Forced W10 from 2016

onomatopoeia99

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

Still, look on the bright side - that's the last of any claims that Linux is malware free.

Anyone that would claim linux (or OSX) is malware free is a fool. While I've heard the claim made about OSX a few times, I've never heard it made about linux and I've had at least one linux box running since 1999 (and manage several servers).

I would point anyone interested in Linux at Debian rather than ofshoots though.

securityguy

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Anyone that would claim linux (or OSX) is malware free is a fool. While I've heard the claim made about OSX a few times, I've never heard it made about linux and I've had at least one linux box running since 1999 (and manage several servers).
.

I've managed Unix boxes, connected to the Internet and its precursors, since the mid-1980s. Quite how any can claim Unix is free from risk when the Morris Worm, 1988, explicitly targeted Unix machines via TCP/IP networking, is a complete mystery. The mechanisms for subverting Windows and Unix machines are roughly the same (privileged services with flaws in either their design or their implementation) and there's no reason, either theoretical or practical, why that should be any less prevalent on one operating system or another, unless there are extraordinary measures taken.

Windows is broken into more because (a) there's more of it (b) the average level of training and skill of the users is lower and (c) Microsoft pre-2002 (ie, pre Gates' Trustworthy Computing memo) did some pretty shocking things. There's no magic secret sauce which makes Unix-derived systems inherently more secure, (and I speak as a full-on Unix bigot, who has thirty-plus years of daily Unix experience and wouldn't willingly use anything else.

ChiefGrasscutter

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Anyone that would claim linux (or OSX) is malware free is a fool. While I've heard the claim made about OSX a few times, I've never heard it made about linux and I've had at least one linux box running since 1999 (and manage several servers).

Here is a link to a Sophos blog rubbishing linux's alleged inherent security containing a screen grab from an official Fedora publication/website claiming until recently from the authors of Fedora that Fedora was totally virus and spyware free and you would have no more hassles in this respect as it was totally secure being based on linux.
https://blogs.sophos.com/2015/03/26/dont-believe-these-four-myths-about-linux-security/
Cant get much more official than that!

On the Kitz broadband techie site here is yet more claims that Linux is secure: "Damaging linux virus and other similar things simply do not exist"
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,1511.msg51537.html#msg51537

I've seen it claimed endlessly by the Linux fanbois set as a means to encourage people to switch from MSwindows
Even on here.
See post No 3 in this thread from Feb this year.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5420977
The usual claim/advise to install Linux as it is "easy to use and has no viruses".

victor2

Nothing is malware proof. The more popular an OS becomes, the more of a target it becomes. Malware creators will search out ways to exploit the potential weaknesses any popular OS has, starting with the most widely used.

prowla

The key thing about Windows is that most people login as an admin account; this means that if the miscreants can get the user to do something, then there's a good chance it'll be able to get at the system. The design of Windows & applications is so integrated that doing things at the application level (eg. updating a Word template) may be able to get at the system.

UNIX/Linux has always had the separation, so that a normal user doesn't have the ability to change system files. This means that doing things at user level is generally more protected.

However, things which attack vulnerabilities in system components, interfaces and so-on are capable of compromising either OS; these include the aforementioned Morris Worm, and also things like SSL and so-on.

dipsomaniac

has anyone had their life expectancy reduced by using windows? this is getting silly. no one is intertested in your boring lives

prowla

dipsomaniac wrote: »

has anyone had their life expectancy reduced by using windows? this is getting silly. no one is intertested in your boring lives

Well, you seem intertested enough to have posted a comment (albeit a fairly useless one).

dipsomaniac

the people moaning about win10 have win7 so will eventually get win10 we all just have to put up with the moaning until more have tested it

molerat

Another optional update, KB3150513, which has no KB article posted on the MS site so you cannot find what it is for. Getting sneakier now.

50Twuncle

molerat wrote: »

Another optional update, KB3150513, which has no KB article posted on the MS site so you cannot find what it is for. Getting sneakier now.

It's yet another attempt by MS to get it's virus installed on to our PC's !
http://www.infoworld.com/article/3065380/microsoft-windows/mystery-solved-kb-3150513-is-another-windows-10-update-enabling-patch.html