindows viruses more regularly, Nod32 was scoring significantly higher marks than the majority of other products on the market in Virus Bulletin tests.
Anyway, I will support any product which will reduce pw0ned botnets out there and the amount of SPAM that is spewed out by them.
PS. Do PlusNet Linux users get a discount?
