[Gllug] hello

[Christopher Hunter]

On Wed, 2010-08-11 at 12:02 +0100, Simon Wilcox wrote:

> And what makes you think that Linux is not equally vulnerable to such 
> attacks ?

A malformed .lnk is so obvious, so basic to operation of the Windoze
"operating system" that you'd think that any possibility of spurious
code execution from those would have been resolved long ago.  

> The users are generally more clueful, it's true and there are 
> sufficiently few of us that it's not worth the virus writers' efforts to 
> write such a programme but Linux is just as vulnerable to social 
> engineering type attacks as any other system, including Windows and Mac 
> OS X.

Nonsense.  The worst that a "social engineering" attack could do is
damage or delete files in a Home directory - and only for the user
currently logged in.  The system would not be compromised.

You can be entirely certain that the virus writers certainly have tried
to target Linux - the "prizes" would be much more significant.  Major
Banks and other financial institutions use Linux almost exclusively
these days (though sometimes not at the desktop) because it's the
easiest route to security.

Also, Linux in one form or another is becoming prevalent on "Smart"
Phones, and in many countries around the world.  South America and China
(both of which I've visited recently) now have a preponderance of
Linux-based machines - Windows is seen as too expensive, equipment -
hungry, insecure and unreliable.

> This is, in fact, a demonstration of the impossibility of making any 
> general purpose computer system properly secure (and usable) for the 
> general public.

Not at all.  We need (quickly) to build an XP-alike that's really easy
to install and use.  We can collect all the abandoned ex-Windoze users!

C


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