Security with Linux - Newbie

[Lindsay]

I'm glad I've partially switched.

On Mon, 2005-02-07 at 04:02 -0500, nocturn wrote:
> Lindsay Wrote: 
> > I have been of the understanding that Linux is relatively virus and
> > intruder safe.  How accurate is my understanding of this?
> > -- 
> > ubuntu-users mailing list
> > ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> > http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
> 
> Well, first off, there are many different versions of Linux out there,
> so I'll focus on ubuntu.
> 
> There are few viruses around for Linux, in theory it is quite possible
> to write them, but they would mostly target one distribution and often
> be limited to the rights of the user that is logged on at the time of
> infection.
> 
> Ubuntu has a policy of not opening any ports on a default install, this
> means that there are no vulnerable services exposed to the network.  Any
> vulnerability is restricted to software ran by the user and is then
> again contained to the userid running.
> 
> It is hard to explain the security concept in Linux/Unix in a few
> lines, but  mainly it boils down to this.
> *nix has been designed as a multi-user system from the ground up,
> running on top of a filesystem that requires permissions.
> Windows has been built as a single user system with no restriction
> whatsoever.  In recent versions of windows, multi-user functions and
> permissions are being retrofitted on the old system, but this breaks
> many things.  For that reason, many functions default back to the old
> dogma of one-user-everything-open.
> 
> This leads to diffent approaches.  On Linux, you open up services you
> need coming from a locked down system.
> A new Windows system is rather open by default an has to be locked
> down.
> 
> 
> -- 
> nocturn
>