Security with Linux - Newbie

[Joshua Lee]

On Mon, 2005-02-07 at 20:16 +1300, Lindsay wrote:
> I have been of the understanding that Linux is relatively virus and
> intruder safe.  How accurate is my understanding of this?

Viruses are rare because Linux isn't a hospitable environment for them.
Spyware is impossible. Some forms of vulnerabilities exist on both
platforms though. You should always keep your software updated with
"apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" or using the Synaptic GUI
application on Ubuntu will take care of that for everything in the core
distribution. Keep a subscription to the Ubuntu security mailing list
and keep upgraded accordingly is really easy.

Even if you don't get something upgraded right away it's safer than
Windows, none of this "twenty minutes without a firewall and you're
infected" situation as can happen in Windows.