Fear of a Linux virus [LWN.net]

Fear of a Linux virus

Posted Apr 13, 2006 15:32 UTC (Thu) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455)
In reply to: Fear of a Linux virus by nlucas
Parent article: Fear of a Linux virus

Why is it so common for 'security naysayers' to assume that people running linux have the same myopic habits as people in the single workstation / single user world of windows? Most linux users understand the idea of trying to protect their data against compromises and just plain user error. They typically do not inherently trust just storing their valuable data only in their home directories.

I try to (and I suspect others will more and more) keep my data in a repository. Without root, you really would have a hard time destroying my data. I am sure that plenty of people have scripts and what not that run as root to back up user data with the idea that if the user account is compromised, at least an admin can restore most user data.

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Fear of a Linux virus

Posted Apr 13, 2006 19:31 UTC (Thu) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link]

Why is it so hard for people to learn security by user education only works _AFTER_ the fact?
Just go to a linux noobs IRC channel and look how people swap scripts and run them without any care.
Mostly they are using their own PCs, so no chance of having an admin to correct their's mistakes.
If they get rooted, as with any window machine in a botnet, they will do as much damage to all of us as any other in the botnet.